Cats and Pesticides

Hi there! I'm new here and a first time cat owner. This is my little love and mini mountain lion, Shady. Well, actually she is a domestic short hair, Gray Tiger and Tortie mix adopted last October from the humane society. She is now about 14 months old.

My question is. Has anyone ever heard of a cat getting sick from pesticides like on a walking trail?

My girl is fine, however, I take her for walks often. There is a walking trail near my folk's house around a lake. I think they spray for mosquitoes frequently. I took her for a walk along that trail not too long after it had been raining so she was wet from the plants she was walking through. There were a couple times I could smell pesticides.

My concern is that she of course is going to clean herself off and be exposed to the mosquito chemicals. Am I being paranoid or is this a problem others have had issues with?

That's a really good question. I've never had to deal with this but it seems to me it makes sense to avoid the areas right after they've been sprayed.

You should have the right to find out when they intend to spray so I'd call the park service and ask for their spraying schedule.

I agree^^

Avoiding those specific areas would probably be best for the both of you! Even though I have never seen forest animals dropping dead in areas that are treated with pesticides I still wouldn't under estimate the toxicity of pesticides, or other chemicals.

Having repeated exposures to pesticides  leads to a build up of toxic levels  in our system that will effect us overtime. There has been many research studies correlating pesticides to a "probable" increase in  cancers & other conditions in humans. For instance just a few months ago the IARC(The UN's International Agency for Research on Cancer) "classified the herbicide glyphosate – the active ingredient in Roundup – and the insecticides malathion and diazinon as 'probably carcinogenic' " (EurActiv).

The pesticides/herbicides used today seem to be much safer then years ago (Agent Orange), however, I still would avoid when possible.  As for animals there is research concluding pesticides as dangers, for example; "In animal studies, many pesticides are carcinogenic, (e.g., organochlorines, creosote, and sulfallate) hile others (notably, the organochlorines DDT, chlordane, and lindane) are tumor promoters." (NCBI).

I'd take your cutie elsewhere or find out, as Margd suggested, when they spray.

Source (1)

http://www.euractiv.com/sections/sc...y-issues-warning-about-five-pesticides-313153

Source (2)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9498903