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Rat poison kills bald eagle found in Arlington
By adamg on Wed, 03/01/2023 - 8:54pm
The Cape Wildlife Center in Barnstable reports that "MK," a bald eagle that had been nesting in a cemetery in Arlington died last night from internal hemorrhaging caused by rat poison.
MK had been nesting with a male eagle, but after people spotted her on the ground, not looking well, volunteers bundled her up Monday for a trip to the wildlife center.
With the poison in her system she did not have the ability to clot and the bleeding was catastrophic and began to occlude her airway. ...
We hope her case will serve as a true wake up call for people to stop using SGARS, and will ultimately lead to true systemic change. It is time to restrict the use of these poisons. Rodent control does not need to come at the expense of our natural heritage and ecosystem.
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Comments
This is a significant issue
and we need to decide if we want to destroy what is left of the natural world on our one habitable planet or make a few changes to preserve what we have left.
We can start with not inadvertently killing birds of prey.
Negative feedback loop
Person sees a rat, yeets rat poison into environment, rat poison kills important rodent controllers, more rats, more poison ...
Time to ban the retail sale of this stuff and limit it to only forms and users who know what they are doing.
Retail use only?
It seems that it will need to be banned outright (which I'm in favor of). How could experience or knowledge significantly reduce the likelihood that a predator is going to ingest the poisoned rat?
How dumb are these people?
I really don't have words. As was already mentioned, the eagle would have eaten the rat! They need to restrict the use and sale of this stuff before it destroys our ecosystem.
How dumb are which people?
You have a rodent problem in your basement, so you go to the hardware store or similar and look at their rodent control products. Sticky traps are no fun (also can cause problems for wildlife, by the way) and mouse traps are scary plus you need to remove the dead thing from it and that's gross. Hey look, there's this stuff here that I just leave out in my basement and it will kill them for me, perfect!
We need to eliminate or replace these specific products AND we need to educate the public about the issue. I'm not going to call someone dumb for lack of specific knowledge, that's certainly not going to make them willing to listen to our concerns.
Isn't the Bald Eagle an Endangered Species?
If so, whoever laid that rat poison is in huge trouble. You don't fuck with the Endangered Species Act!
No
In fact, they're considered a success story of the Endangered Species Act. They came off the list in 2007.
They are, however, still protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.