Rat Poison Is Wildlife Poison

Raptors Are The Solution formed in 2011 after one the founders discovered Cooper's hawks dying on the street in her neighborhood. She quickly discovered that the hawks had consumed poisoned rodents (the livers of the birds were tested by UC Davis), and that this problem was widespread. Since then, we have built a strong coalition and have educated millions of people about how anticoagulant rat poisons travel through the food web, impacting wildlife and domestic animals. We have placed educational ads on all types of public transit, including train stations, subways, buses, and trolleys, as well as on freeway billboards through California. We have also placed low-cost ads in magazines and other publications. We have built strong partnerships with the ad companies, and are able to negotiate cost-effective nonprofit rates and placements.

With support from the Dudley T. Dougherty Foundation, we will expand our campaign to design and produce billboards and other public education efforts, including magazines and other publications, in Massachusetts and Washington, and continue our efforts in California as well.

Our efforts benefit all animals that are at risk from these poisons in the food web--everything from barn owls to eagles, hawks, and vultures as well as bobcats, mountain lions, foxes, bears--and domestic animals like dogs and cats. Farm animals and animals like horses and pigs have also been affected by rat poison, if their stalls become contaminated with these products. Our work will benefit people in all of the communities where we place our educational material by educating them about the problem and about about safer alternatives to poison.

We will measure success by the number of views of billboards and other public ads and the numbers of readers of the publications we place in the ads in.