Poisoned Mice and Dead Owls
By: Mei Bibian
The Problem
- There are 3 dead barn owls found dead near Channahon.
Background Information
- Bio-magnification: is the increasing concentration of a substance, such as a toxic chemical, in the tissues of organisms at successively higher levels in a food chain.
Mice & Owls
Mice
- Some Mice like to live in the soil of fields because of their source of food is located there.
- In Channahon they took up 30% of a farmers property.
- Owls eats 6 mice per day.
- Barn owls eat small mammals, particularly rats,mice, voles, lemmings, and other rodents
Investigation
- Scientists investigated this problem by going through the owl pellets of owls located near Channahon to test to see if they are the same mice that are eating in grain fields.
- They tested this to see if the reason why the owls died is because of the poison that the mice consumed from the grain fields.
Discussion
- To solve this problem the farmer can find a different way of getting rid of the mice than using poison.
- The farmer made this situation worse because instead of losing 30% of his property, Channahon lost 3 barn owls.