This project will assess both current wildlife contaminant exposures, as well as predict and monitor future restoration-driven exposures. These efforts will enable an assessment, detection and potential prevention of adverse effects on wildlife within the South Florida ecosystems.
Contaminant analyses and preliminary assessments of potential effects are currently underway.
These efforts have indicated a severe decline in freshwater mussels populations in coastal areas, Miami-Dade County, WCA's and canals within the Everglades. Most importantly, these preliminary analyses have suggested altered population status may be partly due to altered reproductive function and potential contaminant causation. Complete analyses for invertebrates will be completed during Fall 2000. Additional assessments of wading birds are proposed for Spring 2000, as well as additional assessments of other species and the completion of preliminary risk assessments. Little is known about the effects of environmental contaminants on invertebrates, however, invertebrate species have been recognized as important environmental sentinels and serve as models for a wide variety of toxicity tests that utilize mortality and lethality as the endpoints of significance.