BRADENTON BEACH – In the interest of protecting all the animals along the food chain, a local animal rescue organization is urging Island homeowners to consider a natural alternative to the chemical eradication of rodents.
A strategically-placed wooden screech owl box or barn owl box will attract the owls that naturally prey on rodents, according to the experts at Wildlife Education and Rehabilitation Inc.
“You can get these boxes online and it’s simple,” Wildlife Inc. volunteer Krista Carpenter said. “You put it in a tree and put a bird feeder near it. As the bird seed falls out of the feeder, rats and mice will gather and then are eaten by the owls in the box.”
Installing an owl box can save many lives.
“From one block of poison, a poisoned mouse could be eaten by a bird, which is then eaten by an animal such as a fox or raccoon. A hawk could eat that fox or raccoon and then a bobcat or coyote could eat that,” causing all their deaths, Carpenter said. “A vulture could eat the last one. The circle of life is also the circle of death.”
That food chain poisoning became apparent in May when Carpenter got a call from the organization’s co-director, Gail Straight, that an American eagle in distress was found on the grounds of IMG Academy in Bradenton.
“The person who had called us was a golf pro there, an Australian man who knew what the eagle meant to the United States,” Carpenter said.
Describing the female bird as huge and beautiful, Carpenter knew right away that something was very wrong.
“She put up a little fight but it wasn’t what it should be,” she said. “I noticed there were tented homes nearby and I thought, ‘They use poison.’ The eagle was treated for poisoning but she succumbed that same day.”
Carpenter described the eagle’s death as miserable and painful. It was caused by ingesting high levels of rat poison.
“Rat poison is basically a blood thinner and causes a slow, painful explosion of organs,” she said. “A rat will go out looking for water after ingesting the poison and in this case that American eagle ate the rat.”
Carpenter said she is not anti-extermination but urged people to try an alternative path with owls, something she said has been used for years in California wineries as a natural pest control technique.
According to the Wildlife Inc. Facebook page, “Bait boxes filled with what killed the American eagle are put out to control rodents. If an owl box had been put out instead, this American eagle would be alive today. A common barn owl eats three to four rats a night.”
“Of course, the person who put the bait box out didn’t expect the eagle to die,” Carpenter said. “All I’m saying is think before you take the easy path. You never know what you’re going to kill.”
Bradenton Beach-based Wildlife Inc. is a non-profit wildlife rescue and rehabilitation organization that is home to a wide assortment of sick, injured or orphaned native wildlife, some of which will be eventually released, as well as to animals who are non-releasable and have found a permanent home there.
For more information, visit Wildlife Inc. online.
