Open letter to mayor and council,
The Garden City Conservation Society strongly supports banning anticoagulant rodenticides. We congratulate director Peter Russell and staff for their report, “Banning Rodenticides on City owned property in Richmond.” In this report it states: “There is very limited information regarding the effectiveness of anticoagulants in managing general rodent populations in Richmond.”
Because of widespread use of that unproven method of pest control, our raptors die slow and painful deaths. A single owl would kill about a thousand rodents a year in natural pest control, but the unnatural pest control is instead killing the owls.
The above report also notes, “Provincial guidelines state that [anticoagulant rodenticides] are to be administered when all of the pesticide-free methods have been deemed unsuccessful at managing infestations.”
But that’s not always happening. I’ve seen the bait stations at townhouse complexes next to Garden City Park, a natural area where birds should have a home, not a death sentence. This sort of use of rodenticides is a dangerous experiment, a sloppy use of an easy means, not science. I believe the city’s current intent is to be more scientific, and in that case we’re on the right track.
Sharon MacGougan
President, Garden City Conservation Society
