Flickr photo by gypsyfaephotography
We got a tweet from a CDNews reader this morning about a gruesome situation she’s found around her home near Judkin’s Park: dead, uninjured squirrels.
So far she’s found them in her yard and a neighbor’s yard, and she suspects that someone is poisoning them.
She’s contacting animal control today to bring it to their attention. If you’ve seen any other cases in the area that would make this a trend, you can reach animal control at 206-386-7387.
As for our tipster, she hopes it doesn’t go any further: “Hope we find the cause. If my neighbors see me digging holes in the backyard at 1am again, they’ll probably call the cops :)”
Who cares? Squirrels are rodents that serve as little more than a nuisance. Props to whoever is taking pest control into their own hands.
is important. Also poisoning them endangers pets and other animals in the area. There are way more reasonable ways to deal with such situations. One is to look at how close your tree branches etc.
Many times psychos will start on small animals and work their way up to humans. That could definitely be an issue, Rob.
That’s what most idiots use to kill squirrels and rats. Which obviously can also kill dogs and cats. We have Animal Control for a reason, anything different is brutal and shortsighted.
Animal control won’t deal with wild animals…. *but* a person definitely shouldn’t take it upon themselves to kill things, especially by poisoning them. Someone’s pets may get into it, heck someones kid might get into it. If you’ve got a problem with wild animals contact a professional.. Squirrels though – seriously, unless they are getting in your attic (and you should just be able to block up the way they are getting in) they are pretty harmless.
There’s been a pretty significant outbreak of distemper on the eastside in their raccoon population this spring. It started in April, seemed to wane and now they’re having at least several dead/sick raccoons each week. It’s good to contact KC Animal Care & Control just to let them know in case they might be seeing a pattern of disease over here.
(Unvaccinated dogs can contract distemper from diseased raccoons.)
Not sure where exactly in Judkins Park your reader is, but we had a dead squirrel in our garden on 25th Ave S and Dearborn on Monday night/Tuesday…
I thought maybe a cat got it and played with a bit, but it didn’t have any noticeable bites or cuts.
Well, here’s my admission of guilt. I’m proud to say I POISON squirrels. I have been poisoning squirrels and other rodents at my home near Judkins Park. I use a common rodent poison which can only be accessed by rats, squirrels, mice, and maybe small birds (but I don’t think birds will go for it) I live with two cats who are completely uneffected because rodent poison has been designed so that if a cat or dog captures a poisoned rodent it will not effect them. Rodents are a pest in urban environments, they carry disease (the biggest victim of rodent disease are pets by the way), they damage property like the hole they ate through my attic, the wiring they chewed through, etc.
Stop being a bleeding heart rodent lover. Wake up to the reality. Rodents brought the black plague to Europe. Rodents are not our friends. What’s next Amnesty for mosquitos. Get a life and give a rats ass for something else puh-leaze!
I have to play the pedantic internet twit for a moment and point that rats likely didn’t bring the bubonic plague to Europe. It was likely a viral fever (mostly thought to be a haemorrhagic plague) brought by humans.
gj don’t try to use reason when humans are involved.
there is something very wrong with you.
Well if you’re so proud of your actions, why not show yourself. Introduce yourself to your grateful neighbors and to Animal Control. Teach a class about squirrel killing at Neighborhood University.
And maybe use all that free time to patch the hole in your roof Get a life so you’re not obsessing over the urban wildlife. Some of us barely notice them, except when they show up dead on our lawns. Now THERE’S a nuisance.
I poison the squirrels for the sake of my cats. Squirrels are dirty animals that live in their own filth. My cats (and everyone’s cats and dogs) attack squirrels and expose themselves to these diseases carried on the urin soaked fur of every squirrel in the neighborhood. I love animals ergo I kill squirrels!
Squirrels also destroy property, they eat through garbage can lids. When the city sees damaged cans they replace them. When the city replaces garbage can lids they send the old chewed through garbage can lid to a landfill. The new plastic lid comes is made of oil, like the oil that is spilling all over the Gulf of Mexico. If we used less oil we would pollute the Earth less. I love the Earth ergo I kill squirrels.
Stop hating animals and the Earth!
Props?
Like tiny little slap sticks, and little umbrella’s? Is there a show?
Oh, /facepalm, I get it…
and squirrels are wildlife.
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=77.15.150
Two things that should be noted in regards to this:
First: state law exempts rats and mice from wildlife: http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=77.08.010
(63) “Wildlife” means all species of the animal kingdom whose members exist in Washington in a wild state. This includes but is not limited to mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and invertebrates. The term “wildlife” does not include feral domestic mammals, old world rats and mice of the family Muridae of the order Rodentia, or those fish, shellfish, and marine invertebrates classified as food fish or shellfish by the director. The term “wildlife” includes all stages of development and the bodily parts of wildlife members.
Second: Squirrels are not even closely related to rats and mice, but do not belong to the family Muridae. They belong to the order Rodentia, true, but lie in a separate Suborder and Family. They are most closely genetically related to marmots, chipmunks, and prairie dogs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sciuridae
Please stop poisoning them.
i have a neighbour with the exact same attitude. i just love the whole american human attitude. (sorry, i know not all americans), “we wiped out the buffalo, we’re kings of the western world, WE, can do anything we damn well want. we need oil, we need money, therefore we do we we need to gain what we want.
for someone who can get on the internet and be proud of what they’ve done, couldn’t they possibly figure out how to research the the things they so relish in destroying? daresay, weigh some faults, sometimes, in their reasoning as to why they feel a need to destroy everything that doesn’t fit into a convenient life for themselves?
just a curiosity as to why the need to destroy all that was here even before us, leaving us with nothing. i’ll be long dead before it’s a real issue for me, but my kids, grandkids, and all after them will sure have a damn fine place to live as this world deals with things the way we do.
signed,
not so proud to be human, sometimes
And you kill based on misinformation and half truths.
Your neighbors aren’t buying it, maybe Animal Control will. Present your arguments to them.
When I find out who you are I will report you.
It’s not your right to take their lives. I understand the squirrels bother some people but that doesn’t give you the right to kill them. Maybe if we eliminated your cats, you’d have no reason to kill the squirrels? Cats carry diseases that harm human fetuses and should be eliminated …just saying… hypothetically.
I don’t get your logic at all – squirrels can carry disease, so you’re protecting other animals by poisoning them… which leaves their bodies littering our neighborhood? I don’t know about your cats, but mine would definitely not ignore a squirrel just because it was dead. In fact, cats are a lot likelier to be exposed to “squirrel diseases” if the squirrels don’t run away, since cats generally can’t catch a living squirrel.
I’m also not clear as to what you’re trying to accomplish, since there’s just no way you’re going to eradicate squirrels from the neighborhood, or even kill enough of them that you won’t have them near your house. All you’re doing is creating a nuisance for your neighbors (and wasting your money on squirrel poison, though I can’t say I’m fussed about that).
Similarly, I encourage you not to poison the squirrels. It seems kind of nuts that I’d ever have cause to type that sentence.
I just found this thread many days too late. If I find out where you live and your name I will bring friends who work for the Washington State Dept. of fish and Wildlife to your door, personally drag you out and have you jailed. Yes, it is against the law! Sick F–k! You are a criminal, one of the lowest, to do this to an animal.
I used the poison lawfully. I read the label and it said for killing squirrels. I initially had a state licensed professional install the poison traps. (see below)
The vermin in this city cause damage to property that cannot be ignored.
There was a grocery store in Northgate ten or so years back where the employees refused to kill the squirrels that were living in the dumpsters. It took only two months for the population to reach into the hundreds. What a mess, it took over a week of fumigation to clear them all out. Was it wrong to kill those squirrels? Other than the scale what draws the difference between the damage to my home and the grocery store? Maybe someone on this blog sees a difference but I think it’s reasonable not to.
A person is guilty of unlawful use of poison or explosives if:
(a) The person lays out, sets out, or uses a drug, poison, or other deleterious substance that kills, injures, harms, or endangers fish, shellfish, or wildlife, except if the person is using the substance in compliance with federal and state laws and label instructions
http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/living/tree_squirrels.htm has more information about WA Squirrels.
Now there is a deer in the neighborhood. I hope the poison will be removed.
Sorry, but you are wrong. Bubonic plague is NOT caused by a “viral fever” of humans. It is, and was, caused by a bacterium called “Yersinia pestis”,,, resulting from the bite of an infected flea which are carried on guess what – rodents. I learned this my first year of Medical Technology school. Please check your facts before posting. The internet is full of misinformation posted by ill-informed people.
One question – why, in modern society, should any cat owners worry about poison? Are there not requirements that cats be kept indoors and not run wild? In my city there is. In fact one of my neighbors just reported another neighbor for letting their cats run wild. The city officials paid them a “visit”.
If we humans remove all natural form of squirrel control in the form of other predators (hawks, coyotes, wolves, etc), then they over populate. And with over population comes using up all resources and then the finality of destroying resources until they starve to death. None of these are pretty deaths, but they happen. It may sound cold, but sometimes we humans have to be the predator in order to control animal population. We already do it with rats, so there’s not a very big leap to think that squirrels should be another population that should be controlled.