Stop poisoning owls on the North Shore

In these past four weeks I have become an activist for an issue that I had never been aware of until Lucky came along; or rather, until I came along him.

Lucky is a Barred Owl. His home was in Heywood Park in the City of North Vancouver. I discovered him while he was being attacked by an angry mob of crows. He was bleeding, weak and in dire need of immediate help.

Four kind people, strangers to each other, stopped to surround the tree he was perched in, protecting him from the onslaught. We stayed there, my eyes rarely leaving his woozy gaze, until volunteer rescuers arrived from O.W.L. (Orphaned Wildlife Rehabilitation Society) to transport him to Delta for veterinary aid.

For more than an hour we stood there wondering how long he had been in this condition. Why was he sitting in a tree so close to a main road in the middle of the afternoon? Marine Drive has a constant flow of traffic and noise.

Owls are nocturnal. That I know. It was obvious something was seriously wrong.

When the rescue team arrived, they identified Lucky as one of their own. He was tagged. They didn’t seem hopeful.

A couple of hours later I was informed that he had been poisoned. Even more disturbing; he had been treated for the same condition only three weeks prior to this. How is this even possible? Poisoned from what? Why would anyone want to harm such a beautiful creature? All of these questions started to race through my mind.

Herein lies the issue:

For decades, our wildlife (mammals and birds alike), have been subjected to slow and painful deaths from the effects of secondary poisonings from rodenticides. Even some of our beloved cats and dogs have fallen victim to these horrible substances. Poison does not discriminate.

Humans have been relying on the use of black bait boxes to control the rodent population as long as governments have been writing them into their laws. This is the 21^st Century. There must be a more humane alternative to rodent control. Why are we not using it? Why are governments continuing to rely on products that are essentially destroying the natural food chain?

It doesn’t make sense.

Do people have the right to potentially poison a wild creature, a vital part of our ecosystem, each time it hunts to feed itself? Are we even aware of the effects of secondary poisonings from the use of rodenticides? I wasn’t.

I have only been asking these questions for the past four weeks. I know there are people who have been asking them for the past four decades. Enough is enough.

We are killing our most natural sources of rodent control, primarily raptors, because of our wide use of rodenticides. It has to stop.

That is why a petition was created. Our local and provincial governments need to find a better solution. I believe that collectively, we can. All it takes is for each of us to take a moment to care; about our community, our children, our wildlife and our actions moving forward in this time of change.

During the past month I have listened to people say that no one is going to care about owls during a time when COVID-19 has taken over the world. People are stressed, anxious and worried about the future, myself included. I get it. I’m right there with you. I’ve lost all three of my jobs!

Yet I believe, that because of COVID-19, when the world as a whole is making drastic changes to the way we, as a humanity, move forward, perhaps we can extend that essential courtesy to our wildlife who have been quietly suffering for decades because of us. They deserve a safe environment to thrive in. They deserve to eat a meal that isn’t laced with poison. They deserve to live a long and full life as humans do. We need them.

Our province is ‘Beautiful British Columbia’, but there is nothing beautiful about villages surrounded by poison bait boxes. There is nothing natural about finding owls, dead from poisoning, on our riverbeds. We can fix this, but we have to collectively care.

I gave Lucky his name because he is just that. To have survived two bouts of poisoning in a period of three weeks is nothing short of a miracle. The sad reality is the large majority of our raptors are not as fortunate.

Please take a few minutes to read and sign the petition: http://chng.it/8DHXNjgfvj. Write to your local MLA, talk to your friends and neighbours and spread the word.

There are so many ways to effectively combat the rodent issue without the use of harmful substances. Non-toxic pest control works! There are great resources available through organizations like O.W.L., R.A.T.S. (Raptors are the Solution), the BCSPCA, Wildlife Rescue Association of BC, Barn Owls BC…the list goes on. We only need to make an effort to look for them.

My hope is that our community can lead the way with a more humane change in how we deal with our rodent issue, so that our wildlife can thrive and do the job they were put on this planet to do. Let’s prove that a non-toxic approach works so the rest of the world can follow.

Thank you for caring.