06/27/2025
I am distraught. A few days ago, a person in Placitas found a young Common Raven clearly in distress. It died within a half-hour of being brought to rehabilitation care. It died a horrible death of rodenticide poisoning, delivered in the body of a poisoned rodent.
Since then I have spoken with several "technicians" of pest control businesses, one of whom was, as he said "servicing bait traps". Each of them attempted to assure me that their methods did not act as secondary poisons, in other words that they did not go on to kill wildlife or domestic pets. Of course no company advertises that they are also in the business of killing owls, hawks, corvids, or your puppy. Everyone is licensed, using legal "approved" methods. In that case, I must wonder where our wild avian predators keep getting the anti-coagulant poisons that kill them.
This man was not servicing a trap. No rodents were trapped. That would necessitate someone coming along to deal with the dead rodents. Yuck! He was actually refilling poison dispensers. The rodents eat the yummy poisoned bait, but it doesn't kill right away. No, it can take several days for the stuff to kill, enough time for the critter to conveniently go somewhere else, gradually slowing down to become easy prey for any carnivore, including the wild predators that keep the mice and rat populations under control.
There are remedies that can save the life of a bird that has been poisoned. Unfortunately, the bird is actively dying by the time someone finds it so debilitated that a human can catch it. In 20 years of caring, only once have I been able to pull a bird back from bleeding to death.
To top it off, I just discovered that my neighbor only one house away contracts to have poison regularly dispensed on his property, without having a clue about the consequences or his personal responsibility. Talk to your neighbors, or realize that you are seeing the last of our wild ones. My spirit is broken.
