Whereas many view Los Angeles as a concrete jungle, there’s one other aspect of the town extra akin to the wild. L.A. lies inside a biodiversity sizzling spot, with ecologically wealthy habitats such because the Santa Monica Mountains boasting endemic vegetation and animals not seen anyplace else on Earth.
In line with iNaturalist, a website the place customers determine and add their wildlife observations, more than 7,500 distinct animals have been noticed in L.A. County, together with 52 endangered species. The county hosts extra chicken varieties than some other in the USA, and boasts a inhabitants of mountain lions that coexists amongst tens of millions of (human) residents.
However wildlife in L.A. lives on the sting. Threats like habitat loss, fragmentation and publicity to rodenticide poisons current an existential disaster for our wild neighbors. Final month, the state’s Division of Fish and Wildlife made a formal recommendation to guard Southern California’s mountain lions as a threatened inhabitants underneath the state’s Endangered Species Act.
Nevertheless, the California Division of Pesticide Regulation is now proposing modifications that will additional hurt mountain lions — and all of California’s wildlife — by rising their publicity to dangerous rodenticides.
It has been three years because the iconic Hollywood mountain lion referred to as P-22 died after being struck by a car near Griffith Park. Because of monitoring performed by the Nationwide Park Service, we all know P-22 suffered from power anticoagulant rodenticide poisoning all through his life, together with 5 blood-thinning rat poisons which might be presently restricted. This may increasingly have been because of direct publicity, or from consuming rodents and different animals that had preyed upon poisoned critters.
Scientists on the Nationwide Park Service who monitored P-22 all through the years have been in a position to deal with him with vitamin Ok injections and topical treatment; in any other case, he wouldn’t have survived the a number of rodent poisons present in his system. However his story is the exception. Untold numbers of nameless California wildlife succumb to illness and loss of life yearly because of continued environmental publicity to rodenticide.
Final November, a report from state wildlife officers discovered blood-thinning rat poisons in additional than 69% of wildlife examined, together with 95% of mountain lions and 100% of golden eagles. Hawks, owls, bears, bobcats and coyotes are additionally continuously discovered to be poisoned, and anticoagulant rat poisons have been confirmed as the reason for loss of life for San Joaquin equipment foxes, a federally endangered species.
Regardless of proof of escalating hurt, the California Division of Pesticide Regulation’s present proposal would roll again current restrictions on utilization of essentially the most poisonous rat poisons. These rollbacks would permit elevated rodenticide utilization at greater than 100,000 new places statewide, together with roadways, parks and wildlife areas.
Growing using anticoagulant rat poisons would solely lead to extra inhumane wildlife deaths. As a substitute of increasing using these harmful, long-lasting poisons, California should do extra to cease the rise in non-target wildlife deaths by additional limiting their use and by selling more practical, humane strategies of stopping rat infestations.
The simplest long-term reply to rodent infestations is to get rid of easy accessibility to meals, water and shelter. Rodent-proofing rubbish containers and the sealing of houses and buildings from rodents are important. In need of these sorts of modifications, no quantity of rat poison can repair the issue.
Pesticide producers argue that it’s unimaginable to manage rat populations with out essentially the most harmful poisons. However the on-the-ground actuality reveals a distinct image.
Since restrictions on essentially the most harmful anticoagulant rat poisons in business and residential settings went into impact in 2021, data recommend that safer, different rodent management strategies have confirmed efficient. In line with public information from seven main county public well being departments, there was no vital improve in rodent-related complaints since anticoagulant rodenticide restrictions took impact.
The highly effective anticoagulant rat poisons at situation right here make up solely a handful of merchandise. There are greater than 100 rodent management chemical compounds that stay out there to be used on non-public land underneath present rules, together with humane sorts that don’t transfer up the meals chain, equivalent to chemical compounds that management rodent fertility.
State regulators can play an necessary position in ensuring Californians’ selections begin with affordable, humane options as an alternative of the widespread, ineffective use of anticoagulant rat poisons that may proceed to hurt and kill our wildlife. Backsliding on necessary rat poison protections inside ecologically numerous city areas like Los Angeles will solely push our wildlife nearer to the sting.
Tony Tucci is chair and co-founder of Citizens for Los Angeles Wildlife.
