Friday, November 09, 2007

 

Of Red Tailed Hawks , Rats , Squirrels and Rodenticides in Tompkins Square Park ...






The Red Tailed hawk above has just left a near-by tree where it had tasted and found undesireable a rat that it earlier had found dead on the Tompkins Square Park lawn . This dead rat , as can be seen below with a mouth-full of maggots , had been dead for a while , at least a day. We do not know the cause of the rats death ; rats die of many causes in TSP.
The hawk was now perched on a limb in another tree , occaisionally adjusting its balance as it was perturbed by an occaisional cool , fall gust of wind , waiting for a live dinner to come with-in striking range .

The dead squirrel pictured below was found not too far from the entrance to a rat tunnel . A tunnel in which some rat poison had been placed ....with some of the poisonous blue bait un-safely spilled out side of the tunnel where it was available to not only rats but to squirrels ,children and dogs .

We can not claim here that this squirrel was poisoned ; not even by poison improperly and unsafely placed : squirrels die of many different causes ... including poisons .




The city Parks Dept has recently been placing rodenticide in Tompkins Square Park , most if not all of it being difethialone included in different bait forms , manufactured by LiphaTech Inc. . A rodent control program is necessary in TSP as there are far too many rats in TSP ; a fact we reported here previously at NMNL in 4 posts about " The Rats of Tompkins Square Park " .
The blue pellets pictured below are probably "Blue Max Meal" a form of rat bait manufactured by LiphaTech ( see LiphaTech link below) .
Though there were no warning labels posted near the blue bait pictured below which referred to "Blue Max Meal" there were with-in sight labels refering to "Generation" , a differently packaged ivory colored pelletized bait containing the same concentration of difethialone as the active ingrediant as "Blue Max Meal " ."Generation " is also a product of LiphaTech Inc. and is also used in TSP ( see manufacturer's link below for product info concerning " Generation" and "Blue Max Meal") .

This rodent bait has difethialone ( for the bait pictured here the EPA registration # is probably 7173 238 ) as the active ingrediant which is a very toxic anti-coagulant poison .One meal of this bait will kill a rat . The rat simply bleeds to death internally or if injured ,bitten by anther rat for instance , externally. This material is equally toxic to other mammals such as dogs cats and squirrels .
It is toxic to birds also and with birds of prey the poison can be ingested by eating dead animals poisoned by this substance ( see the links below to research by state and federal environmental protection agencies ) .

Birds of prey that eat many dead animals with difethialone residue are reported to be at some degree of risk for bleeding excessively ( even to death ) if injured due to a non-lethal concentration of anti-coagulant in there blood ( see links below) .

There are also reported to be possibly other non -obvious effects due to the build-up of low level blood concentrations of anti-coagulant poison ( see links below).



The 3 pictures of the improperly placed pelletized bait above were taken on 6 November 2007 . Read the instructions for placement of this bait listed on the warning label at the manufacturer's web-site linked to below .

The 1 picture below was taken by flash at night on 8 November 2007 . Here it can be seen that though some of the bait has been eaten , 2 days later some bait is still left exposed to contact by squirrels ,dogs and children . A children's playground is near-by .

This rat bait containing difethialone is a restricted rodenticide : it can be handled only by certified personnel who have been trained to apply the poison safely .

Here it has clearly been improperly and dangerously placed in a public park near a playground . DIFETHIALONE MUST BE PLACED SO THAT ONLY RATS HAVE ACCESS TO IT . If you have any doubts about this see the links below .

http://www.liphatech.com/Products/US/BlueMax/mealBait.html



















# posted by Bob Arihood @ 5:30 AM
Comments:
Well done Bob and clearly you worked hard on this photo documentation. I forwarded it to the parks dept.

The photos of the hawk are excellent and it seems like their is emotion in the hawks face...the top photo is just beautiful.

The disturbing photos of the rats and squirrels are like a Disney movie from hell but the sad part is this is all by the children's playground.

Strong photos and I am glad we have alternatives to local rags that do not cover the news but the agendas of "mini Mike Bloomberg wanna be's and their pals".

Thank you,
Suzannah B. Troy
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 11:10 AM
 
What an incredibly thorough photo and research investigation! We're all so lucky to have you keeping an eye on all the creatures of Tompkins. Is it ok to send these pictures to the Parks Dept.? I think they truly mean well and don't want to poison non-rats, but this is a dangerous application.
Carol Vinzant
# posted by Blogger cvinzant : 9:33 AM
 
Shucks. Those squirrels could have made some people super rich.
# posted by Blogger Greg Horning : 11:55 PM
 
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