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?
It would seem like they have a golden opportunity for rodent eradication, at least in the short term.
It has been very inspiring seeing programs around the world encouraging or even paying farmers and such to make accommodations to bring owl (mostly barn owls in the projects I’ve seen) back to the property instead of using poison. It’s a win-win. You got animals lining up to do the work for free, they just need some basic things out of the property for them to set up shop!
I have family with a farm where rats/rodents are an issue. I’m sure they’d love a natural, non-poison solution that also benefits our feathery friends. Would you happen to have any information on programs like this they could look into, or generally what they could search up to find resources for this? I’ve been a fan of this community and your owl posts for a while now, so thank you!
The first people I’d reach out to would probably be your local Fish and Game Commission to see if they are doing anything. I know my state is trying hard to get Barn Owl numbers up, and lots of bird work in the US needs state game commission approval, so they’d probably be aware of things.
Second choice would be your local raptor rehab. I know we have different organizations come to our events to spread the word on what things they are working on. Honestly though, rehabs are usually busy and understaffed, so it may be hard to get a speedy reply by going to them.
Either group though could give you an idea of what owls are in your area (no sense building a barn owl nest box if there are none in the area, for example) and what type of things they need to want to make a home at your farm. They all need different things to eat, types of places to hunt, and different places they nest in.
This is a pretty good article from Ireland about a program that actually pays farmers to stop using poison and try to lure in resident owls! It goes into the basics of what types of things to do.
Searching “Pennsylvania owl project” and “Pennsylvania owl project farm” gave me links to some stuff my state game commission is working on, some info on projects from the state university, and some nesting box programs from various local conservation groups.
It’s not going to be an overnight thing, since if you don’t have owls now, there’s some underlying reason which may or may not be under your control, but finding out those reasons and how to remedy them will get you started down the path to hopefully having success.
I’m glad you are enjoying the content. I started out a very casual fan when I came here 3 years ago, and now I have learned a ton and have gotten to hold, feed, and work with some owls myself and it’s been life changing. These birds don’t need to be strangers to any of you. They’re out there and are accessible to anyone that wants to get to see them.
Thank you, I very much appreciate the info! I did a few searches and was able to find a state-sponsored program for exactly this in their area, so that’s perfect - I can’t believe I never thought of that before, but I guess it’s not something I would have expected to exist.
I’ve always been a fan of birds, with crows and owls being tied for favorite for me. I’ve been looking for something to spend my free time on that isn’t doomscrolling, so maybe I can find a conservation organization near me to volunteer at.
I’m glad you found something so quickly!
I’ve found the exact same thing as you did - there are so many cool projects going on that I was never aware of. They’re some of my favorite things to share for that reason.
The raptors and corvids are my favorites, which is funny to me as a few years ago I never thought myself much of a bird person. But learning about them and seeing them up close more and more has shown me what amazing and diverse animals they are. This is my second year volunteering at the animal rehab center, and I love helping our local wildlife, learning about all the animals that I never even knew lived here, and all the people that work there are so kind and fun to be around. It’s been such a positive change in my life.
I hope you have a great time with your project and it leads you to many more great opportunities! Keep us updated if you build houses or do some ecosystem restoration or anything like that!
As far as I know modern rodenticides, especially against rats, are specifically designed to have a delayed mode of action. Not primarily to protect wildlife but to ensure eradication. Rats are verry intelligent animals and if a family member drops dead outside after eating from a suspicious food source they’ll abvoid that source.
While I’m not a fan of rodenticides either the picture of rodents dropping dead in the yeard near the nest is improbable.
At a waste maganement facility nearby a pair of Great Horned Owls is nesting year after year. And I’m willing to bet the company has bait boxes everywhere on their property.
Modern poisons are designed so a single dose is lethal for rodents, but they do take several days for the rodent to die. They’re poisoned from the time they eat it though, and remain so after they die, wherever that may be. While they’re weakened from poison they are also easier to catch by predators.
Unlike old poisons which required repeat feedings by rodents, the toxicity of modern poisons is much higher and also takes many months to metabolize from a predator’s body. Recent studies are finding 80-90% of raptor populations with poison in their bodies. It becomes a cumulative problem for predators very quickly.
I don’t like poison to begin with as it seems a very ugly way to slowly kill something, and being in a position to see up close the effects of poisoning on animals I really love and work to protect, it’s all the more sad to see them be thoughtlessly poisoned. If someone is aware they have predators living on their property and they’re using poison, I can’t help but find it rather negligent to continue its use.
It may be a form of bias, but I don’t know how one could support raptors but also support something that inarguably poisons their food supply.
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.
