Rat Poison Is Killing Our Wildlife
Rodents love Southwest Florida as much as we do. They thrive with the extended breeding seasons, abundant food sources and ideal nesting habitat. This means humans need to control the population. How to do that control is an important issue for us, as well as for the many species of animals that can be killed by secondary poisoning from rat poisons.
Rat bait boxes commonly contain poisons that the rats eat and subsequently die. However, they don’t die in the boxes. Instead, they die later and their carcasses are often picked up and eaten by eagles, hawks, owls, cats, bobcats, dogs and other animals. Those animals in turn suffer from secondary poisoning that can kill them or badly damage their neurological systems.
Audubon on Marco Island conducted a five-year study on the cause of death for 59 Burrowing Owls. 55 of them had neurotoxins from rat poison in their blood. On Lido Key in Sarasota County, necropsies on eaglets have shown they died from rat poison.
What alternatives do we have?
One important step is to exclude rats from buildings by sealing all openings and trimming trees and vegetation away from structures. It’s also important to store food and debris in containers with sealed lids.
To control rat populations, there are several methods that are safe for other species. These include fertility control bait, electronic traps, dry ice and cayenne pepper.
Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife (CCFW) has published detailed information on this topic. Click here to download or print their flyer: “Rat Poison Isn’t Just Killing Rats”. They also have published links to detailed information on poison-free alternatives at a special website: 
http://linktr.ee/ccfwpoisonfree