Earlier this spring, WWI received a call asking for help with a fledgling owl on the ground and apparently abandoned. After checking for the parents and the nest, and finding neither, the owlet was admitted to Wildlife Works for temporary care. The Great Horned Owl was feisty and not at all intimidated by his close contact with people! He was examined upon admission, and it was discovered that his belly had what appeared to be bruise-like wounds with bleeding. The wounds turned out to be internal bleeding caused by secondary poisoning!
Fortunately, with intensive care and time, the owlet has recovered and is currently with an adoptive mother being raised for his eventual release back into the wild. Most cases of secondary poisoning do not end on such a positive note.
Secondary poisoning occurs when commercial products are used to control unwelcome rodents. When the rodents ingest the poison and are subsequently eaten by a predator, the predator is then poisoned also. This is a preventable tragedy. Through education, we can attempt to prevent this type of crisis. By raising the awareness of those around us and offering reasonable alternatives, we are striving to impact this problem proactively.
Alternatives such as live trapping, exclusion, and habit modification are often ignored. Live traps are commonplace in hardware and farms stores and enable individuals to remove unwanted rodents from buildings and structures. While trapping will rid individuals of their immediate problem, exclusion is the best and only effective permanent solution. By identifying possible points of entry and sealing them off with wire mesh or quick-drying cement, it is possible to keep these pests outside. Last, but not least, being proactive about sources of food that might attract different rodents will also help. Keeping pet food indoors, cleaning up any garbage spills immediately, storing birdseed in air-tight containers, and trimming vegetation to 18 inches away from the foundation of structures will help eliminate rodent-friendly environments. Choosing alternatives to poisons and chemicals can reduce the number of secondary poisonings that happen each year to Great Horned Owls and other raptors.
Great Horned Owls (GHOs) prey not only on rodents but also on most smaller mammals, birds, domestic poultry and almost anything else they can find! These impressive hunters are sometimes called the “tigers” of the air due to their fierceness, aggression, power and ability to fly nearly silently. Weighing up to 3.5 pounds, their wing span of nearly five feet gives them the ability to “float” and soar without much flapping. Their wings are long and fringed and have sound-deadening filaments at the ends of their flight feathers, giving them the ability to sneak up on their prey. GHOs are well-suited to nocturnal hunting. They have the largest eyes of all North American owls, but are unable to move them. Instead, they can turn their heads up to 270º around! Even with these amazing abilities, GHOs often starve to death during their first winter, simply because they are not capable of hunting well enough to feed themselves. |
