"Radika Kesavan" wrote in message
...
JimS. wrote:
"Radika Kesavan" wrote in message

This is what Extoxnet has to say on Sevin/Carbaryl:
http://ace.orst.edu/info/extoxnet/pips/carbaryl.htm

"The only documented fatality from carbaryl was through intentional
ingestion," they say, and perhaps the other toxic effects are also from
intentional exposures (?).

It can't be TOO bad...I've put it directly on my dogs and cats before,
to
kill fleas, and it doesn't make them sick.

Sorry my meaning was not clear the way I wrote it. I was simply
wondering if may be all the other toxic efforts reported are from
intentional exposure of experimental animals to very high levels of
Sevin in toxicology experiments. Even pure sodium chloride can be toxic
if one intentionally took it to very high concentrations in experiments,
I reckon. It is just that the amounts of Sevin where toxicity is claimed
in that document, on cursory reading, appear very high. May be I am
missing something.

--
Radika
California
USDA 9 / Sunset 15


Not really missing anything, but maybe missing some of the behavior of the
beast. Sevin has to be ingested, and has to be consumed in high quantity to
do its thing. Years ago, in the early eighties, I was working for the local
parks department in the forestry division. The city had a problem with a
little creature called Tusic Moth eating all the Blue Spruce trees, and as
the Blue Spruce was the state tree the founding fathers were understandably
upset, so we used a product called SevinMol on the trees. The Sevin did
exactly what it was supposed to do, which is it clogged up the moth's
digestive systems to the point where they couldn't take in enough to
survive, but it also had an unexpected side effect. The local Lark Bunting
population, which of course was the state bird, began eating the dieing
moths, and in turn began to die...

So, perhaps there are some places to use this stuff, like where there is a
large bug population but there isn't a bird population, but I'd certainly
not use it on a vegetable garden.