The cold weather arrives and all those pesky little animals want to move inside! As soon as this happens, many people reach for some cruel options to deal with the problem.
Rat baits are often chosen. The anticoagulant poisons cause internal bleeding that results in a painful death, taking up to ten days for the poor animal to die. These also cause so much loss of life to our native animals if they eat the bait. It is the secondary poisoning that also makes the death count add up. The dead mouse dies out in the middle of the yard and along comes a bird thinking it has found an easy meal. Many of these products are said to be safe for native animals. Our WILVOS 5441 6200 Hotline says otherwise. We have picked up too many animals in the latter stages of dying .
Some baits, such as Racumin, are said to minimize the risk of this secondary poisoning. Personally, I’d rather use live traps. Then the animal/s can be checked to see if a feral or a native species. To make baits more inaccessible to animals such as possums, the bait can be secured inside a small pipe, or other inaccessible place I’d prefer to eliminate these toxic elements from our environment. It is distressing to pick up a sick possum, that is later found to have ingested bait. Uually they are very emaciated and often bleeding from body cavities. One I collected from North Arm some months ago was at deaths door but was still trying to drink from the swimming pool.
Don’t get me started on glue traps! Fortunately , there is more awareness of the suffering caused by these solutions. It always seems rather weird that some people don’t realize that animals feel pain too.
Donna Brennan Wildlife Volunteers Assoc Inc (WILVOS) PO Box 4805 Sunshine Coast Mail Centre Q 4560 PH 5441 6200 www.wilvos.org.au