Protect Wildlife When Fighting Nuisance Rodents
A wide variety of native birds’ and animals’ natural diet includes rodents. (Photo by Scott Hallock)
The Conejo Valley is special because of how closely connected our neighborhoods are to nature. With miles of trails and open space woven throughout our community, encounters with hawks, owls, coyotes, bobcats, raccoons, skunks, and other wildlife are part of everyday life here.
But that close connection to nature also means that choices we make around our homes and businesses have the potential to harm animals living far beyond our property lines.When we use rodenticides, commonly known as rat or rodent poisons, those toxins hurt animals all the way up the food chain.
Poisoned rodents usually don’t die immediately and they don’t die inside bait stations. Instead, they roam around searching for water, making them easy prey for the animals that naturally hunt them. When a predator, such as an owl, hawk, snake, coyote, or bobcat eats a poisoned rodent, it too consumes the poison. The effects continue up the food chain to larger predators, including mountain lions.
A safer and healthier solution for rodent problems—from rats to ground squirrels and gophers—is a poison-free solution. The key is identifying what attracts rodents in the first place: Are they seeking food, water or shelter? Strategies for dealing with those attractants may include sealing entry points into homes and garages, making sure trash containers are kept tightly closed, cleaning up fallen backyard fruit and pet waste, and removing vegetation or debris that can provide shelter.
Natural rodent predators can also be part of the solution. Owls and hawks are remarkably effective hunters. A family of owls can consume thousands of rodents in a year, providing natural pest control without introducing poison into the food chain. And yet, a single poisoned rat can kill an entire owl family.
Protecting our open spaces means thinking about what we send into the ecosystem. By choosing poison-free approaches to rodent control, residents can help keep our homes and businesses safe and comfortable while protecting the wildlife that makes the Conejo Valley such a remarkable place to live.
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