Politics & Government
Pest Asides: How Diamond Bar Handles Rodents
Think squirrels and gophers are cute? The critters can carry diseases and cause damage to city landscaping, but controlling their populations safely can be a challenge after a recent crackdown on Fumitoxin.
The common ground squirrel can be adorable — a little fur ball with beady eyes and a bushy tail — but the diseases these animals can carry and the pesticides used to keep them at bay are anything but cute.
Anthony Jordan, Diamond Bar parks and maintenance superintendent, said the city works to control both the ground squirrel and pocket gopher population because of diseases and damage done to landscaping at city parks.
While the city has no doubts about needing to control the critters, Jordan said he is seeking new ways to do so.
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The city had long used Fumitoxin, an anticoagulant gas, to kill pocket gophers. The gas raised concerns after a Utah exterminator in 2010 ignored fumigation codes by applying excessive amounts of Fumitoxin too close to a residence.
Two young girls living in the home were killed as a result. Codes were subsequently changed to require a minimum of 300 feet of distance between buildings and Fumitoxin usage.
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Jordan said Fumitoxin became too hard to use with the new standards.
Diamond Bar no longer uses the substance, which the American Association of Poison Control Centers said resulted in 65,000 exposures from 2000 to 2003 with 95 percent caused by ingestion mostly by children under six years old.
Jordan explained that safety precautions are taken to ensure that humans and pets are not harmed by rodenticides.
For example, poison bait, a grain that has been treated with an anticoagulant substance, is placed in bait boxes on empty hillsides away from human populated areas.
Bait is often brightly colored and comes shaped as a small pellet.
Elsewhere: see Steve Williams' "Going Green" column for .
According to the Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner's Office, ground squirrels and pocket gophers can be kept at bay with a number of other methods.
Poison baits, fumigants, and traps are the most effective remedies and they are available at garden supply stores as well as the Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner’s Office, located in Arcadia.
For more information on eliminating pocket gophers, ground squirrels and other common pests, visit the Los Angeles County Agricultural Commissioner’s website: www.acwm.lacounty.gov.