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windfalcon β Inktober Day 3 - Poison
#mouse #poison #inktober #snake #inktober2017
Published: 2017-10-04 01:07:30 +0000 UTC; Views: 2212; Favourites: 230; Downloads: 21
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Day 3 of Inktober - PoisonWhen most people see a snake, they think of venom - a handy, natural way for many snakes to easily kill their prey. No one thinks 'poison' when they see a mouse, but the truth is, in the Northeast U.S. you're more likely to find a rodent full of poison than you are a venomous snake.
Rodenticides are wreaking havoc on wildlife. Like most poisons humans put into the environment, they rarely kill only the pests we aim for. Rat and mouse poisons stay in the bodies of sick and dying rodents, who wander out of your house and into the waiting talons of a screech owl, or mouth of a garter snake, which are sickened or killed when they feed on the poisoned carcass. Ironically, by killing a few mice with rodenticides to rid your house of pests now, you're causing a population boom of rodents later when the predator populations are killed off by your careless use of poison.Β White-footed mice are also a prime carrier of the bacteria that causes Lyme Disease, and are a favorite host for the Deer Ticks that transmit it from the mouse to humans.
If you have a mouse problem, use a snap trap or live-capture trap. Poisons do much more harm than good.
Holbein ink with a nib and brush on Bristol, 6.5X11 inches.
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Comments: 18
interesting! never thought about poison
guess itΒ΄s because i live in a big city and i have a cat xD
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I am getting Very tired of people trying to peddle the same old line, ie Nature is wrong and we must do something about it. You're right, it without fail makes things worse, because human's are simply not equipped to foresee the long range consequences of meddling with the incredibly complex chains of cause and effect that make up the natural environment. And that goes double for the computers we program to try to anticipate the results of any interference. There used to be a simple anagram in programming- GIGO, which unfortunately also applies to most human planning. It means, 'Garbage in, Garbage out.
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It's actually really cool to watch a snake eat a rat.
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Wonderful artwork! 
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Poor thing
Nice work though,very clear vivid detail
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As a heads up, there's a rat poison on the market that is non harmful to non-target mammals. It's called Rat X and it does not ham animals that prey on rats. It kills through dehydration and work because rats cannot vomit. IF you can get the rats to take it.
Unfortunately, having seen the damage rats can do first hand (I'm still trying to eliminate them from my small farm where they eat my baby chicks and rabbits and devour my animal feed and chew through my walls, it has been horrible) I can't say I'm strongly opposed to using rat poison. But IF you can use a safer alternative first, you should. And Rat X is worth a try.
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Yes, using rodenticides results in more rodents because they kill the predators that naturally keep rodent populations in check. Barn owls, for example, kill up to 1,000 rodents in a nesting season. If you kill just one barn owl with rodenticides, that's 1,000 mice, voles, etc that are alive to breed, and we all know how fast/abundantly rodents breed.
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The information you put into this description is amazing and so freaking true! Thanks for sharing it.
Wonderful piece as well.
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That's a really interesting case of the law of unintended consequences.Β
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I find it very ironically fitting - that the harder we try to force nature to do what we want (eliminating rodents), the worse we make things for ourselves.Β The same thing happened with DDT - we tried using poisons to kill insects to keep them off our crops, and ended up nearly destroying a huge chunk of the bird population (among other animals).
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