Federal fish and wildlife officials on Wednesday withdrew their plan to drop poison on the South Farallon Islands to kill mice, a spokeswoman for the California Coastal Commission said.
The plan was designed to rid the islands, which are outside the Golden Gate, of an invasive house mice population.
Eradicating the rodents was expected to “benefit native seabirds, amphibians, terrestrial invertebrates, plants and wilderness quality,” according to a report by commission staff.
The report also said killing the mice would restore at least part of the natural ecosystem on the islands, which are part of the Farallon Islands National Wildlife Refuge.
The plan involved dropping more than a ton of poison grain pellets on the islands.
California Coastal Commission spokeswoman Noaki Schwartz said that commissioners Wednesday raised multiple concerns about possible unintended consequences, and if the plan was unsuccessful the poison would have to be dropped again.
Schwartz said that fish and wildlife officials withdrew the plan to address the concerns that were raised and are going to resubmit their plan.
Commission chair Dayna Bochco agreed with the decision by federal officials.
She said, “We haven’t been convinced this is the best and only way to go.”
The commission was scheduled to hear comments about the plan from the public Wednesday morning in San Luis Obispo. Comments submitted ahead of the meeting were very critical.
Kim Fitts, a wildlife biologist and environmental consultant, said, “Undoubtedly the poison will travel up the food chain; not only killing the intended mice, but also the entire predator/carnivore community living
within the coastal zone. This is exactly how the food web is destroyed for generations.”
Following the decision, San Rafael-based Wildcare, a wildlife advocacy group, tweeted, “The battle isn’t over, but this was a win!”
The group said in its tweet that it helped convince the California Coastal Commission “to look more closely at the plan.”
If there is an invasive mouse population threatening the ecology of the Farallons, of course it should be controlled. But how much intelligence is required to understand that whatever eats the poisoned mice is itself being poisoned?
“Federal Officials” pretty much sums it up.
That’s the whole problem – nothing on the island eats mice except a small handful of owls. Mice eat everything.
That is a smart decision. Maybe they can put a bunch of old cats there to eat up the rats.
i was thinking maybe put a bunch of snakes! i’m glad they have stopped this crazy idea.
Good start! Now make rodenticides illegal!
https://www.raptorsarethesolution.org/
I hear the Pied Piper is looking for work.
I agree- go to the shelter, and get a bunch of cats!!
Excellent idea with the cats from shelters. Have them all fixed before they’re relocated to the island so they don’t keep breeding. As the cats die off, replenish with more fixed cats
Too bad snakes and cats eat birds too…. snakes will even eat the eggs…
I swear if you guys were in a sinking boat you’d probably drill holes in the bottom to let the water out.
I literally laughed out loud Jelly…hilarious!
Yes, cats! Round up the feral cats, fix them so they can’t reproduce and turn them lose on the mice. I also like the idea of snakes, but which kind? Could they be fixed too? Either cats or snakes would be more cost and environmentally effective than poisoning a whole island.
Seems like the easiest & most ecological solution is to build a house for all those house mice to move into. I guess this ‘housing crisis’ is legitimate, after all! 😜
Effect of Rat Poison on Dogs – I don’t know how related the brodifacoum rat poison proposed for this project is to rat poisons used in the general population. However, Memorial Weekend 2018 we had to take Dog Sid to SAGE emergency. One of the discussions with the ER Vet was could Sid have gotten into rat poison. (No.)
The Vet said that the “old” rat poisons took much more to kill, for Sid (70 lbs then), probably 2 whole bricks. And there was a blood test to indicate presence of that poison. However, new rat poison was much more lethal. Sid would only need to ingest a couple of tablespoons for it to be fatal. And at that time, no blood test to indicate presence of the new rat poison.
So just imagine the collateral damage (as @Dr. Jelly put it) and deaths the Farallon Islands proposal could cause, with dropping 1.5 tons of rat poison on the islands.
My old dog died from rat poison, but I don’t think that the new poison is worse than the old stuff. Cyanide comes from apples so I don’t think that the insecticide from oranges is necessarily healthy to be around either. I’m pretty sure every poison is unhealthy to be around with any regularity
so before you start spouting off… err sorry lemme back up a bit… so what rodent poisons are legal i your area? what are the different active ingredients and modes of action?
really wish people would read a little before typing garbage all over the place…
I bet you are also against the use of Fironyl products but still treat your dog with them lol
some ppl are really good for a late night laugh
There is a cat in our neighborhood who is a rodent phenom. He has pretty much eliminated the mice and made a remarkable and noticeable dent in the roof rat population. Problem is he can’t distinguish between a rat and a songbird for purposes of play, and the rats are better at giving him the slip.
We had for years a struggling pair of quail who had a few chicks survive the cats in the neighborhood, until the cats all grew old and died off. Then, the quail suddenly flourished and, instead of having one breeding pair, in short order there were three producing many, many chicks. Well, they are gone, victims of the cats desire for fun.
Quail, Mockingbirds, Towhees, Doves, Nuthatches, any number of birds have disappeared from the area. Occasionally I find them in the yard after he’s done with them. He doesn’t eat them, it’s merely a form of entertainment for him to kill them and leave their bodies lying around. So, no, I wouldn’t recommend cats as a solution to the rodent problem on the Farallon Islands.
For $200K, you can drop me off with an air rifle and a case of beer and I’ll take care of the problem as long as there’s a resupply line.
As mentioned couple days ago, Birth Control.
https://senestech.com/
What if the fertility blocker gets into the food chain? Will birds that eat alot of mice start shooting blanks too?
They did that to deer on Angel Island for awhile. Doubtful any got into the food chain from that case, but it has been done elsewhere, as well. Might have contributed to a reduced birth rate among hunters, if only temporarily. As far as I know, if it did, no one is talking about it. The implications could be somewhat disturbing.
1 more vote for relocating some feral kittehs.