Last week, representatives of the Columbus, Ohio based Scotts Miracle-Gro, the world?s largest marketer of lawn and garden care products, appeared before U.S. District Court Judge James Graham. The company was charged with breaching federal pesticide laws by using an unapproved insecticide on bird seed. Miracle-Gro entered a plea of guilty and proposed to pay a $4 million fine and give $500,000 to help support wildlife conservation and study. Their plea and proposal comes after two years of nationwide sales of poisoned birdseed that ended after a recall in 2008.
Judge Graham accepted the company?s admission of guilt, and said he will issue a decision on the plea agreement at their sentencing hearing, which remains to be scheduled.
The federal government brought the charges against Scotts, alleging that since 2005 up until 2008 Scotts? line of wild bird food including the popular ?Morning Song? and ?Country Pride? had contained insecticides that are toxic to birds and other wildlife. Scotts is accused of distributing 73 million packages of bird seed coated with the insecticides Storcide II, containing the active ingredient chlorpyrifos, and Actellic 5E, containing the active ingredient pirimiphos-methyl, intended to prevent insects from consuming the products during storage.
Neither pesticide is licensed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for use in bird foods. This is in direct violation of FIFRA ? the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. By the time the situation came to light, only 2 million packages could be recalled.
The company produced and marketed the seeds in spite of warnings of toxicity dangers from two employees; a staff chemist and a staff ornithologist, and despite warning labels on the insecticide. Storcide II comes with a prominent warning label that reads: ?Toxic to birds, toxic to wildlife? and ?Exposed treated seed may be hazardous to birds.? The Actellic 5E label contains no such warning, but the EPA?s fact sheet on the chemical says it is highly toxic to birds and fish, but was unconcerned because before now, the chemical has never been used on anything intended to feed birds.
The American Bird Conservancy is urging the EPA to amend the label for Actellic 5E and any other pesticides containing the same active ingredient as a precaution.
How the use of the pesticides translates into a sound choice for birdseed remains a mystery. Knowingly coating products intended for birds to eat with a substance toxic to birds and wildlife can be called nothing short of malicious.
Despite the recall in 2008 however, a San Diego county couple, the Cypherts, allege that they?lost nearly all of their domestic aviary birds at the end of January 2010 after feeding them the Scotts Miracle-Gro Morning Song Wild Bird Seed that they had recently purchased from a local Wal-Mart. ?Out of a flock of zebra finches numbering nearly 100 birds, only eight survived.
At first, the Cypherts suspected another cause for the sudden death of their birds and contacted County authorities, but after feeding the same seed to field mice they had trapped for relocation, then discovering all mice dead within 12 hours of eating the seed, they made the connection. Morning Song wild bird feed is also sold at many other major retail outlets including major pet store chains and Amazon.com.
In addition to their birdseed debacle, Scotts is in even deeper water. They are accused of selling illegal, unregistered and misbranded pesticides to unsuspecting consumers. The government further alleges that Scotts went so far as to counterfeit documents and fabricate correspondence with the EPA to make it look like the products had been approved and registered when they had not.
Identified by invalid registration number 62355-4, the two products were marketed as Garden Weed Preventer + Plant Food and Miracle Gro Shake ?n? Feed All Purpose Plant Food Plus Weed Preventer.
About the author: Ariel Wulff is an author, artist and animal advocate. She has worked in animal rescue for more than 24 years, authoring the book Born Without a Tail, a memoir of her experiences with rescued animals. She writes a column as the Cleveland Pets Examiner, and is the National Animal Books Examiner. She also maintains a personal blog about dogs: Up on the Woof, and uses her yelodoggie art to spread the joy of living with dogs.
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