Rat Poison takes another unintended victim!

A sad day.  I recently found a large dead owl with no obvious signs of trauma.  A typical case of secondary poisoning.

People with the best of intentions put out poison bait for pack rats not realizing the risk to owls, hawks and other wild life.

Rat poison was never intended for pack rats. It is designed and specifically labeled for Norway and roof rats.  Urban rats that have adapted over thousands of years to live with man off his garbage.  Pack rats are wild animals.  We moved into their territory.

Urban rats are bait shy, so modern poison baits have a built in time delay.  After the rat eats the poison, there is no effect for 3-4 days. Then the rats gets sick and slowly dies over a period of 5-10 days.  During the first four days, the rat may repeatedly eat the poison building up a quantity in its muscle and stomach.

When the rat gets sick, it does not act right.  It becomes slow, may be out during the day time and just doesn't act right.  Easy prey for a predator.

The predator eats the rat and the poison passes directly to the predator.  Some types of poisons are not as bad if it is only in the muscle of the rat, but any poison still in the stomach is especially deadly.  Birds of prey, because of their metabolism, are especially at risk.

The predators die.  Sure some rats will die too, but the rats reproduce very quickly, owls and hawks do not.  Over time there are fewer and fewer predators, but more rats than ever.

PLEASE - never use poison bait and encourage your neighbors not to either.  


There are better,safer and more effective ways to deal with pack rats.

Kris