A traditional owner on a north Australian island has captured rare photos of an “enchanting” masked owl, adding to a limited knowledge base surrounding the endemic and culturally significant bird.
A traditional owner on a north Australian island has captured rare photos of an “enchanting” masked owl, adding to a limited knowledge base surrounding the endemic and culturally significant bird.
What are SGARs?
Second generation anticoagulant rodenticides
Modern rat poison designed to kill rodents in a single feeding.
Poison kills them over hours to days, in which time they are easy to catch by predators like raptors, cats, whatever else eats rats and mice.
First generation poisons would metabolize in a few days, and while not great for the predators, it quickly worked its way out of their bodies.
SGARs are of higher toxicity and accumulate in predators, potentially over months and months until they’re overwhelmed and they die terrible deaths. If owls or eagles, etc, are feeding their mate and babies, you can lose all of them in rapid succession as they unknowingly poison each other. It gets very depressing very fast. 😕
Groups that help animals have been trying to get these banned for sale to the general public all over the world due to all the unintentional poisoning. Here in the US, raptor populations are being found regularly with 80-90% of raptors showing some level of accumulated poisoning. Raptors reproduce in low numbers to begin with, so poisoning can crash local populations of birds.
Most passed or proposed legislation limits their purchase and use to licensed professionals, which should be both finding means other than poisoning as a primary means to control rodents and that usage is done in ways that limits secondary poisoning.
Ah I actually knew rat poison was bad because it killed predators but didn’t know there were different kinds. Thank you
You’re quite welcome!