Pictured: a Cooper's Hawk, from Wikipedia Commons.
We picked up this information from the Chaney Trail newsgroup, and it's worth passing along:
A sick juvenile hawk was found in the Chaney Trail area. It was assessed as being poisoned and was sent to the Pasadena Humane Society, but the neurological damage was too grave. Lori Paul said that it was likely poisoned by eating a rodent that had eaten poisoned bait.
According to Paul:
Mice, rats, gophers and other rodents dying slowly of poison will stagger into the open and become prime targets for predators, especially hawks and owls looking for an easy meal. Secondary poisoning can kill non-target wildlife in horrific ways. Accumulated poisons can also cause blindness, liver failure, neurological damage and so forth. Sadly, that is probably what killed the juvenile Cooper's hawk... Its death was a tragic loss for this recovering species that we are lucky to have nesting in our neighborhood.
A few years ago a Western Screech owl died of secondary poisoning (its body was found on lower Jaxine Drive near the intersection with Alzada Road). Poisoned birds of prey are more likely to be "noticed" than other species because they fly and may "crash" where they will be seen. We do not know how many birds of prey or other "non-target" animals have been poisoned, because such victims often die away from view (hiding as they sicken) or get eaten by another animal (possibly causing tertiary poisoning). For that reason, poisoning of wildlife and some pets may be a larger problem than we know. Please help keep poisons out of the food chain.
