Since spring’s arrival, people will be spending time outdoors, and more people will be seeing rats in their yards and gardens. Owls eat rats and other rodents.
Female Great Horned Owl on a desert cliff face nest – Box Elder County, Utah
People don’t like rats or other rodents near their homes, and frankly, I don’t blame them. Rats and mice can carry fleas, ticks, and diseases, which none of us want to worry about, especially if there are small children playing in those yards and gardens.
Rats and other rodents can cause damage to homes and outbuildings as well. They can even cause fires by chewing on electrical wiring.
But rat poisons, or rodenticides, are not the solution and those poisons can and do kill owls, other raptors, and predatory animals.
Anticoagulant rodenticides cause internal hemorrhaging in the target species of rodents.
Predatory birds, such as owls, consume the dying rodents or carry them back to their young, which in turn can kill the owls and their babies. The poisons in the “food” causes them to become ill or die.
Rodenticides are also used on farms, ranches, and other agricultural industries where it kills owls and other raptors by secondary poisoning.
Barred Owl fledgling in a willow tree – Sequoyah National Wildlife Refuge, Oklahoma
The use of anticoagulant rodenticides has to end. Those poisons are killing the very solution for getting rid of those rodents.
Owls and other predatory birds can kill and consume thousands of rodents each year. They are a natural solution to rodent problems and need to be protected, and when possible, even encouraged to nest in our yards and gardens.
There are safer approaches to getting rid of rodents near our homes. The website RATS – or Raptors Are The Solution – offers valuable information on what to do about rats. That information and more can be found here.
Please, if you love birds, especially owls, don’t use rat poisons or anticoagulant rodenticides. Not even “just a little.”
Keep the owls safe.
Mia
Click here to see more of my owl photos in their galleries.
Thanks for posting this.
When you walk through beautiful Central Park, and notice all the birds, it’s not likely anyone thinks of the unseen deadly poisons that stalk its wildlife.
Some SAFER ways to control rats and not harm pets, seen listed at a preserve in Florida: FASTRAC, RATX, TERAD3, ASSAULT, PEPPERMINT SPRAY, and GOOD NATURE RAT TRAP.
I am a permitted wild bird rehabilitator, so see up close and personal what happens to our raptors before they die from being poisoned. And yet any fool can buy the stuff at dozens of places in any town. I despair.
Wow. Really good info here. Thanks!
I lost my baby, a Great Hirned Owl wnen he was sickened and killed by eating a poisoned raf….
Thank you, Mia! I hope that more people catch a clue. There are so many more effective ways to keep rodent populations under control.
I had a huge fight with a former principal who wanted to put rat poison in the garden that was tended to by special education students. Finally went to both the district and the municipal animal control chief to narc him out. (This was just one of many fights I had with him during my 20 years at that school.)
Truth. A truth which I hope more people understand and apply. Thank you for spreading the word.
RATS is doing incredible work raising the awareness about rodenticides. The problem is, of course, people. I share RATS’ posts on FB, both on my account and on our local Audubon chapter’s page. I’ve heard that people “have” to use poison so many times. We have rats, too, and we use traps. You might never be able to clear rats off your property, but you can keep them at bay.
RATS has issued a call to action “California supporters–please help us get AB 2552 (sponsored by Raptors Are The Solution (RATS), Center for Biological Diversity, and the Animal Legal Defense Fund and introduced by Assemblymember Laura Friedman) through our first committee (Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials) hearing on April 9. This bill helps close the loophole on the remaining anticoagulants in CA and adds a citizen’s right to sue for illegal use. Thanks for taking action!”
I understand that Falco, the Central Park owl, was poisoned by rat poison.
What an awful death.
Flaco, the eagle owl in New York City, had blood so damaged by rodenticides it could not fly right and hit a building. Flaco also tested positive for DDE, a breakdown product of DDT, the same chemicals that almost caused extinction of the Bald Eagle. https://web.stanford.edu/group/stanfordbirds/text/essays/DDT_and_Birds.html
The Much-Loved Owl Had Debilitating Levels of Rodenticide in His System
https://abcbirds.org/news/flaco-rodenticide/
What we can’t learn from raptors is what it feels like to have blood that doesn’t clot, although we can guess how seizures, kidney failure, muscle weakness must feel.
Wow. Thank you so much for this public teaching and information, and for the magnificent fledgling Barred owl photo in particular!