Who are the real rats?

While the National Park Service calls the poisoning of rats a "success" in helping native seabird populations rebound ("Getting Rid Of Rats" In Brief, September/October 2003), the project was little more than an exercise in deliberate animal cruelty and a threat to the environment and human safety.

The poison used, brodifacoum, has a track record of killing non-target animals. The agency's own conservative estimate concluded that hundreds of birds of 27 different species were killed during the poisoning, not to mention thousands of salamanders, Anacapa deer mice (a species that exists nowhere else) and other animals. Showering the island with poison from a helicopter made it even more indiscriminate. In fact, anglers in two fishing boats found themselves in a hailstorm of poison pellets a quarter mile off shore. Brodifacoum can bioaccumulate and has a long half-life, so do we really want it in our waters?

The real tragedy is that thousands of Anacapa's animals suffered extreme cruelty for no good reason. Brodifacoum causes death by internal bleeding over three to ten days. The one scientific study on the diet of the Anacapa rats concluded seabird eggs were only a miniscule component. The more likely predators were mice and birds of prey. If the murrelet is rebounding, it's because the park service wiped out native predators.

Michael Markarian, President, The Fund for Animals Silver Spring, MD