The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1920-06-03
GAME AND SONG BIRDS
ARE SAFE FROM POISON
Crows and Magpies only Birds to
Suffer from Poisoned Oats
For Gophers

Statements circulated in Montana
to the effect that game and song
birds are being killed in numbers by
poisoned oats used in campaigns
against the pocket gophers are
branded as unauthentic in a state
ment issued here by Prof. R. A.
Cooley, entemologist at the Montana
State College and G. A. Roosevelt,
assistant in the federal biological
survey. "There is not a single au-
thenticated case Of the poisoning Of
game birds by use of poisoned oats
in the gopher campaigns says the
statement.
The bait used in gopher eradica-
ton in Montana consists of oats with
strychine in a mixture of other in
gradients. Game birds of the grouse
family and including prairie chick
ems, quail, domestic chicken and
others are gallinaceous birds and
and strangely immune to strychine,
says the statement. At the college
two chickens were fed for 16 days
on a diet of poisoned oats and water
without causing any i'll effects. At
the end of the 16 days the chickens
were turned back into the pens and
the remainder of the bait was scat
tired for gophers. The gopher to try
the oats that the chickens had been
eating died eight minutes later.
1t is known that crows and mag
pies are occasionally killed by eating
the bodies of poisoned squirrels. In
an investigation extending over the
state the men in charge of gopher
poisoning work asked pointedly
about destruction of birds. No re-
ply received indicated that any birds
other than crow or magpies had
ever been killed by the effects of the
poison. Investigators at the state
college, however believe that three
cases have been authenticated where
horned larks were killed by the pois-
on. No farmer has reported that
even horned larks were killed by the
poison. No other "song" bird has
ever been known to have been killed
by eating poisoned oats. In truth,
it is a known fact that the small
birds do not care for oats. If pois-
oned wheat were used in the gopher
poisoning in Montana it is stated
possible that many birds would
be killed. The fact that song birds
do not care for oats is the reason
this grain is used as the base
for gopher poisoning in Montana.
The rumor about the destruction
of game and song birds by gopher
poison has been a hard rumor to
kill, the statement says. One in
at the state college took
occasion to trace a number of the
rumors but never found a single au-
thenticated case of song bird or
game bird poisoning, nor could he
ever find the person who started the
it was always someone "just
the HILL" who started the story.
The president of the state farm
organization, many farmers,
commercial clubs secretaries, bust
ness men and rural and high school
,eachers have written to the state
about the gopher poisoning
campaigns after being questioned
b0,,+ L5-J -1T,o- ~ = -
vas there any statement that birds
had been poisoned with the exception
If crows and magpies.
The state of North Dakota has had
standing for sometime a cash reward
payable to any person who could
show a single authentic case of the
poisoning of a game bird by poisoned
used in gopher eradication.