Stage 2: Consumers eat the producers, and since not much energy passes from one trophic level to the next the producers consume large quantities of the producer and in turn large quantities of the pollutant and moves in to the fat storage of the consumers.

The best example is DDT; a long lived pesticide (half life of 15 years) developed to improve human health by killing mosquitoes. It was extremely effective because it did not break down in the environment, but it causes some severe long term effects on birds. DDT interfered with the deposit of calcium into the egg shells. As the eggs were laid their shells were extremely soft and would often break and the number of birds started to decline. The brown pelican and Bald eagle have made comebacks due to the ban of DDT pesticide.

"Operation Cat Drop"

In the early 1950s, the Dayak people in Borneo suffered from malaria. The World Health Organization had a solution: they sprayed large amounts of DDT to kill the mosquitoes which carried the malaria. The mosquitoes died the malaria declined; so far, so good. But there were side-effects. Among the first was that the roofs of people's houses began to fall down on their heads. It seemed that the DDT was also killing a parasitic wasp which had previously controlled thatch-eating caterpillars. Worse, the DDT-poisoned insects were eaten by geckoes, which were eaten by cats. The cats started to die, the rats flourished, and the people were threatened by outbreaks of sylvatic plague and typhus. To cope with these problems, which it had itself created, the World Health Organization was obliged to parachute live cats into Borneo. (McShaffrey, 1999)