Tag: poison

Wildman Forages for Food in Central Park

  • (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA)

Everyone needs to eat. But
not everyone gets their groceries
at the shopping market. Some
people find their food. They forage
in backyards, forests, even city parks.
It’s free, some of it tastes pretty
good, and as Samara Freemark reports,
sometimes it’s even legal:

Transcript

Everyone needs to eat. But
not everyone gets their groceries
at the shopping market. Some
people find their food. They forage
in backyards, forests, even city parks.
It’s free, some of it tastes pretty
good, and as Samara Freemark reports,
sometimes it’s even legal:

It’s a beautiful fall day in New York’s Central Park, and Steve Brill is looking for
something to eat.

“Everyone come over here, we have another species. Come on over here.”

Steve Brill – I’m sorry, Wildman Steve – leads foraging tours in parks all over the New
York area. And today he says he’s going to prove to me and about thirty others that the
park is full of things to eat.

“Try this.”

But the tour starts off a little rough. At first we find a lot more plants that can kill us than
feed us. Yellow violets will make you vomit. So will pokeberries. And, so will
pokeweed.

“Is this the worst thing you’ve ever smelled? The chemical is called buteric
acid. The name comes from rancid butter. This is a common element in
decaying flesh.”

Foraging isn’t for the faint of heart – or the uneducated. Wildman is very careful to tell
people to study up before they start snacking on the weeds in their backyards. But he says
once you learn to recognize edible plants, it’s pretty easy to tell them apart from the
poisonous ones.

“You have to know what the plant is. If you go into a supermarket, you have
to tell the difference between the apples and the cigarettes. The apples are
good for you, the cigarettes will kill you. Black walnut doesn’t look much
like poison hemlock. They all have their identifying characteristics.”

And it turns out there’s a lot of stuff out there that is edible. Chew some birch bark – it
tastes like wintergreen. Primose has a root like a radish. Garlic mustard tastes like, well,
garlic. Mixed with freshly cut grass. We didn’t really love that one. But the crab apples
were great.

“This is a crab apple tree. And the ripe crab apples, they have a texture of applesauce and
a flavor like tamarind. Tell me if this doesn’t taste like tamarind.”

“Just eat it like this?”

“Yeah, just spit out the seeds. These are really addictive. I like these.”

Ok, but before you start poking around in your neighborhood park, there’s one more thing
you should know. The thing about foraging is, it’s kind of quasi-legal. You’re not really
supposed to pick the plants in most parks. And Wildman Steve himself has gotten in
trouble for this. In 1986 Central Park officials busted him for foraging. They led him off
in handcuffs and charged him with criminal mischief. Wildman eventually got off and he
hadn’t had any run ins with the law since, well, until this year.

A week after I met Wildman Steve he was in court again, this time for harvesting
sassafras.

“Defacing the park. That was my crime. There’s no defacing at all. I didn’t damage or
destroy anything. This is just total nonsense.”

Wildman Steve faces fines of up to $2000. But that hasn’t stopped him from leading
tours. Why would he stop, he asks me. His tours can change how people see the world
around them. And that’s more important than a court date.

Take 12 year old Rory Langan. Rory told me his cousin has a black walnut tree in his
backyard. But it never occurred to him that the walnuts he found on the lawn had any
connection to the nuts you buy in the store.

“I actually never thought you could eat these. I thought it was poisonous. It’s pretty cool
though. It’s actually pretty good.”

He says he can’t wait to go home and show his cousin what to do with all those snacks in
the backyard.

For The Environment Report, this is Samara Freemark.

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Botulism and the Beach

  • The beach looks beautiful... until you stumble on dead birds and fish killed by Type E botulism. (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

A deadly toxin is spreading across
the Great Lakes, killing fish and birds.
Rebecca Williams reports scientists are
trying to put the puzzle together as quickly
as they can:

Transcript

A deadly toxin is spreading across
the Great Lakes, killing fish and birds.
Rebecca Williams reports scientists are
trying to put the puzzle together as quickly
as they can:

(sound of waves lapping the beach)

It’s one of those perfect beach days. Not too hot, not too crowded. Everything’s
just right.

Unless you don’t like rotting fish and dead birds full of maggots.

Hunter Brower is hanging out at this Lake Michigan beach. He says he’s seen a
lot of dead gulls here in recent years.

“It’s disgusting. We’re out here to enjoy our time and it’s just not right.”

The birds and fish are being killed by Type E botulism. Basically, it’s food
poisoning. For about a decade now, botulism has been killing huge numbers of
birds in the Great Lakes.

We’re talking about more than 75,000 birds – and scientists think that’s probably
a very conservative estimate. That’s because birds could be dying and not
reaching the shore. And it’s very hard to know how many fish are getting killed.
They’re harder to diagnose.

“It’s really one of nature’s most potent toxins.”

Mark Breederland is with Michigan SeaGrant. He says some studies show the
toxin can paralyze fish.

“They can actually lose their orientation and be bobbing up and down vertically
and that would be easy pickin’s if you’re a loon.”

Loons and other birds eat those poisoned fish, or, even grosser, they’ll eat the
maggots in dead birds on the beach, and get sick. The toxin can make birds lose
control of their neck muscles. Their heads fall in the water and they drown.

Beaches full of dead fish and birds aren’t great for tourism. But scientists are
more worried about what this means for endangered species – from the giant lake
sturgeon to the tiny piping plover.

Mark Breederland says they’re also worried about the thousands of migratory
birds that get killed on their way south in the fall.

“They’re just driving down their migratory highway, pulling over for a rest stop to
get something to eat, and that’s their last and final resting spot.”

So scientists are trying to pin down what’s going on.

There’s one main hypothesis. It involves some nasty little critters: invasive zebra
mussels and their cousins, the quaggas. They got into the lakes in the ballast
water of foreign ships.

Both mussels suck in lake water and filter it. They’ve made the lakes a lot clearer
than they used to be.

The clearer water means more sunlight can reach the lake bottom, and that
kick-starts algae growth. When the algae die, it sucks oxygen out of the water.
And, all of that is perfect for a bacterium that produces the botulism toxin to go forth
and multiply.

Okay, now, remember those pesky mussels? Scientists suspect they can take in
the toxin but they’re not affected by it. But fish that eat the mussels get sick.

One fish in particular loves to eat mussels. It’s the invasive round goby. And
there are lots and lots of gobies in the Lakes. That could mean lots of poisoned
snacks for bigger fish and birds.

Researchers have a bad feeling about all this, and they’re trying to confirm their
hunches.

(sound of boat engine starting up)

Brenda Moraska LaFrancois is headed out on Lake Michigan to investigate. She’s
part of a team that’s collecting samples from the lake bottom.

She says this is a tough mystery to unravel.

“These are really complicated systems and unfortunately they’re continuing to
change.”

As soon as scientists think they have a handle on what’s going on, some new
invader gets in and messes everything up again. So it’s really hard to know what
could be done to stop the outbreaks.

The experts say, if you go to the beach, it’s safe to swim. But you shouldn’t eat any
fish or waterfowl that seem sick.

Your local wildlife managers might tell you: don’t touch it, but get something to
bury the dead animal down in the sand, so other birds won’t feed on it and spread the
toxin.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Tomato Ban Smashes Some Farmers

  • The tomato ban was really tough on some farmers (Photo by J. Beavers, courtesy of the USDA)

The Food and Drug Administration continues
to investigate the source of tainted tomatoes that
sickened more than 160 people. It’s narrowing down
the source of the salmonella bacteria, and has lifted
a ban on tomato sales in many states. Julie Grant
reports on how the ban has affected tomato growers:

Transcript

The Food and Drug Administration continues
to investigate the source of tainted tomatoes that
sickened more than 160 people. It’s narrowing down
the source of the salmonella bacteria, and has lifted
a ban on tomato sales in many states. Julie Grant
reports on how the ban has affected tomato growers:

It’s been a tough June for Florida tomato growers – who
grow 90% of the nation’s tomatoes. It’s not that they’ve
been working too hard – it’s that they haven’t been able to
work.

Lisa Lochridge is with the Florida Fruit and Vegetable
Association.

“Business pretty much ground to a halt for Florida tomato
growers. There were tomatoes out in the fields left, there
were tomatoes in the packing houses just sitting there, there
were tomatoes on trucks that were being turned away.”

Lockridge says Florida growers will have lost 500-million
dollars as a result of the ban. Now that the ban has been
lifted in Florida, she says growers are restarting business
and shipping tomatoes to the stores, cafeterias and
restaurants that want them.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Interview: Grist on Bad Bottles

  • Clear, colored plastic bottles - such as this one - are made of plastic number 7, which contains BPA (Photo by Rebecca Williams)

Recently there’s been a big concern about
bisphenol-A, or BPA, in some plastics.
Some plastic baby bottles and some water bottles have
been pulled from the shelf by retailers. Grist is an
online environmental news outlet. The journalists
at Grist have been looking at the BPA issue for a few
years. We got a chance to talk with Sarah Burkhalter
at Grist about BPA and why it’s suddenly
in the news:

Transcript

Recently there’s been a big concern about bisphenol-A, or BPA, in some plastics. Some plastic baby bottles
and some water bottles have been pulled from the shelf by retailers. Grist is an online environmental news
outlet. The journalists at Grist have been looking at the BPA issue for a few years. We got a chance to talk
with Sarah Burkhalter at Grist about BPA and why it’s suddenly in the news:

Sarah Burkhalter: “BPA has been in our bottles for a long time, and there have just been some
more high-profile studies in the last year. Back in February 2007, the National Institutes of Health
came out with a report saying that there was a link to BPA and health problems. Even at that point,
people were switching over to glass baby bottles and things like that. But just in the same week,
there was another National Institutes of Health high-profile report, just a few days separate from
when Health Canada – the Canadian Health Department – also expressed concern. So, I just think
it was in the news, and people are suddenly realizing that this is a problem.”

Lester Graham: “So, it was a one-two hit in the media, plus when you mention baby bottles, or
possibly the liners of formula cans, that gets people a little nervous, if there’s something toxic in
that stuff.”

Burkhalter: “Absolutely. And, the thing with BPA is that it’s an endocrine disrupter, it can mimic
estrogen. And so the plastics industry has been saying, ‘well, we use it in such small amounts, no,
it’s no problem’. Other studies have said that even in very, very small amounts, BPA can sneak in
and change cell structure, and really muck-up the reproductive system. And it’s been linked to
early puberty, and breast cancer, and behavioral disorders, and all kinds of things. So when they
hear about this being in, you know, things that we’re regularly eating and drinking from, they pay
attention.”

Graham: “Now, here’s the big question – we’ve seen retailers pull some bottles off of the shelves,
there’s been this controversy with Nalgene, and now even a lawsuit against Nalgene about their
plastic bottles – what plastic bottles are safe to use, what ones can’t I use, how do I tell the
difference?”

Burkhalter: “well, BPA is found in number 7 plastic – that’s also known as polycarbonate or lexan –
and that’s the clear, hard plastic. So Nalgene bottles – not the white ones – but the brightly
colored, clear ones. Those are number 7. There’s also, as you mentioned, plastic adhesive in
linings of cans, some of those, BPA is also in some dental sealants. But when it comes to bottles,
number 7 is the one you want to watch out for when we’re talking about BPA. Number 3 has its
own problems – that’s PVC or vinyl – that’s another one you want to watch out for. If you gotta use
plastic, you’re gonna want to look for numbers 2, 4, and 5.”

Graham: “So we look for those numbers on the bottom of the bottle?”

Burkhalter: “Yup. Those are, I mean, you know, they’re not on every plastic, but if there is a
number on them, its ‘2, 4, and 5 to stay alive’. It’s the rhyme I just made up.”

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Lamprey Infests Lake Champlain

  • Two sea lampreys attached to a large fish. This predatory parasite is wiping out freshwater salmon and trout in Lake Champlain. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)

Government biologists working on Lake
Champlain, between New York and Vermont, say
they’re losing the fight against the sea
lamprey, a parasite that targets freshwater
salmon and trout. The lamprey population has
surged in recent years. Brian Mann reports
scientists say the best solution might be to
turn the fight over to federal biologists
who have had greater success fighting
lamprey on the Great Lakes:

Transcript

Government biologists working on Lake
Champlain, between New York and Vermont, say
they’re losing the fight against the sea
lamprey, a parasite that targets freshwater
salmon and trout. The lamprey population has
surged in recent years. Brian Mann reports
scientists say the best solution might be to
turn the fight over to federal biologists
who have had greater success fighting
lamprey on the Great Lakes:


On a gorgeous April morning, charter boat captain Richard
Greenough went fishing. He didn’t like what he found on his line:


“I went out this morning, I got one fish. Looked like it had been
sitting in front of a machine gun. It was skinny. It looked sick.
And that was a good one, because it’s alive.”


Lake Champlain’s freshwater salmon and trout are being wiped out by a
predator called the sea lamprey. The parasites are awful creatures – long and slimy
with circular suckers used to clamp onto the side of fish.


Back in the early 90s, New York and Vermont partnered with the US Fish
and Wildlife Service on an experimental project to kill lamprey, but
since 1998, the parasites have come roaring back. Speaking at a sea lamprey summit
in Burlington, Vermont, Captain Greenough says his customers regularly catch fish
that are half-eaten and scarred:


“It’s almost an embarrassment right now. Two years ago, I thought it
was bad with a 13-inch lake trout with three lampreys on it. Well, it’s
got so good we got a 12-inch with five on it last year.”


State biologists in Vermont and New York concede that the lamprey
response here simply isn’t working. Doug Stang is chief of fisheries
for New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation:


“You see in our current effort, even though substantial and
significant, just isn’t cutting it. We need to put forth more effort. Or
we need to pick up our toys so to speak and go home.”


Government biologists say abandoning an intensive lamprey program
would mean a complete crash of lake salmon and trout populations.
The fish are in danger of being wiped out by the lamprey. Biologists also say the parasites would likely begin feeding on other
species. One possible solution, Stang says, is turning the lamprey battle over
to the federal government, modeling the effort here after a much larger
lamprey program on the Great Lakes:


“This would provide us with a more centralized approach and this would provide us with a more a coordination for funding
and sea lamprey control efforts.”


The sea lamprey program on the Great Lakes isn’t a complete success.
The program is struggling with proposed funding cuts… and some
critics say the lamprey population in the Great Lakes is still too high.


Despite those concerns, Dale Burkett says the feds are ready to do more on Lake Champlain.
He heads sea lamprey control operations for the Great Lakes Fishery
Commission and works for the US Fish and Wildlife Service:


“The expansion in dollar amount would be somewhere around $310,000 more than is
currently being spent by the collective. I think the Fish and Wildlife
Service has indicated that they are willing, if tasked with that
responsibility, to step up to the plate.”


Federal scientists say that new investment would help to save a $250 million sport fishery.
Even so, the Federal takeover would be controversial. The main weapon
in this fight is a kind of poison called TFM that’s used to kill sea
lamprey larva in rivers.


On the Great Lakes, the use of TFM has a long track record, dating back
to the 1950s, but in New York and Vermont the practice is still
controversial. Joanne Calvi is with a group called the Poultney River
Committee. She says the toxins could affect other native species, including
several varieties of freshwater mussels that are considered endangered or threatened by state biologists:


“I’m opposed to chemical treatment with TFM to control native sea
lamprey in the Poultney River. I feel it should be prohibited.”


A new wrinkle here is the growing scientific consensus that the lamprey are a native species
and might not be invasive at all. Green groups say the parasite’s growing numbers reflect a larger problem with Lake Champlain’s eco-system.


Rose Paul is with the Vermont Chapter of the Nature Conservancy:


“We need to manage the lake’s species and habitats in a more holistic
way, that would help us identify root causes of problems.”


Scientists are experimenting with other methods of controlling lamprey including nest destruction, the release of
sterilized males, and trapping. But in the short term, government resdearchers say lampricide poison is
the only cost-efficient way to prevent the parasite from destroying Lake Champlain’s fishery.


For the Environment Report, I’m Brian Mann in Burlington.

Related Links

Is Goby Die Off Good News?

Officials say a disease might be killing an invasive species of fish in Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. The GLRC’s David Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

Officials say a disease might be killing an invasive species of fish in Lake
Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. The GLRC’s David Sommerstein
reports.

Where the lake and the river meet, people have been finding dead round
gobies.

“Dozens in some cases, hundreds of dead gobies that have been washing up on shores.”

Steve Litwiler is with New York’s Department of Environmental
Conservation. He says a change in water temperature or a poison could
cause the die-off, but initial sampling suggests some kind of disease.

“Is it a disease that could potentially affect other fish? Fortunately right
now the only fish that are dying appear to be the round gobies.”

If only the round gobies die, this could be a good news story. Round gobies
hitched a ride from Europe in the ballast of foreign freighters. They’ve
displaced native species across the Great Lakes by breeding faster and eating
other fishes’ eggs and young.

For the GLRC, I’m David Sommerstein.

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Searching for E-Waste Solutions

  • Many people do not know what to do with old computers and equipment, so they end up in the trash.

If you bought a new computer over the holidays, there are plenty of places to drop off your household’s old computer. But to prevent more of the old monitors, laptops and other items from winding up in landfills, some Midwest states are looking to make sure computer makers get involved in recycling their products. One of the few manufacturers that already helps re-use old computer parts is Texas-based Dell, Incorporated. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach went to a Dell-sponsored recycling center and has this
report:

Transcript

If you bought a new computer over the holidays, there are plenty of
places to drop off your household’s old computer, but to prevent more
of the old monitors, laptops and other items from winding up in
landfills, some Midwest states are looking to make sure computer
makers get involved in recycling their products. One of the few
manufacturers that already helps re-use old computer parts is
Texas-based Dell, Incorporated. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Chuck Quirmbach went to a Dell-sponsored recycling center and has this
report:


About a year ago, Dell helped set up and publicize a computer
recycling plant at a Goodwill Industries facility in Dell’s home city
of Austin.


(Sound of clunking)


Goodwill employees and volunteers sort through the hundreds of
boxes of computers and computer parts that are dropped off – at no
charge to the consumer – at the site. Newer computers are set aside
for repairs, and hard drive memories are erased. Older computers go
to a bench where workers like Paul take apart (or demanufacture)
them.


“I’m taking apart all the useable parts. Motherboard, power sources,
cards, ports, metal goes into bins, plastic goes into bins for
recycling and what not.”


(Sound of ambience switch)


Goodwill sells the reusable parts at its retail store elsewhere in the
building. Used LCD monitors, for example, go for as low as twenty
dollars.


Manager Christine Banks says some of the equipment is under
a 30-day Goodwill warranty. Other parts can be exchanged if the
customer isn’t satisfied. Banks says Goodwill is happy this computer-
recycling program makes a profit.


“Our operation does. However, there are 7 or 8 other Goodwills
throughout the country that do this that barely break even. We’re just
fortunate we have higher tech donations, a pool of employees with
more technology, it’s very tricky.”


Some states charge high disposal costs for unwanted computer parts,
which can contain potentially harmful chemicals. Those high costs can
make it difficult for a recycling program to get off the ground, but
environmental groups say the fast-growing pile of circuit boards,
monitors, and plastic parts can leach poisons like lead, mercury, and
cadmium into the environment.


They say small-scale projects like the one in Austin have to be part of a
broader effort to keep electronic waste out of the nation’s landfills. That
effort could include government mandates forcing manufacturers to
safely dispose of old products.


Robin Schneider is with the Austin office of the National Computer
Takeback Campaign.


“So, to really deal with the environmental problems of millions of
pounds of toxins, we’re gonna need something bigger than this. This is a
piece of it…and gonna need lot of pieces of it.”


Schneider says she’s encouraged that some Midwest states are
looking into manufacturer takeback programs. She acknowledges that
recycling may drive up the cost of new computers, but she also says
manufacturers may start redesigning computers so that it’s more
profitable for the companies to take them back.


For the GLRC, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

Related Links

Judge Rules Epa Must Revise Lead Standards

A federal judge in Missouri says the EPA’s standards for lead pollution are out of date. And he’s given the agency about two months to figure out how much lead is too much. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Matt Sepic
reports:

Transcript

A federal judge in Missouri says the EPA’s standards for lead pollution are out of date, and he’s given the agency about two months to figure out how much lead is too much. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Matt Sepic reports:


Under federal law, the EPA is supposed to review lead standards every five years, but Judge Richard Webber said the agency “blatantly disregarded Congress’ mandate.”


Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon filed the suit on behalf of a couple from Herculaneum, Missouri, who claim their son was poisoned by a nearby lead smelter. Nixon says the EPA last changed its airborne lead rules fifteen years ago.


“EPA sets what’s allowable as far as lead in the air. We think science has moved forward over the years to show that is very dangerous both for young kids in older housing as well as around smelters and lead operations.”


An EPA spokeswoman says the agency did not ignore the issue, but instead of updating emissions standards, regulators decided instead to focus on specific sources of lead pollution.


For the GLRC, I’m Matt Sepic.

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Rats Scurrying to the Suburbs

  • Life in the suburbs is idyllic to some people... (Photo by Bon Searle)

Unusually heavy rains this summer are partly to blame
for rats pouring out of the sewers in droves all over the country, and the nasty vermin are relocating to some of the most pristine
neighborhoods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce
Kryszak explains what caused the rat invasion and
what’s being done to evict them:

Transcript

Unusually heavy rains this summer are partly to blame for rats pouring out of the sewers
in droves all over the country. And the nasty vermin are relocating to some of the most
pristine neighborhoods. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak explains what
caused the rat invasion and what’s being done to evict them:


Piercing blue autumn skies and billowing white clouds drift across the chimneys of this modest,
but perfectly manicured suburb. There aren’t even many leaves crunching under foot. Town workers
have already come and vacuumed them all away. But there’s a nasty little secret scurrying under
the porches and behind the garden sheds in this Western New York town. County Sanitation Chief
Peter Tripi takes us for a peek.


“Can you see the teeth marks here? That’s actually rat gnaw marks. And there’s the garbage bag.
And that’s what we found when we went to this property.”


Now, you might be thinking that we trudged through derelict grass and scattered debris to find
these rat clues. Nope. This is a gorgeous, manicured yard – with not a blade of grass out of
place. But Tripi says rats aren’t choosy.


“You would never think by looking side to side that there would be a rat problem in this yard.
Doesn’t matter what neighborhood you live in, or how much money you’ve got. There’s no difference.
They just like your food.”


And you’d be surprised where rats can find food. A garbage can left even briefly uncovered, a
neglected bird feeder, uhhh… dog feces… and even a compost pile.


“Absolutely. This is a rat condo. It’s a grass-clipping compost pile that basically housed rats
to go a hundred yard radius all the way around to the different houses.”


Tripi says rats had to get creative with their housing. A summer of extremely heavy rains drove
the out of the sewers and into some previously rat-free neighborhoods. And with the West Nile
virus killing off millions of birds, the rats have less competition for the food they’re finding
above ground. The consequence is a virtual rat infestation all the way from New York and Illinois
to Virginia, Michigan and L.A. In Kenmore, there have been four thousand rat complaints – nearly
double last year.


(Sound of garbage truck)


Of course, none of this is news to the garbage collectors. They see the problem up close and
personal. Twenty-year veteran Louie Tadaro says this past summer is the worst he’s ever seen.


“Across the street there’s an alleyway and there had to be like ten of them in there, And we
started chasing them with garbage cans trying to kill them, but we couldn’t. By the time we
got there they just split.”


The problem is, they don’t split for long. Vector Control Chief Tripi says now that the rats
have relocated from the sewers to upscale accommodations, they kind of like it.


“And what that means is that they want to live with us. They want to be near our garbage and
our bird feeders. The problem with that is that rats carry diseases.”


We all know about stuff like typhus and the bubonic plague. But there are emerging diseases,
such as a pet-killer called Leptospiroris. It’s killing dogs all across the country. Tripi
says they need to get rid of the rats before the disease starts spreading to humans. So, his
team is taking the rats on, one yard at a time.


Tripi and his Vector control team set rat traps, they fill bait boxes with poison, and – when
they have to – they issue citations to residents who don’t heed the town’s new “rat control rules.” Covered garbage cans only. Clear away all brush. Clean up scattered bird seed and dog feces. Slowly, the rules seem to be working.


(sound of Tripi looking into rat trap)


Still Tripi says it’s mostly educational warfare. And he says now – heading into winter – is the
best time to nip the problem. If the rats get cozy, not only will they stay, they will multiply.
Fully nourished, one adult rat can breed up to sixty baby rats a year.


“The adult rat can live on a little bit of food, but he can’t procreate unless he has a lot of
food source. And they can’t live through the winter unless they’re warm and fattened up.”


So now is the time to – quite literally – put a lid on it. Keep those garbage cans covered, unless
you want some uninvited furry guests this winter, and many, many more come spring.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

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Safety Concerns About New Rat Poison Pill

  • The EPA has rescinded some safety constraints on rodenticides. Some fear this may harm children, because they might now be more likely to ingest rat poison. (Photo by Geovani Arruda)

Plaintiffs in a case before a New York Federal Court accuse the
Environmental Protection Agency of being too soft on protecting children
from poisonous rat pellets. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jenny
Lawton reports:

Transcript

Plaintiffs in a case before a New York Federal Court accuse the Environmental Protection
Agency of being too soft on protecting children from poisonous rat pellets. The Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Jenny Lawton reports:


The poisonous pellets aren’t just tough on rats. Some environmentalists say they’re
injuring young children as well. The Natural Resources Defense Council says more than
fifty-thousand children in the U.S. below the age of six have been sickened by rat poison
this year. In 1998, the EPA made a rule that required manufactuers to put a bitter taste
and a special dye in the pellets to keep children from eating them.


But three years later, the agency rescinded that mandate.


It said it had come to a “mutual agreement” with the rodenticide industry that those precautions
might be making the pellets less effective. But critics say that has put kids back in harm’s way.
Especially those living in low-income areas where rat infestation is a common problem.


Although the EPA won’t comment directly on the case, an agency report from 2001 argued that
when rodenticides are used correctly, and children are supervised around them, fewer accidental
ingestions happen.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Jenny Lawton.

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