Publisher’s Notebook

• Malibu’s ‘Sound’ of Wildlife in Crisis •

BY ANNE SOBLE

I never thought I could find anything to say about the Deepwater Horizon disaster that wasn’t tinged with utter despair. The despair may be just as powerful, but one has to acknowledge that the horrific magnitude of the catastrophe is such there is no way it could have been swept under the rug the way most large-scale corporate failings tend to be. The usually compliant mainstream media has no choice but to keep the spotlight on a technological and, yes, moral failure of this magnitude.

Not so with the deaths occurring daily in the mountains in which Malibu is so luxuriously ensconced. There are no klieg lights, no screaming film footage, but animals from the smallest field mouse to the majestic cougar that call this area home are being lost to a silent disaster—the use of rodenticides. Whether they have paws, claws or wings, every living thing in the natural food chain is imperiled in the name of green lawns, non-native exotic plants or the notion that humans have the right to exterminate whatever they want.

Body counts are impossible to verify. Most of the victims die their painful death out of sight, not only of humans, but of other animals, as is the way of the wild. If it was possible to amass the carcasses of mountain lions, bobcats, coyotes, foxes, raccoons, opossum, and squirrels that have succumbed to rodenticides in one place, the seriousness of the problem would be evident. If these critters suffered convulsions or collapsed in public places, perhaps the indifference would lessen.

We also might then better comprehend the critical role each of these species plays in the overall balance of nature around us. If that balance is harmonious, the rodentia targeted by the poisons are kept in check by those above them on the food chain. It is when humans meddle with this balance that a species numbers multiply unchecked.

All rodenticides should be banned in favor of non-chemical approaches to control. What some people view as “pests,” others know to be critical links in nature’s own housekeeping program. If people would stop categorizing critters by the ways they inconvenience them, they might realize just how much they do for them. Asking that a human-centric perspective give way to an appreciation of all of nature may be asking too much. But ask we will because the animals cannot.