The Pelican — It Lives On

By Caron Tayloe

“I’m not sure what you mean,” I replied to the pest control technician who had turned away and was reaching into his Ghostbuster-like vehicle to deposit the deceased deer mice he had trapped under my house. The technician had just suggested that we should use rodenticide instead of trapping, and he asked me if I had any outdoor pets.

“It is more convenient, but you should know that the poison is eaten by the rodent and whatever eats the rodent is also poisoned and so on,” he explained, not looking at me in the face.

It was twilight, and I was staring at the majestic great horned owl perched on my neighbor’s roof. The owl arrived several weeks ago and was even named “Evangeline” by the residents in the house she adopted. Evangeline was serenely surveying the technician and me in my driveway. So beautiful, so fragile…

“So if a rodent was poisoned and a weasel ate the rodent, and then an owl ate the weasel, then the owl would be poisoned?” I was stalling. Of course that is what he meant.

“Yes, it lives on. Are you going to do this? I love wildlife too, but I don’t know what the problem is. I know for a fact several people in this neighborhood use this rodenticide.”

The technician saw me staring at the owl, and he was becoming irritated, ready to end his day. I recalled the term, “secondary poisoning,” from gardening studies. The latest and widely used rodenticides are very convenient for humans, but can be devastating to all wildlife. Birds that eat rodents and birds that eat rodent predators like snakes can die slow, painful deaths. That was too high a price for this human’s convenience.

“No,” I replied, ”No poison. I’m going to continue with trapping and sealing up under the house.” The technician drove off, and I stood there, overwhelmed with thoughts about deer mice, trapping, poison, safety, protecting wildlife, and educating my neighborhood.

Lamenting the complicated world we created, I looked up just in time to see Evangeline’s silhouette against the dusk as she flew off for a night of hunting.