Five days left to comment! Let CA Department of Pesticide Regulation know you care that rodenticides are reaching nearly every wild animal in our state!

Now four years after second generation anti-coagulant rodenticidess were taken off store shelves and restricted to licensed applicator use (commercial, agriculture) studies have shown that these poisons are still increasing dramatically in the populations of many different wild species, from threatened birds of prey to Bobcats. Latest results show over 90% of wild animals test positive for rodenticide exposure!

The California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) has begun the process of re-evaluating these terrible poisons for further action to address their mounting prevalence in the environment.

Click on this image for link to full document.

The deadline for public comments has been extended to January 16, 2019.

Our friends at Raptors Are the Solution (RATS) has this suggestion for commenting on the DPR action

Please send a short email to Rodenticide.Comments@cdpr.ca.gov expressing your support for DPR’s proposed decision and urging them to follow through and remove all second-generation anticoagulants (SGARs) from use in California. Although the state banned SGARs for use by consumers in 2014, a giant loophole allows the pest control industry to continue using them widely.

If possible, please forward a copy of your sent email to raptorsarethesolution@gmail.com. We would like to track the number of comments submitted. ”

As always, your involvement makes a difference! Let’s start the wheels rolling to get all of these wildlife-killing toxins off the shelves and out of our lives! Thank you!!

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7 in 10 Endangered Spotted Owls Exposed to Rat Poison, Retail Ban Insufficient

In 2014, the State of California banned the rat poison that had been increasingly causing sickness and death in wild animals, second generation anti-coagulant rodenticides (SGARs), sold in retail stores as D-con. Although the California Department of Fish and Wildlife had submitted an opinion that the rodenticide needed to be more tightly regulated, it still took 3 years to get the toxin off the shelves of neighborhood stores. However, the ban was not total. Commercial applicators and farmers can still buy and use this poison – and they do.

Killing rats with a slow acting poison, as it turns out, is a very effective way to spread poison through an ecosystem. Rats sick and dying from ingesting rodenticide are caught by wild predators – raccoons, bobcats, mountain lions, eagles, hawks, weasels, – anyone who eats rodents.

Now a newly published study shows that 70% of Northern Spotted Owls (Strix occidentalis) on the North Coast, in the heart of the coastal range forests, where cannabis cultivation has punched holes and created edges, tested positive for rodenticide exposure. Unfortunately, this means that our region is now close to par with the rest of California. An ongoing study in the San Francisco Bay Area undertaken by Wildcare in Marin County has found 83% (updated) of all wildlife tested to be exposed to SGARs. No doubt similar numbers are found in other states and nations.

The world is poisoned. It has been for a long time. From the the first coal mines of Appalachia through the daily spew of burned gasoline and pesticides and even radiation from Fukushima’s ongoing catastrophe, civilization has brought its poisons everywhere it expands. If our civilization lasts to colonize Mars it will bring its poisons there too. From plastics in the oceans to radioactive isotopes in milk, this news is old.

The solutions to humane and effective rodent control are many and require some thought and effort. Thought and effort are exactly what use of poisons seeks to avoid. The impacts to our world from such short-cut seeking are obvious and staggering. Still, the solutions aren’t that difficult. First, conflicts with wild animals, even non-native wild animals like Norway rats, are almost always created by a human housekeeping issue. Feeding pets outdoors, unprotected food storage, unprotected compost bins that aren’t rat-proofed, materials and debris piles around outbuildings, and more all contribute to rodent problems. Good housekeeping solves a lot of the problem. Putting up an owl box can also be useful. Encouraging raptors in your area will also help. Barn owls, Great-horned owls, Red-tailed hawks and others eat rodents for a living! If you have a problem with rats, there are myriad humane and ecologically sound resources available. (see below for resources that can help)

It’s an old formula and in many ways it’s still true: the solution to pollution is dilution. Other measures might be useful to get rodenticides out of our ecosystem, out of of the wild, out of our wild neighbors. Hopefully the legalization of cannabis in California will bring cannabis agriculture into the regulatory process. Maybe legalization will lead to the migration of cannabis agriculture out of remote wildlands and away from sensitive species such as the Pacific Fisher (Martes pennanti)and the Northern Spotted Owl, an icon of the struggle to preserve the Redwoods and the temperate rainforest to our north. But even if that happens, those measures do nothing to dilute the pollutant – to reduce the number of animals exposed to this poison.

Submission to regulatory review isn’t enough. The rat poison put out by a worker at a vineyard in Napa or Sonoma counties is likely legal. When vast swaths of our world are taken over by industrial agriculture, we cannot simply allow that land, its waters, its life, to become a sacrifice zone. If we are serious about diluting rat poison out of our environment, we need to stop producing it. We need to cease manufacture and sales of these poisons.


Update: In 2017, a leader in the effort to rid our shared world of these poisons, Raptors Are the Solution (RATS), worked with California Assembly member Richard Bloom, whose district (50) includes Santa Monica, Malibu, Topanga, West Los Angeles and Pacific Palisades, to bring a bill (AS-1687) forward that would complete the ban of SGARs in our state. It is currently stalled in the Assembly committee, Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials (ETSM). The bill as it is currently written would ban all use of SGARs except

 (1)  This section does not apply to the use of pesticides for agricultural activities, as defined in Section 564. … “agricultural activities” include activities conducted in any of the following locations:

(A) Warehouses used to store foods for human or animal consumption.
(B) Agricultural food production sites, including, but not limited to, slaughterhouses and canneries.
(C) Factories, breweries, wineries, or any other location where rodent or pest populations need to be controlled for food safety or agricultural purposes.

At the time of writing it is unknown if the bill will make it out of committee in time for this legislative year. If it does, we’ll keep you posted on actions that you can take to support its passage. For now, we are working to build strong support here on the North Coast, where we treasure our wildlands and wild neighbors, to eliminate these toxins from our shared world, our wild mother.

Want to help? One, contact your representative in the Assembly and let them know that you stand with our wild neighbors and want second generation anti-coagulant poisons fully banned. Here in the second district, you can send a message to our Assemblymember, Jim Wood. Two, help us build support here, in the heart of the Redwoods, where the Spotted Owls for too long has served as a bellwether of the costs our forests and forest communities pay for harmful human practices. You can become intimately involved with protecting our wild neighbors by volunteering at HWCC.

You can help us care for wild animals impacted by the toxins of a human built world, as well as advocate on behalf of our wild neighbors. Please donate today! Thank you!

In the Humboldt area and looking for advice on a local problem? call our clinic 707 822 8839. We can help!

Raptors Are The Solution (RATS) has a great web page with tips and links.

http://www.raptorsarethesolution.org/alternatives-tips-print-friendly/

The Hungry Owl Project also has good information, especially regarding encouraging owls to nest in your area.

https://www.hungryowl.org/nontoxic-rodent-control/

 

 

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A Hawk Discovers You Can Go Home Again

In mid-June, a very ordinary thing happened. Someone called our clinic to ask for help with a bird who’d fallen from a high nest. Typically, we’d like to get birds who fall from their nest back to their families right away. But this case had some complications. First, the bird was in Petrolia, which is part of the area we serve, but is a couple of hours away and second, the nest location wasn’t known.

[Thank YOU!! – We made it to $5000 by the end of July! And a few hundred dollars more!! your support makes our work possible! Our August goal of $7000 will allow us to buy fish to feed our growing seabird caseload, as well as continue providing care for all of this season’s orphaned wild babies – raccoons! swallows! hawks! jays! and more! Please contribute what you can! Every donation helps! Click here to donate now!]

The bird happened to be a Red-shouldered Hawk (Buteo lineatus), an easily recognized member of our community. These magnificent small hawks can be seen along almost any rural road, working over almost any open field, perched in nearby trees, hunting for primarily rodents along the edges of almost everything. Each year we typically raise at least one of these hawks, and sometimes more. This hawk was on the larger side so we imagined that she was female.

Without knowing the location of the nest, there was little chance for us to return this wayward nestling to her family. Even raising her until fledging wasn’t going to be enough, because these birds depend on their parents after they’ve left the nest for food until they are able to hunt. So we’d have to keep this bird in care until she was able to recognize and eat real prey. Fortunately, our patient was an older nestling, close to being ready for flight.

Immediately, the hawklet began to devour all the food we offered, thawed mice, thawed rats, basically any small animal we fed. And we watched as real world feathers grew in and the bird changed into a sleek, beautiful juvenile.

Version 2In the aviary with another young raptor, the Red-shouldered hawk (on the left) is alert and wary.


After 6 weeks, and after she demonstrated her ability to hunt, we returned the hawk to Petrolia and released her. Of course we hoped that she would find family members and remember enough of the area that she’d learned from the view from the nest, but in any case we were confident that this young raptor would be able to fend for herself.
RSHA-petrolia 2016 - 6 of 59Capturing the hawk from the aviary for her release exam. Every examination puts a great deal of stress on a patient. We reduce this handling as much as possible. 
Version 2Keeping raptor feet healthy in an environment where they spend more than an ordinary amount of time perched in one location is important. After 6 weeks in captivity this hawk’s feet are in perfect condition.

RSHA-petrolia 2016 - 16 of 59Her eyes, mouth, hearing – every aspect of this hawk screamed “Release me!” So we did.

RSHA-petrolia 2016 - 18 of 59
RSHA-petrolia 2016 - 20 of 59
RSHA-petrolia 2016 - 26 of 59It’s a long and stunningly beautiful drive to Petrolia, the human capital of the Lost Coast.

RSHA-petrolia 2016 - 27 of 59Without knowledge of the nest location, a release site was chosen based on proximity to Petrolia and suitability of habitat – the presence of trees, open land, and the Mattole River made this a good site.

Version 2Release!

Version 2Our patient in flight, over the home she was meant to have.

Here is a very short video that really shows the explosive speed of this young hawk…


The story doesn’t stop here. Within a few minutes from release, the young former patient postioned herself on the highest tree in the area and began calling. Within a few more minutes, an adult Red-shouldered Hawk arrived on the scene.
Version 2 Perched and calling, soon two other Red-shouldered Hawks, at least one of them an adult, arrived. Was the adult a parent to this youngster? Well, we can’t say for sure. We believe so. One thing we know with certainty: they left the area together. A re-united family is the likely explanation.

RSHA-petrolia 2016 - 48 of 59The last shot gotten as the young bird followed the adults into the trees beyond view.


This hawk’s return to freedom is one of the important outcomes of your support for our work. More than rehabilitation is needed, of course. These hawks still must live in a world where casual violence, habitat destruction, rodenticides, lead and myriad other non-natural challenges make life in the wild more precarious than it should be. Your love for the wild and respect for Mother Earth also goes a long way toward preserving the world and celebrating life.

Want to be part of our life-saving work? Please donate today. Your contribution goes directly to the care of injured and orphaned wild animals on the North Coast and beyond. Thank you!!!

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all photos: Laura Corsiglia/ Bird Ally X

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