CA: Plan to bombard Farallon National Wildlife Refuge islands with pesticide may pose danger to other creatures

[Emily]

http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-10-17/news/30292274_1_mice-rodents-maggie-sergio

Concern over fallout of bombing mice with pesticide
Plan to bombard islands with pesticide may pose danger to other creatures
October 17, 2011|Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer
[snip]
The air drops that are being considered would use pellets soaked with brodifacoum, an anticoagulant that triggers a massive bleed out from the mouth, eyes, rectum and ears. The trick is to prevent seagulls and other animals from eating the poison.

Sergio said a 2008 aerial drop by Island Conservation on Rat Island, in the Aleutians, killed 47 bald eagles. In all, some 420 birds were killed, including gulls, ducks, teals, cormorants, murres and ptarmigans, according to a report on the incident by the Ornithological Council, a nonprofit policy group....

46 tonnes of brodifacoum were dropped in 2008, far exceeding New Zealand advisers' recommendations. (No documentation of the reasoning behind the decision could be found.)

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110118/full/news.2011.24.html

Published online 18 January 2011 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2011.24
News
Where eagles die
Flaws in Alaskan island rat-eradication project laid bare.
Brendan Borrell

Misjudgements made two years ago during a rat-eradication programme on Alaska's aptly named Rat Island, which led to the death of more than 420 birds — including 46 bald eagles — have now been detailed.
[snip]
The first application on the coast was largely under the legal limit of 18 kg ha-1 set down on the pesticide label. However, the second application, which effectively included all of the contingency bait, was estimated to be between 17 and 22 kg ha-1, around twice the label limit of 9 kg ha-1 for this application and three times the target rate, according to the report. Eight months later, biologists returned to the island and discovered the bird carcasses, which were found to contain traces of the poison.

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: CA: Plan to bombard Farallon National Wildlife Refuge islands with pesticide may pose danger to other creatures

Regarding the killing of rats on the Aleutian Islands: The whole purpose for eliminating the rats was because they were eating bird eggs, thereby killing far more birds than the poison did. They had tried other methods (traps,etc.) for years, but they weren't effective.

It's very important to keep rats off Alaskan islands used by the millions of migratory birds coming from around the entire globe.

Personally, I'd be concerned about the birds that ate the poison and didn't die, i.e., did the poison cause DNA damage that could be passed down through generations of offspring? If so, it might be better that they die. Then there's the issue of other prey, like bears - did they eat the carcasses and what is/was the impact? One of the major migratory bird highways in the Aleutians, Izimbek Lagoon, is also enhabited by a significant brown bear population.

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