Residents suffered horrible losses of homes and property during the recent Mountain Fire, but thankfully, no lives were lost. Also, all 44 dogs and 35 cats evacuated from fire areas and left for safekeeping at the Ventura County Animal Shelter have been reunited with their owners.
Although some pets are still missing, six of the seven stray pets recovered from burned areas have been reunited with evacuated families, according to Randy Friedman, Ventura County Animal Control Public Information Officer. The one not reclaimed was a badly burned cat. Ventura County Animal Shelter staff provided extensive treatment and named the cat “Phoenix.” In great news, Phoenix was adopted last weekend.
“This crisis came at a really tough time for us; our shelter was already over capacity, and we had to find a way to accommodate the influx,” said Friedman, noting residents in rural areas also dropped off horses, ducks and chickens for safekeeping while the people found shelter. Although all those animals are gone from the shelter, Friedman noted that the shelter is still at 120% capacity, with about 25 new animals arriving every day.
To address the problem, the Ventura County Animal Shelter is waiving fees on dog adoptions through the end of November. If you have been considering adding a dog to your family, preview dogs available at www.vcas.us/dogs. You can learn about the dog adoption process at www.vcas.us/adopt.
In contrast to the pets who have been reunited with families and returned to their evacuated homes or brought to new homes, many thousands of wild animals have lost their home range, and burned wild land will take years to recover. In the meantime, the web of life on wild lands, from plants and insects to birds and bobcats, will strain to cope with new circumstances.
Burned land can sometimes cause animals to venture into cities. In particular, mice and rats driven from burned landscapes can become problematic in adjacent urban areas. One way people can help animals is to switch away from toxic substances and to instead implement mechanical and exclusion methods of rodent control.
If homeowners near burn areas react to rodent problems by using poison, they risk posing new dangers to wildlife. In particular, anti-coagulant poisons kill mice and rats through internal bleeding, but poisoned pests take a long time to die, and in the meantime, they often become food for wildlife ranging from mountain lions to birds of prey, potentially spreading the poison up the food chain. Anti-coagulants are now banned from residential use, but many people have old pest control materials stored.
If you still have this type of poison, drop it off for safe disposal in your local household hazardous waste program. Contact your city or county waste management department for an appointment.
Instead of poison, a better method of pest control is called “exclusion,” and it avoids infestations in the first place. Exclusion methods include sealing off potential home entry points with wire mesh, trimming trees overhanging your roof and avoiding dense growth capable of sheltering rats, keeping pet food secured and cleaning up pet droppings promptly.
Mechanical methods of pest control range from simple, classic snap traps to newer traps using electric shocks to kill pests. Some people mistake plastic bait traps for a mechanical trap, but generally, the large, plastic boxes with holes for rodents to crawl into are bait stations. The rodents do not die inside. Instead, they leave after consuming poison, potentially becoming prey for animals not targeted for poison.
If your mechanical traps are not catching rodents, rather than switching to poison, consider optimizing the traps. Set traps in pairs along a wall with the trip pads pointing in opposite directions, and use a proven effective bait. Peanut butter is often effective, and home improvement stores sell customized bait. Also, since mice nibbles do not always trigger traps meant for rats, use both sizes of traps if you are not sure which type of infestation is in your home.
PoisonFreeMalibu.org provides data about the effects of poisoning on wildlife and alternatives for rodent control, and the Santa Monica Mountains Fund’s “Breaking the Poison Chain” campaign provides explanations of nontoxic methods of rodent control. (see www.samofund.org/takethepledge).
David Goldstein, Environmental Resource Analyst with the Ventura County Public Works Agency, may be reached at 805-658-4312 or david.goldstein@ventura.org.
