FREO council is now officially Owl Friendly after unanimously voting to end the use of harmful rat baits at its meeting on Wednesday.
There’s currently no policy preventing the use of second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides, which are more likely to kill native birds of prey if they consume rats who have themselves consumed the bait.
As part of the owl-friendly “principles and practices”, the City says it will audit contracts with its pest operators to ensure the harmful baits aren’t used, as well as all those used on property owned or maintained by the City of Fremantle.
The City, which worked with Birdlife Australia and Owl Friendly Margaret River to develop the policy, say it will also run an education campaign to encourage residents to use wildlife-friendly pest control.
• This rehabilitated masked owl will get a new lease of life.
City Ward councillor Adin Lang headed up the City’s effort to become Owl Friendly as part of his work as the chairperson of the South West Environmental Forum, a group of six councils in the south-west Perth metropolitan region.
“We developed a standard motion which could be shared amongst all the six local governments in the region, and tasked ourselves to then take them through council,” Cr Lang said.
“Our mission is to achieve environmental improvement or better environmental practices across all the local governments in our region and we thought we can actually make change at government level.
“We’ve got an on-ground role and education role play, and they’re both generating tangible environmental outcomes.
“We hope the education education and awareness will encourage people that the next time they are at the shop, they think twice about what they’re grabbing off the shelf and the impact it might have beyond the rats they’re trying to deal with.”
Owl Friendly Margaret River was founded by a group of expert volunteers, who say they are “happy” for the City of Fremantle to adopt their messaging and initiatives.
OFMR coordinator Boyd Wykes says it is “tremendous” to see urban councils taking action to protect wildlife.
“It’s been so good to get a level of government to step up and care about the wildlife in their communities,” Mr Wykes said.
“It brings it to the attention of the whole community that the council is acting, and brings lot of credibility for the purpose.”
The Australian Pesticides and Veterinarian Medicines Authority, which controls the availability of SGARs, has conducted a review into the use of what Mr Wykes calls “one dose kill” rodenticides, and will offer the results at the end of this year.
According to Mr Wykes, the federal government mounted a legal inquiry into the APVMA which found the authority had been “beholden” to rodenticides manufacturers, which he says was “damning”.
“Let’s hope that they’ve taken that on board and will be more courageous,” he said.
“I don’t think [SGARs] will be taken off the market fully, but it would be a big advance if it was only available to licensed operators.
“Our stores [in the Margaret River region] clearly label the shelves and separate out rat traps and better baits, and we’ve seen a marked change in what our community is doing to control rats and mice.
“Ideally, we would want to have those sorts of measures around the country.”
by KATHERINE KRAAYVANGER