Last week, another dying owl was noted near the Riverside Wetland trail.

Stewardship Pemberton and other community advocates have noted that almost ten birds of prey (five dead owls, 2 dead hawks tracked by Stewardship Pemberton) have been found dead or dying very close to Pemberton’s town.

It is presumed that many of them are dying as a result of eating poisoned rodents.

It is important, as a community, that we work together to manage the rat and mice population, without resorting to poison/rodenticides (SGARs). (Poisoned rodents can also harm and kill dogs and cats.)

Many locals are reporting having success with black snap traps (available from RONA), and a barn cat or two can also be your friend. Healthy local predator populations (weasels, birds of prey, small carnivores) are the most effective methods of keeping rodent levels low, and tired from avoiding predators.

(Information for this post was gathered from Stewardship Pemberton and info shared on the Community Forum by Cassia Jean and Ruth Fitzell.)

Rats are gross, in my unscientific opinion, and it’s easy to want to deal with a growing rat problem by doing anything to “just make it go away!” But there are consequences that ripple far beyond one rat, when we resort to poison. Everything is interconnected in this web of life… every action ripples far beyond our sightlines.