Watch how the rat poisoning is killing valley’s wildlife
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Residents of Cave Creek have complained that rat poisoning is killing valley’s wildlife.
Paul Diefenderfer – a Cave Creek Councilman and a volunteer at Southwest Wildlife Conservation Center in Scottsdale – has said that a large number of wild animals are dying after eating rodents that have ingested rat poisoning.
“Everyday you see deer, coyote, javelina, and bobcats. They’re everywhere out here. Most people don’t realize there is a secondary effect,” he said.
After eating rodenticide, rodents don’t die immediately. They roam here and there before dying.
A large number of wild animals are dying after eating rodents that ingested rat poisoning.
Yolande Grill says her own pets died after eating rodents that ingested rat poisoning.
She believes that her neighbors put rat poison in their yard and the rodents ended up in her yard after eating it.
“I was in grief for a long time about it,” she said.
“I just want to help spread the word on this. I first discovered the problem when I lost a dog and a cat in my own backyard (over 12 years ago); I was not putting out poison but my neighbors were and I did not want to start a fight as much as I wanted to educate others… In my heart I believe that people don’t mean to do harm, sometimes they just don’t know.
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Diefenderfer and residents of Cave Creek started a group named Cave Creek Cares “to see all anticoagulant and other poisonous rodenticides taken off the market and no longer used by pest control companies due to their dangers to children, pets, and wildlife”, according to their website.
Linda Searles, Director of Southwest Wildlife, said: “People don’t understand that a mouse on the front (of the package), it doesn’t stop with (killing) mice”.
Cave Creek Cares wants to educate people who buy rat poison to save the valley’s wildlife.