From A Place Called Hope
If this doesn’t infuriate you, I don’t know what will.
This bait box full of Second Generation Anticoagulant Rodenticides line a building where an active Great Horned Owl family resides.
The babies are branching and gaining their flight muscles, and while they begin to explore the area, they will practice hunting skills on whatever prey they can find.
Compromised rodents will be an easy catch for these babies… and guess what? The poison will kill them.
There is no such thing as a safe poison… Can’t we do better than this?
Thank you for the reply.
I’m not an expert in the field of rodent control but now I’ll dig into that as I’m obviously ill informed.
Just out of curiosity: In your opinion, what would a “better” rodent control program look like?
Given that we accept the premise that rodent populations need to be reduced in some areas due to human concerns…
Reduction of infestations is the primary means. Less access to food is going to fix the problem before it starts.
If people are going to kill rodents for control, I’m not really sold there is any humane method to remove then once they are established, so snap or electrocution traps are the quickest deaths I think you could give them. You can’t really catch and release mice, and I don’t think anyone would appreciate someone dropping off their rats anywhere else.
This article goes into some reduction methods and deterrents. It discusses containing waste better at an industrial scale, and while it focuses more on bird control, the things about limiting access by better storage methods and by working in smaller areas would probably apply to rodents as well. It even goes into fancy things like laser deterrents.
To learn more about the problems with modern poisons, search for SGARs (second generation anticoagulant rodenticides) and you will find endless info since there are so many groups right now trying to get much tighter controls put on their sale and usage.