Wednesday, May 4th, 2011

Following up on Monday’s post about the ongoing drama surrounding the death of one of Riverside Park’s Red-tailed hawks… DNAinfo reports that early tests show that the male hawk was indeed killed by rat poison. However, it’s too soon to know if that poison was put down by the Parks Department or by someone else (possibly a nearby building superintendent or business owner also trying to combat a rat problem).

Further testing should reveal more information about the toxins found in the bird, presumably helping to narrow the source.

Hawk-lovers are still furious at what they perceive to be negligent homicide on the part of the Parks Department. DNAinfo has another post in which they link to the Urban Hawks blog. There, blogger Bruce Yolton rips into Riverside Park administrator John Herrold for a variety of transgressions. Yolton has a post titled “Why I lost It,” in which he vents his frustration about the unfolding events.

In positive news, that second DNAinfo post reports that the now single-mother hawk has been taking dead (unpoisoned) rats left out by the Parks Department back to her nest to feed her babies. There had been concern that she wouldn’t take the already-dead rats as her natural instinct is to hunt.

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Tags: dead hawk, Parks Department, rat poison, Red-Tailed Hawks, Riverside Park, Upper West Side, UWS