Squirrel poisoning raises concerns

Alex Coolman

CORONA DEL MAR -- The green plastic containers are hidden beneath thin

layers of soil or dried grass on the steep hillside at Inspiration Point.

They are traps, filled with poisoned bait, designed to kill the squirrels

that scurry through the underbrush.

Sternly worded labels on the containers warn that their contents should

be kept away from animals and children, but the objects are just a few

feet away from the pedestrian path that leads to the beach.

Some residents have raised the concern that poison and public beaches

might be an awkward mix.

“How can they know that it’s just going to affect the squirrels?” asked

Newport Beach resident Linda Koluvek, who was eating lunch Tuesday at

Inspiration Point. “What about the cats who are running around here? And

then you have the gulls and the pigeons.”

The purpose of the plastic bait containers, said Dave Niederhaus, Newport

Beach general services director, is to help curtail the serious erosion

problems that the squirrels cause by burrowing into the already-unstable

hillside.

“At Inspiration Point, we had a substantial landslide, partly as a result

of [squirrels’] burrowing, partly as a result of the wind and rain,” he

said.

The program, which has bait containers installed at several locations in

the hills around Corona del Mar beaches, has been conducted for years,

Niederhaus said.

Public concern about the poisoning, however, seems to wax and wane

episodically. Despite the current trend to question the devices,

Niederhaus argued that the city’s efforts are no more risky than many

domestic pest control solutions.

“It’s just a common rat or ground squirrel material that you or I could

buy at Home Depot,” he said.

The dozens of squirrels scampering across the hillside at Inspiration

Point would seem to indicate that the program is only of limited success.

But Niederhaus said things would be even worse with the absence of the

poisoning.

“They’d be overrun there,” he said.

It was the ineffectiveness of poisoning its wild rabbit population that

recently drove Leisure World officials to consider a mass shooting of the

creatures -- a proposal that was eventually shelved.

Niederhaus said executing squirrels with guns was not a practice the city

planned to consider.