How not to take care of pests!!!!

[RSKY]

I worked with a guy who did backhoe and dozer work on the side. He told me this story about thirty years ago. He had just got home from work, we were working the midnight to 8 AM shift, when a neighbor on an adjoining farm called him in a panic. Told him, not asked, told him to get his backhoe and come immediately to a certain field. Wouldn't take any excuses just said come over here now! I need you to bury something?!?!

What had happened was that coyotes had killed a couple young calves or pigs or some kind of the neighbor's livestock. The neighbor had managed to get some very strong and probably illegal poison. I remember it was silver something or the other. He had taken a stillborn calf and injected (?) the poison in it and placed the corpse in a back field. Didn't go back and check it for several days. When my friend got there he was amazed to see dead coyotes, dogs, raccoons, possums, buzzards and other critters in an ever decreasing circle around the dead calf. Critters would take a bite or two of the poisoned calf, make it a few yards away and die. Something else would come along and take a bite or two of that critter and repeat the process. My friend dug a big hole, scooped up fifty or sixty critters, and buried them all. He refused to let the neighbor place the poison container in the hole. Don't know how he disposed of that.

Anyway, reading about peoples problems with moles and gophers reminded me of the story. So all y'all dealing with poison taking care of pests be very careful.

RSKY

 

[oosik]

Reminds me of an incident in Alaska. For a year after college graduation - I worked for Alaska Fish & Game.

There was a favorite lake they wanted to rehabilitate. Rehabilitate means - kill all the fish in the lake and plant a more popular species.

The standard poison to use was Rotenone. Mixed with the lake water it cuts off the oxygen supply to the fish.

There was a new product - Toxaphene - that they wanted to try. Tox is a very heavy liquid. Does the same a Rotenone but require less. By a factor of 20 to 30.

Rotenone will make your throat sore. Tox will accumulate in the fatty tissues and eventually will KILL.

Bottom line - they sprayed the Tox onto the lake. It was defective. Would not mix with the water. Lay on the surface like an oil slick.

For over two months - this Tox film on the surface killed EVERYTHING that came in contact with the lake.

Rotenone is a powdered form of the Derris root. Toxaphene is a combination of over 670 different chemicals, and as ADF&G found out, is lethal.

 

[WinterDeere]

Einstein has been quoted (perhaps apocryphally) as saying, "the difference between stupidity and genius, is that genius has its limits." That could be applied to the guy in RSKY's story.

What's the other one, "every warning label has an awesome back-story"?

 

[Jstpssng]

Not quite the same, but...

 

[Complete Turf Care]

I had a college professor tell a story about someone who put out a small amount Temic in his back yard to get rid of nuisance cats.

The next morning, he had 27 dead cats in his back yard.

 

[RSKY]

Einstein has been quoted (perhaps apocryphally) as saying, "the difference between stupidity and genius, is that genius has its limits." That could be applied to the guy in RSKY's story.

What's the other one, "every warning label has an awesome back-story"?

I think that will become my new 'go to' saying, "Every warning label has an awesome back-story"!

Great!!!

RSKY

 

[old and tired]

...small amount Temic in his back yard...

Temik is some pretty toxic stuff, aldicarb. It's now AgLogic (made in China) it's still available. Research station I worked at still had a hundred or more pounds of it.

That farmer most likely still has that chemical sitting on a shelf!!! Most likely right next to the bottle of DDT!!!

Stories of people planting fast and picking up the cotton planter with the wheels still spinning. Spitting out Temik as he turns around and finding dead birds at the end of the rows from the previous turn arounds.