What’s happening to our coyotes in the region (Photo – Candy Rinard).
Over the last few weeks, numerous sightings have been reported of coyotes infected with mange in Alhambra, San Gabriel, Rosemead, Altadena and El Sereno.
By Candy Rinard
“I am really concerned,” says Mary Paglieri of the Little Blue Society, a non-profit seeking to resolve human-animal conflicts. “When [coyotes] are sick with mange and unable to hunt, they may come into neighborhoods seeking easier sources of food and water, and if the opportunity arises, they may take pet cats, etc., whereas healthy animals will try and avoid humans.”
Mange is a skin disease caused by parasitic mites that causes itching, hair loss, scars and lesions. If left untreated, it’s usually fatal. Lack of medicine allows the mites to attach themselves to the coyote’s body, promoting scratching so severe it leaves them completely hairless. If the mange spreads to the coyote’s face, the infection can extend to the eyes, leading to blindness. This leaves the afflicted coyotes unable to hunt for food, and with no other options, they starve to death.
The dangers of rodenticides
While a recent Around Alhambra article suggested residents use rodenticides to eliminate rodent communities, many biologists believe these chemicals have caused a recent rise in mange within predatorial populations, including raccoons, bobcats, and coyotes.
Dr. Duane Tom of California Wildlife Center of Calabasas, who helped treat a few of the Alhambra animals, affirmed this potential relationship.
Kian Schulman, co-founder of Poison Free Malibu, educates people about the issues rodenticides bring to local ecosystems and introduce them to alternative, viable solutions. She says businesses with open dumpsters are the primary problem, as they attract mice and rat populations, leading to further breeding and contamination. Due to this, many businesses have multitudes of poisoned bait boxes placed near these dumpsters. This does nothing to solve the problem, as the garbage still entices rodent populations, which is something that a rigorous sanitation policy could resolve.
The spread of rodenticides
Furthermore, research shows that anticoagulant rodenticides, meant to control rodent communities through death, are also killing native wildlife. This is because, as stated earlier, mice and rats do not die in the bait boxes containing these poisons. Instead, the tainted rodents leave the containers and move throughout the local environment for several days before they die. These toxic rodents, either dead or on the verge of death, are consumed by predatorial wildlife, allowing the toxicity to move up the food chain, leading to the death of hawks, bobcats, foxes, coyotes and even mountain lions.
Scientific research on wildlife in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreational Area and surrounding habitats has detected startling evidence on how widespread the exposure to anticoagulant rodenticides is amongst native carnivores. Specifically, by monitoring the populations of three meat-eating species (bobcats, coyotes, and mountain lions), researchers found that a significant percentage of these animals had been exposed to these poisonous compounds. Bobcats and mountain lions both displayed 92% exposure, while coyotes, despite only having 83%, had rodenticides as the 2nd leading cause of death within the duration of this study. Despite this, many residents of cities in Southern California seem apprehensive towards such populations, viewing them as nothing more than contaminants to their cities.
What’s happening to our coyotes (Photo – Candy Rinard).
Poison-free cities
Practices like trapping, killing, and forced removal only serve to exacerbate the problem of population control. As trappers do not typically examine the coyotes they remove, they often remove the ‘alpha male’ in the pack, resulting in indiscriminate breeding and an overall increase of the coyotes within the area. Rodenticides affect such populations similarly.
Wildlife Care of Southern California recently caught a mangy coyote in Whittier. After eight weeks of rehabilitation, it recovered beautifully and was released back into the wild. Unfortunately, the Burbank and Simi Valley centers are being overwhelmed with similar calls.
Communities who are now experiencing an increased presence of sickly coyotes need solutions that will alleviate the underlining issues, not exacerbate the problem.
Cities such as Whittier, Calabasas and Malibu have become poison-free and decreased the number of sickly coyotes. Education on the matter or rodenticide usage in our cities, followed by the rehabilitation of afflicted coyotes, has shown to be effective in these cities and deserves primacy throughout the San Gabriel Valley.
Candy Rinard is a lifelong resident of the San Gabriel Valley. She is an animal enthusiast and a wildlife volunteer. She is married and a mother of 4 boys.
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This article doesn’t make clear the relationship between the use of anticoagulant rodenticide and coyotes getting mange–does a weakened coyote who has too much toxins open them up to a mite infestation of mange? Interested in what other cities who are poison free do to keep rodent populations down.
Very informative. I hope cities can find and adopt solutions that are humane.