After hearing the news (a few nights ago) about 5 cats showing up dead, within a week, in Spreckels, CA - bleeding from the mouth... I knew there was WAY more to this story than this quote from a local humane society:"It's very possible someone is trying to get rid of a pest in their area," "They aren't following the proper rules and regulations in California when they are puting poison on their property."Hold on a minute!
The bigger story is this: that people ARE applying the rodent poison as instructed and it's getting into the food chain and killing wild animals and people's pets!
Rat and mouse bait - squirrel bait - they are ALL anticoagulants - they are designed to cause the animal to bleed out - hemorrhage. These NEW (1970s) rodenticides - 'rodent poisons' - are intended to kill the rodents quickly.
BUT THEY DON'T!
Research has shown that poisoned rodents fall ill and stagger out of their burrows and into open fields where they are more easily found and eaten by predators - hawks, owls, eagles, herons, fox, bobcat, coyote, cougar... and domestic cats and dogs.
Eating a single poison-laden mouse might not be enough to kill an owl or a cat right away, but these poisons last for weeks in an animal's body, accumulating. Because of this, predators reach lethal levels of anticoagulants after repeated doses - two, three, four mice.
Even if the poisons in their systems remain at what they call sublethal levels, the chemicals make them ill over time - compromising their immune system, making them vulnerable to disease and infection.
Bobcats and coyotes regularly present with horrible mange that researchers have linked to their exposure to rodenticides.
Recent studies that have shown 80-84% of the wild animals sampled, tested positive for sublethal levels of rodent poison - to which the EPA was quoted saying:
"The EPA suspects that the results are representative of nontarget wildlife exposures nationwide."WHAT!!!!! It's still legal and no one's really talking about it.
We did - today - we took a news crew to look at the application of rodenticide in and around the Central Valley.It's not just the agricultural fields though. These poison bait stations can be found all over - around restaurants, hotels, schools, community centers, and in homes.
The United Kingdom found a solution that kills the rodents but doesn't hurt any other animal - cellulose.
EradiBait has been around fro quite some time. Why don't we have this in the U.S.?
The cost of registering a P E S T I C I D E in the US is apparently high and VERY time consuming. I spoke with the fellow who was, at least a few years ago, trying to make this happen...
WE NEED THIS NOW - NO MORE WAITING - It's plant fiber, for Dog's sake!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
More here - URBAN CARNIVORES
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