Ground animals feared dead

Faculty members concerned rodent traps have poisoned campus ecosystem

JOSHUA MANES

Editor-in-Chief @TheManesEvent

Those discreet fake rocks around campus housing poison for rats and mice may have had some unwanted effects.

Faculty have expressed concern that the rabbits and squirrels have become victims of the rodenticide.

“I used to see them all the time. They would have babies so there'd be all sizes running around. It was very active around here,” instructor of English Craig Kramer said. “And just last month we started noticing that there were none. Not a single animal. I can't remember the last time that I saw one single squirrel or rabbit on campus.”

While Kramer has not seen any dead animals on campus, Shannon DeVaney, instructor of life sciences, has seen dead rabbits. “If it's not next to a street, it's probably been poisoned or something because there's not a lot of other things that would kill something like a rabbit and not eat it,” DeVaney said.

According to the National Pesticide Information Center website, bromadiolone, the poison used in the traps, prevents the body from recycling Vitamin K, causing the animal to bleed to death, which can take several days.

“It makes them suffer, like a form of torture, and then they die,” Kramer said.

According to DeVaney, the impact goes beyond the ground animals like rabbits and squirrels.

“Because it takes a few days for it to die, it's more likely to then be consumed by some of our predators,” DeVaney said.

“The issue then is that predator is eating multiple meals that are containing the toxin, so they're ingesting it over and over and over again. It isn't being broken down by their body so it's accumulating and it ends up accumulating at higher levels.”

And DeVaney said the effects can spread beyond Pierce.

“Coyotes are a little bit more of a concern. The coyotes will certainly eat them,” DeVaney said. “A coyote’s range is large enough that we could have coyotes that are traveling between the Pierce campus and the Santa Monica Mountains which are just a couple of miles away from here. That can easily get the poison into some of the animals like the bobcats and the mountain lions that live up there in the Santa Monica's.”

According to DeVaney, this is not the first time rodenticides have been used at Pierce, nor is this the first time other animals may have been affected.

“We are trying to address students’ basic needs,” Corwin said. “Our goal is to help students find success. Not only in the college, but also personally.”

Food security is a topic of concern,

The pantry is open Monday and Wednesday from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and Tuesday through Friday with an appointment with Corwin via her email corwind@piercecollege. edu.

Service begins just in time for holiday season [see TOY DRIVE