Study on organochlorine residue in foraging ducks

The study was carried out to detect the Organochlorine (pesticide) residue in foraging ducks in Kerala State of India. Thirty foraging ducks were collected from paddy fields in three foraging regions viz., Kuttanad, Palakkad and Thrissur and the organochlorine (OC) residues in their crop content and body fat were estimated using Gas Chromatography. The results shown that the samples from Kuttanad contained ά, β, γ and δ isomers of Hexachloro cyclohexane (HCH), metabolites of Dichloro Diphenyl Trichloroethane (DDT), Dicofol and ά-Endosulphan. The combined residue of these compounds accounted to 0.0018 ppm in crop content and 0.0117 ppm in fat sample. The samples from Palakkad contained ά, β, γ and δ isomers of HCH, isomers of DDT, Dicofol, ά-Endosulphan and Dieldrin. The combined residues were 0.0152 and 0.0419 ppm in the crop content and fat respectively. The samples from Thrissur showed the presence of isomers of HCH, primary derivatives of DDT and ά-Endosulphan. The combined residues in these samples were also negligible (0.0033 and 0.0077 ppm in crop and fat samples respectively). Even though the residues of many compounds present in the samples from all regions, the detected levels were well below the Maximum residue Limits (MRL) of these compounds in poultry.