A new Department of the Interior Laboratory which may be destine to solve the pesticides-wildlife riddle and which will study diseases of wild animals, including those transmitted from animal to man, will be dedicated April 25, the Department announced today. The laboratory is at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, Laurel, MD.
Invitations have been extended to the public and to prominent figures in scientific, industrial, medical, and wildlife conservation fields as well as member of Congress and State and Federal officials.
Ceremonies will start at 10:30 a.m.
The new facility, the Biochemistry-Wildlife Pathology Laboratory of the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, Fish and Wildlife Service, will accommodate a staff of scientists studying pesticide-animal relationships and wildlife disease. The Department said theta in recent years these fields of research have assumed new dimensions in the conservation of natural resources. Because of the implications to human health and well-being, both are of high interest. With the completion of the laboratory the Nation will have, for the first time since the use of pesticides became a major factor in agriculture, a research facility designed to determine ways and means to use chemicals without sacrificing wildlife.
The new laboratory has been under construction since March 1961. It is a one-story building with a face-brick exterior and ceramic-brick interior. The total floor space is 25,000 square feet with an additional 14,000 square feet in the basements. The cost, without laboratory equipment, but with facilities which are basic for research laboratories, was $4755,800.
