A few weeks ago, our boss Robin Bertolucci was telling Jen a story about a major issue not many were aware of.
Robin has a nest of hawks in her backyard and one day she saw that one of them appeared to be very ill.
She rushed it to the California Wildlife Center in Malibu in the hopes of saving its life, however it was too late.
The professionals there, including Dr. Duane Tom, told her that the bird had all the major symptoms of death by poisoning, and this actually wasn't that uncommon.
Many (but not all) pest control companies use a kind of rodenticide that contains a blood thinner in their bait boxes.
Once a rat eats the poison, it becomes sick and is easier prey for animals like hawks, bobcats, mountain lions, coyotes, etc.
Jen decided to delve deeper into this story and was able to speak to Dr. Tom on Wake Up Call to discuss this disturbing trend as well as the other animals who are effected by the poison.
Now that it's understood this is a serious issue, all that was left was how to handle it.
Kian and Joel Schulman heard about this deadly cycle and decided to take matters into their own hands by creating Poison Free Malibu.
PFM's mission is to "educate the public about the problems with pesticides, how they affect the wildlife food chain and our total environment, and to offer viable solutions."
Their site offers statistics on "The Chain of Death", how to identify these poisons, alternatives and other evidence they gathered about the rodenticides.
Jen spoke to the husband and wife team about PFM and their work to have these poisons banned from use.