NEWS AND VIEWS: It appears that somebody in a place called Nidderdale, near Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire, UK is deliberately putting down a cocktail of pesticides which the police have nicknamed the “Nidderdale cocktail”. We are not told but it seems that the individual is using bait laced with pesticides. The fact that the police have named this cocktail of four different pesticides clearly indicates that it is an ongoing deliberate act of poisoning animals. The question is which animals are being targeted because at the moment it is killing any animal. Is that the objective of this individual?
I suspect the objective is to kill birds of prey because one of the animals killed is a buzzard found dead in March which had been poisoned with chloralose. The cocktail of pesticides contains the following: bendiocarb, chloralose, isofenphos and carbofuran.
chloralose is licensed in low concentrations as a rodenticide but the three others are banned. We don’t know how the dogs ingested these poisons, probably baited meat as mentioned. One of the dogs did not make it and has died. The other has survived.
The cocktail has been in the area since 2016 and has been linked to the deaths of three birds of prey previously. My immediate instinct is that the person putting down the poisons is a landowner and gamekeeper involved in providing shoots of birds such as pheasants. I don’t know the area but this is the usual reason for killing birds of prey i.e. to stop them preying upon an asset to businesses which make their money from shooting pheasants and partridges.
To an animal advocate the whole process is highly objectionable. Not only are rich people taking pleasure out of shooting birds from the sky with shot guns, the organisers are poisoning birds in order to make their businesses more profitable. The birds poisoned are often highly prized birds of prey protected by British legislation.
It is another example of what can only be described as a poor relationship with the animal world.
