Response to rat poison letter
I read the letter to the editor from Diane Brauch in last week’s Los Altos Town Crier with alarm and astonishment.
Her claim of one owl dead for multiple rats is bad science, and poor understanding of ecology. It is all to the good that the “bricks” of poison, that either cause the victim to die of internal bleeding or neurological crisis, are illegal. The poison will kill the rat, not just possibly one owl, but domestic pets, other birds of prey and bobcats.
Nearby Rancho San Antonio Preserve had a “dieoff” of bobcats a few years ago. The bobcats looked sick, starving and covered with lice and ticks. A necropsy done at UC Davis showed the death was from ingested rat poison from nearby households using the brick to poison rats which ended up eaten by the bobcats.
Please use a professional rodent control service to trap rats and do not ask your government representatives to “bring back the bricks.”
Donna Aronson
Los Altos
