Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall will be principal speaker at dedication ceremonies for the new Wildlife Laboratory at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland on Thursday, April 25, the Department announced today. The program will start at 10:00 a.m., not at 10:30, as previously announced.
Research at the new laboratory will include the Department’s long-range investigations of the relationships between pesticides and wildlife, studies of wildlife diseases, and work on wildlife diseases which are transmitted to man. Such studies should contribute materially to the health and recreation of the general public, the Department said.
About 250 guests, including Cabinet officials, Senators, Representatives, State and local officials and conservationists plan to attend the dedication in addition to the general public.
An afternoon tour of the laboratory and the exhibits at the Research Center will follow.
The Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, about 17 miles from Washington, D.C., near Laurel, MD., is one of the two wildlife research centers maintained by that Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, Fish and Wildlife Service.
Clarence F. Pautzke, Commissioner of Fish and Wildlife, will preside at the dedication. Invocation will be by Dr. Duncan Howlett, Minister, All Soul’s Unitarian Church, Washington. Frank P. Briggs, Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife, will introduce guests. The Second Army Band of Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, will play.
The Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, operated since 1939, is the Bureau’s eastern headquarters for research on wildlife problems and consists of 2,670 acres. Typical projects include research on controlling pest plants in marshes, developing new habitats for waterfowl, the blackbird problem, wildlife management problems, diseases and parasites of wildlife, and pesticides-wildlife studies.
The new laboratory will permit greatly expanded research on wildlife diseases and pesticides. High on the list are investigation of virus diseases in wildlife which are transmitted to man, particularly eastern equine encephalitis and ornithosis, or parrot fever. Numerous wildlife-pesticide projects are planned. One, usually referred to as the kinetics of pesticide or the effect of pesticides on body chemistry, will determine in what tissues the pesticides accumulate and the rate of elimination.
The new laboratory represents and investment of $475,000 covering basic research facilities but not equipment. It is a U shaped building with 39,000 square feet of space.
Congress has authorized the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife to invest $2,565,000 a year on pesticide research. The current appropriation is approximately $500,000, part of which is allotted to the Denver Wildlife Research Center, Denver, Colorado.
