Strong Poison

Please don't poison us! These great horned owl chicks were rescued by the California Wildlife Center and had a second chance at life, but all kinds of wildlife in the Santa Monica Mountains—including owls like these, are increasingly the victims of secondary poisoning from the use of anti-coagulent rodenticides—rat poison. © 2014 S. Guldimann

O, I fear you are poisoned, Lord Randal, my son!

I fear your are poisoned, my handsome young man.

O, yes, I am poisoned, mother, make my bed soon,

For I'm sick at the heart, and I fain would lie down.

—Lord Randall, English traditional ballad

If the wild animals of Malibu and the Santa Monica Mountains could sing ballads, "Lord Randall," a classic tale of death by poison, might be their rallying anthem, but since they can't human activists are rallying to be their voice and work for change.

Anticoagulant rat poison kills more than rodents in the Santa Monica Mountains. Among the documented victims of inadvertent poisoning are mountain lions, coyotes, foxes, raccoons, owls, weasels, opossums, hawks, snakes, as well as native non-pest rodent species and domestic cats and dogs, but there’s a growing move to stop the carnage and replace unsustainable poison use with wildlife friendly alternatives.

Many species impacted by rodenticide die as a result of direct poisoning, but according to National Park Service research, rat poison is a slow and painful death sentence for some species, including bob cats and coyotes.

"I can't say it strongly enough, never, ever use poison to control wildlife. Secondary rodenticide toxicity, and sarcoptic mange [caused by poisoning] is a huge problem right now,” California Wildlife Center Executive Director Cindy Reyes said, at 2010 presentation that I reported on for the Malibu Surfside News. “We are seeing huge levels of toxins in the system. Owls, hawks, bobcats, all come in with poison symptoms. Rat poison is not a good option." 

Here's a Malibu coyote infected with mange. I photographed her on Cross Creek Road in the Serra Retreat last week. She was still on her feet, but seemed weak and dazed. The California Wildlife Center said they can't help in a case like this unless the animal is brought to them. They recommended that I call animal control. However, animal control will only respond to a downed coyote, and their response is usually euthanasia, although in some cases they will work with animal rescue organizations.  © 2014 S. Guldimann

Here's a healthy male coyote with a beautiful bushy tail for comparison. We're lucky that the poison and mange epidemic doesn't seem to have spread to the west end of Malibu, not yet. © 2014 S. Guldimann

Since then, the tide has begun to change. In Malibu, a campaign started by members of the Agricultural Society called Poison-Free Malibu/Santa Monica Mountains, with support from across the community, led to the city passing an anti-pesticide resolution (only the State of California can pass a ban). Predictably, the only ones protesting were the pest control industry. 

A local organization called the Earth Friendly Management Team has added its voice to the fight and is working with neighboring communities to raise rodenticide awareness and change rodenticide and herbicide use policies.

There are still hold-outs in Malibu. Residential pest control companies are doing a brisk business in residential areas. Most of Malibu’s commercial shopping centers continue to use rodenticide bait. One of the worst offenders is Malibu High School, which has repeatedly carpeted the upper playing fields with rodenticides to kill the local ground squirrel and gopher population. But thanks to the Poison Free volunteers, the most dangerous rodenticides are off the shelves in all Malibu shops.

In rural Malibu, the most often encountered rat is our old friend the dusky footed wood rat that I wrote about in November here on the Malibu Post. Wood rats are native wildlife, they are not remotely frightening, and unlikely to carry any kind of disease that is dangerous to humans, although they are vectors for fleas.  Rattus rattus, the common wild black rat, also shows up in some Malibu neighborhoods. It's not a native and is one of the most successful and common animals on earth. I once watched one leisurely waddle across a rafter at Alice's Restaurant on the pier—it certainly added a nautical feel to the place but wasn't exactly the kind of dinner guest one usually prefers. Excluding rodents like these by closing off openings into attics, crawl spaces and outbuildings can keep human-rat confrontations to a minimum. © 2014 S. Guldimann

This, bright-eyed, sleek and shiny pocket gopher is probably rodent public enemy number one in Malibu. It has a genius for transforming gardens overnight into miniature scenes of WW I trench warfare and has a passion for everything humans like to grow. Raised beds lined with heavy-duty mesh are the best way to keep gophers out of vegetable gardens and flower beds. Encouraging owls and hawks to frequent the garden can also help. Traps are the only safe option when all other remedies fail. Coyotes and bob cats also hunt gophers, so do domestic dogs and cats. Gopher poison is probably one of the most common ways rodenticides end up poisoning other species in the Santa Monica Mountains. Its use on the burgeoning vineyards has spread rodenticide into vast swaths of the mountains that used to be pesticide free. © 2014 S. Guldimann

The recently finalized Land Use Plan for the part of Malibu that is in unincorporated Los Angeles County also takes a stand on rodenticides and herbicides.

“The use of insecticides, herbicides, anti-coagulant rodenticides or any toxic chemical substance which has the potential to significantly degrade biological resources in the Santa Monica Mountains, shall be prohibited, except where necessary to protect or enhance the habitat itself, such as for eradication of invasive plant species or habitat restoration, and where there are no feasible alternatives that would result in fewer adverse effects to the habitat value of the site," the final draft of the document states.

“Work toward a poison free Santa Monica Mountains by exploring the feasibility of eliminating the use of all rodenticides at the soonest practicable date, and identify and promote rodent control methods that do not involve the use of poisons.”

An astonishing range of wildlife is being impacted by rodenticide. Owls and hawks are the most frequent bird victims but turkey vultures—part of the local garbage crew—depend on carrion and can easily ingest rodenticide. © 2014 S. Guldimann

On September 11, 2013, the Calabasas City Council also adopted a  resolution urging businesses in Calabasas to no longer use or sell anticoagulant rodenticides, and urging all property owners to cease purchasing or using anticoagulant rodenticides on their properties in Calabasas.

Malibu pesticide and water quality activist and Earth Friendly Management Team member Wendi Werner brought this event to my attention. I'm planning to be there and hope to see some of you there, too.

Calabasas is sponsoring a pet safe, wildlife safe, rodenticide awareness community meeting on On September 11, 2013, 6-8 p.m., at the Calabasas Public Library Founders Hall located at 200 Civic Center Way, Calabasas, CA 91302. It’s free and open to the public. 

NPS biologist Seth Riley will be there to talk about the impact of rodenticides on urban carnivores. He’ll be joined my members of Poison-Free Malibu/Santa Monica Mountains and Julie Elginer, Adjunct Professor at the UCLA School of Public Health.

This is one of the white-tailed kites that winter at Malibu Bluffs Park and are regularly seen perched at the top of the dead eucalyptus trees by the side of PCH. This raptor, which came close to extinction in the 20th century, has extensive federal protections but is reportedly a frequent victim of rodenticide poisoning because, like the barn owl, it depends primarily on mice, and frequently hunts near human activity, where rodenticide use is elevated. © 2014 S. Guldimann

Malibuites who are seeking safe options to rodenticide might consider building or buying an owl box and installing raptor poles in their gardens. Owl nest boxes can help provide incentive for owls to take up residence—this is owl nesting season, so it’s a perfect time to install a box. Just be aware that owls won’t hunt too close to their home base. Prefabricated nest boxes and directions for homemade versions are available from a variety of sources online.

Raptor poles—a simple t-shaped perch on a sturdy pole are good choice for open fields and hills where there aren’t trees or vantage points for hawks to perch. 

Mechanical snap traps are the most humane choice for eliminating rodents when all other options fail. 

Malibu's increasing rare native badger preys primarily on rodents and is another potential accidental victim of rat poison. The intrusion of vineyards into the Santa Monica Mountains backcountry is put badgers at risk of secondary rodenticide poisoning. © 2014 S. Guldimann

Rodentide was an issue that concerned Anne Soble, the former owner and publisher of the Malibu Surfside News, greatly. She devoted numerous "Publisher's Notebook" entries to the subject and we covered the issue extensively. Here's a 2010 article that I wrote about secondary poisoning in bob cats,  a 2011 article on the use of rodenticides at Malibu High School, and a 2012 article on the campaign to eliminate anticoagulant rodenticide from Malibu. I hope the new Surfside News will continue to highlight this issue. It's one that is important to many in the community.

One thing I learned while covering the issue is that change has to take place throughout the community.  Animals don't recognize human boundaries. Animals in our "poison free" backyards can easily be poisoned by neighbors who are not aware of the risk. We need to all work together on this campaign and get the word out to every one.

Suzanne Guldimann

The Malibu Post

This is Pippin, the Malibu Post's official LOL Cat. He's here to remind everyone that domestic cats and dogs and human children are also the victims of rodenticide poisoning. It's a slow painful death for rats, mice,  gophers, squirrels, coyotes, bob cats, owls, hawks, snakes, badgers, raccoons, opossums, cats and dogs. The list goes on and on, but it doesn't have to. It's something we can stop, if we all work together. © 2014 S. Guldimann

Chasing Happiness

There, I give you all I have to help you in your search for the Blue Bird. I know that the flying carpet or the ring which makes its wearer invisible would be more useful to you.... But I have lost the key of the cupboard in which I locked them....

—Maurice Maeterlinck, The Bluebird

I grew up under the spell of The Bluebird. The children's version of Belgian symbolist poet and playwright Maurice Maeterlinck's 1908 play is of my mother's cherished childhood books, and she read it to me often when I was small. In the book, the children Myltil and Tyltil travel to the Land of Memory, the Palace of Night, and even to the Kingdom of the Future, in search of the elusive bluebird of happiness.

That's the cover of my mother's book, above. Myltil and Tyltil, cage in hand, set out to find the bluebird, guided by the personification of Light and aided by a magic diamond that enables the wearer to see the true nature of all they behold.

My thoughts strayed to The Bluebird as I set out last weekend to count birds for the Great Backyard Bird Count. The count is an exercise in citizen science, the play is a symbolist allegory, but Maeterlinck might have argued that everything is an allegory, and that both philosophies seek to uncover what is perceived as the true nature of the world, so perhaps it isn't strange for the two things to overlap.

The Bluebird in mind, here's where my journey took me:

In the Land of Memory, the Malibu Lagoon is lush and green. In the Kingdom of Tomorrow it may look like this again, at the moment, between construction and the drought it's a bit threadbare, although it was still a promising place to count birds, I hoped.

When I arrived, I found my thoughts straying from Maeterlinck to Lewis Carroll: "No birds were flying overhead, there were no birds to fly."

Still no birds in sight...

However, there was evidence of other visitors. A raccoon was here.

In fact, an entire flock of raccoons appeared to have been practicing English country dance by moonlight in the mud.

Deer left neat hoof prints in the soft mud, too, as they skirted the edge of the lagoon to graze on State Park's tender new plants. Deer on the beach used to be a common sight in Malibu. In the 19th century, it wouldn't have been unusual to see a bear shambling along the shore. The bears were gone by the end of the 19th century, and as the houses that form the Great Wall of Malibu sprang up in the 20th century, wildlife access was greatly impeded. The park, with its direct connection to the Malibu Canyon backcountry, provides an increasingly rare island of oceanside habitat.

Birds at last! It turned out to be just a quartet of mallards—three males and a female, but even this most common and ubiquitous duck has its beauty, and is worth a closer look.

A male mallard, showing off his beautiful bottle-green head feathers and his characteristic curly duck-tail.

If birds are living dinosaurs, then the main channel of Malibu Creek is a sort of miniature Jurassic Park. This photo includes double-crested cormorants, an armada of American coots, northern shovelers, gadwalls, teals, an assortment of unidentifiable female ducks, and a lone snowy egret, all coexisting peacefully.

A rather disheveled royal tern joins a party of ring-billed gulls by the edge of the sand berm. 

All along Surfrider beach the sanderlings were out, racing the tide to feast on sand crabs.

This is a more realistic photo of the sanderlings, sprinting out of the camera's viewfinder.

All of the peeps—that really is the official name for the small sandpipers, even if it makes one think at once of neon Easter marshmallow chicks—are speedy, but the semipalmated plover is a little less zippy—and easier to photograph—than its smaller cousins.

On my way home, I did finally see a bird in the reconstructed portion of the park: one rufeous hummingbird, perched on a bare sycamore branch, singing a shrill, sweet song.

I counted 17 species of bird in the space of about an hour. This western snowy plover didn't make the list, it was hiding out in a group of sanderlings and I didn't see it until I took a look at my photos. The snowy plover is a good poster child for the Great Backyard Bird Count. This species may be facing extinction in California due to habitat loss. Its plight has brought conservationists together to fight for its continued survival. Each bird represents hope for the future. The GBBC takes place once annually, but birdwatchers can report their observations all year long at ebird.org. 

And the Bluebird of Happiness? It was at home all the time I searched for it. Isn't that always the message of the story? 

An illustration by Frederick Cayley Robinson, from a 1909 edition of Maeterlinck's Bluebird.

Year of the Horse

Walter Crane eloquently captured the power of the ocean and the almost mystical appeal of horses in his famous illustration entitled "Neptune's Horses." 

All over the world, people celebrated the Lunar New Year on January 31, and welcomed the Year of the Horse. One of the twelve Asian zodiac animals, the horse reportedly brings luck and good fortune and it carries our hopes and dreams on its back as it gallops to meet the future. It seemed like a good time to take a look at the history of horses in Malibu.

There was a time, not very long ago, when many, maybe even most Point Dume families had a horse or two. The stables and tack rooms have given way to guest houses or moldered away, but Malibu's equestrian past hasn't slipped away entirely—not yet.

A couple of Rindge Ranch cowboys and their four-footed companions take a break from work.

There are surprisingly few photographs of the ranch horses, but here are a pair of cowboys and their horses driving cattle under the Ramirez Canyon railroad trestle in 1915. 

In the early days of the Topanga Malibu Sequit Rancho, horses were essential for survival. Even in the early 20th century, before the Ridge family was forced to open the ranch to what would become Pacific Coast Highway, horses offered travelers and the settlers who lived in the Santa Monica Mountains the only reliable mode of transportation through the ranch.

Arch Rock, located between Pacific Palisades and Los Flores Canyon, was a picturesque landmark in the early 20th century. The savvy horsewoman shown above has timed her trip to coincide with the low tide.

 These travelers are waiting for the tide to turn. The journey from Camarillo to Santa Monica was long and arduous. Travelers counted on their horses to help them get safely through the nearly 30-mile shoreline trek.

The caption on the photo, reproduced from a 1950s Malibu Chamber of Commerce publication, reads: "An outing in the early days of Trancas Wash," which was probably what is now the Zuma Lagoon.

I was seeking some additional information on this archival photo of beach riders and found that the Adamson House archive website provides extensive speculation on the image: "Travelers on the ’Beach Road.” ca. 1907. From shadow pattern probably mid-late day on a winter afternoon. Not a road per se, but simply the compacted sand between high and low tides. Until the early 1920s, this was the only relatively open and publicly accessible route across much of the length of Rancho Malibu. However, between aproximately 1910-1920, bitter court battles between the Rindges and nearby settlers frequently interrupted public access to even this pathway." Sounds reasonable, right?

...And then I took a closer look at the riders, and noticed that they're wearing turbans, carrying spears and rifles, and are accompanied by what appear to be two dromedary camels, or possibly a camel and a small Asian elephant, so either this is a film shoot for an early Hollywood costumer, or that hotly contested Malibu Rancho coastal route led in and out of the Twilight Zone.

Roosevelt Highway was bulldozed and dynamited through the Rancho, opening the coastal route to automobile traffic in 1929. The highway signaled the end of the era of horse travel, but not the end of Malibu's equestrian culture. Horse ranches sprang up everywhere as the Rancho was sold off to pay the Rindge family's debts. Rural-residential zoning made it possible for all kinds of residents to keep horses, donkeys, peafowl, goats, geese, and chickens, and barns and corrals were an essential part of many Malibu homes.

In 1947 the first and apparently last Malibu Remuda was held. The cars are parked at what is now the Ralphs shopping center; the horses are being ridden down the middle of what is now Pacific Coast Highway, which in those days ran along Malibu Road. The event, sponsored by the American Legion, featured nearly a thousand riders and included a circus and an air show. Frank Morgan—the Wizard of Oz—reportedly opened the event by rowing to shore from his private yacht dressed in 16th century-style armor to reenact Cabrillo's alleged  1542 arrival in Malibu. 

This Happy Little Person, accompanied by her pony and her fierce and terrible guard geese represents the typical 20th century Malibu girl. This image and caption appeared in a 1950s Malibu Chamber of Commerce telephone directory. Malibu children rode horses everywhere from the 1950s to the 1980s. There were hitching posts at the Trancas Market and the Mayfair Market on Point Dume. Trails stretched for miles through the hills and down to the beach. 

Trancas Riders and Ropers was founded in 1952. Young riders gathered for "shrimp shows" and gymkhanas at the rustic riding ring in the meadow east of the Trancas Market for decades. When the organization was forced to move, it found a new home in Malibu Park. It's still active, but not on the scale it enjoyed during the peak period of Malibu horse culture.

Even Pepperdine had a stable and a riding program—Ronald Reagan reportedly helped the school raise the funds for the program during his term as governor of California. James Wylie, with the help of his long distance endurance horse Butler, taught the classes. During the summer and on the weekends, the horses were available for public riding lessons. 

Here's an infomercial from the same Chamber publication. I've never heard of "Rancho Maria Louisa," and couldn't find any information about it, but there were—and still are—many riding schools in Malibu. Rancho Sea Air in Escondido Canyon, established by Egon Merz in 1941, is still there, run by Egon's daughter Gina. That's where a young Elizabeth Taylor learned to ride for her role in "National Velvet." It's also where many Malibuites have learned to ride.

The author and her brother Christopher on his horse Apple in our corral in the early 1970s. Many Malibu families cherish memories of their horses and the adventures they shared with them. The Point Dume bridle path easements were systematically removed from the city's trail map during the early 1990s. The woman who orchestrated their removal moved away years ago, but the damage was done. Fortunately for 21st century riders, the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area offers miles of mountain trails and some neighborhoods, like Malibu Park, are still horse-friendly.

I learned to ride at Pepperdine, and dearly loved the palomino gelding named Piper I was assigned. James Wylie chose each horse for its patience and its ability to teach foolish humans to ride. We learned our basic skills—including falling off—in the ring, but the best part of any lesson for me was the chance to go out on the trails that surrounded the school.

We rode past rock formations that sheltered enigmatic Chumash rock art; past wells, windmills and water tanks—remnants of Malibu's ranching era, and up along the ridgelines through unspoiled chaparral with the ocean far below, breathing dust and the hot, spicy scent of sage and sumac and horse. 

I remember one long ride into Corral Canyon, past a derelict cabin with roses still blooming in its overgrown garden. We often rode through an abandoned citrus grove and down into Malibu Creek, crossing under Malibu Canyon Road in a cool damp tunnel filled with the echo of horse hooves and down through the creek with its never-to-be-forgotten scent of wild watercress and California Bay laurel. 

Those first rides gave us a glorious feeling of freedom, but we also learned responsibility, for ourselves and for our large, stubborn, sensitive, kind, gentle and sometime irascible horses. We learned to clean their hooves and groom them, check for bruises and scrapes, feed and muck out, avoid hooves and teeth and tails, and develop empathy for another species.

Even for those who didn't ride, horses were part of the daily Malibu landscape: there were horses waiting for their humans at the market hitching posts, or poking inquisitive ears over the fence at the end of the road. There were children riding bareback on fat, grumpy Shetland ponies down the middle of the street, and beautiful, sleek horses dancing through the surf at the beach or flying across the sand at low tide on a winter evening.

It's rare now, but sometimes one even still sees a horse and rider on the beach, running free despite the fences and the rules.

Somewhere between then and now that horse culture slipped away, and Point Dume without all of those horses is somehow less than it was before. We traded that world for one full of mansions and fences and golf carts.

There isn't room anymore on Point Dume for horses, but maybe it's not too late for the rest of Malibu. Vegetable gardens are making a come back. So are chickens and backyard beekeeping. Maybe there's still hope for the horse here, or at least for preserving the freedom and the wide open spaces that horses have come to symbolize.

Gung hay fat choy and happy Year of the Horse.