ABSTRACT
Endocrine disruption became an issue when associations were made between chemical contaminations of the environment and the onset of diseases, reproductive failure, and death of wildlife species [5]. Thus, for example, until the late 1950s, sparrowhawks (Accipiter nisus L) were common and widespread in Britain but they suddenly showed a marked decline in numbers, almost disappearing from some districts. Their population crash followed the widespread introduction of organochlorine pesticides, namely, aldrin, dieldrin, and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) [6]. Such declines in bird populations occurred not only in Britain, but extended over much of Europe, North America, and Australia wherever highly hydrophobic organochlorine pesticides were commonly used [6-8].
