For the last two years, RIR has received complaints about Antelope Valley College's poisoning of ground squirrels, and despite the availability of alternatives, the college refuses to stop.
Poisons are indiscriminate and cause terrible suffering.
Animals who eat bait treated with anti-coagulants bleed internally, causing them to die slow, painful deaths. Poisoning also causes other nontarget animals, such as companion animals and other wildlife, to suffer and die by ingesting the poisoned bait directly or by eating poisoned animals. Once a few squirrels are removed from an area, more squirrels will move in to occupy the still-attractive niche. This should be obvious since squirrels continue to return to the campus despite the college's ongoing poisoning program. This year, we are again receiving complaints about the poisoning of ground squirrels on campus.