The burrowing owl, Cape Coral’s official city bird, plays a vital role in pest control by tackling invasive rats and cockroaches. However, using rat poison could inadvertently harm these helpful creatures.<\/p>\n
David McKinnon emphasized the unique appeal of Cape Coral’s 7,000 burrowing owls.<\/p>\n
“You meet people from all over the world. They come here specifically, you see these little things, and they pop up and they show there’s the little tiny ones,” said McKinnon.\u00a0“They’re, like, this big, and they hold their own. They’re pretty tough little birds. They say it’s just part of the culture here.”<\/p>\n
Jane Windisch from Cape Coral Friends of Wildlife highlighted the owls’ natural pest control abilities.<\/p>\n
“They’re dying of rat poison because they’re eating the rats. Well, even if the rats are healthy, they’re going to eat the rats,” said Windisch. “So if you have owls around, they’ll eat rats. They eat cockroaches. They eat other bugs. So burrowing owls, it’s one of the benefits of that species, is their natural pest control.”<\/p>\n
Windisch explained that rat poison significantly threatens burrowing owls and urged homeowners to consider alternative solutions.<\/p>\n
“Use traps that let the rats in, but don’t let them escape so they can’t take the bait out into the environment. And also, there are contraceptive traps, which interrupt the reproductive cycle of the rats. And that’s a longer-term solution, but it really gets to the source of the rat problem,” said Windisch.<\/p>\n