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Re:another sad news Story



Here's an article that is a bit long but I've wondered for years how come
California is so backward as to plant highly poisonous plants as meridians
along highways fronting pastures and at rest areas. There have been cases
reported of children dying from eating hotdogs which had been roasted using
oleander stalks as roasting sticks. I have heard countless stories of horse
deaths from eating only a few leaves after they were blown into the field
after the plants had been trimmed. If you don't want to read the whole
thing, skip to the last few lines before deleting. Should make you as mad as
it made me (and that's plenty). Found on Horsenet news
http://www.horsenet.com/
Here goes:
Oleander Ban Sought

California -- The Riverside Press Enterprise carried a story on February 14,
1999 by Steve Moore about a woman's campaign to ban the horse-deadly plant
Oleander:
Lauren Nethery gets sick to her stomach every time she sees the oleander
growing just beyond her Cherry Valley corral. Its poisonous leaves, she
says, proved lethal to her prized show horse, Coatie.

But on the other side of the railing, the 5 foot tall oleander evokes sweet
memories for Ruth Inez Towell. Her late husband, Rupert, planted the bush
and it rekindles memories of a marriage that lasted almost 50 years, her
daughter says.

Nethery says she's sympathetic. But she is nonetheless on a crusade to
outlaw the poisonous plants in much of western Riverside County.

The president of the Palm Springs Arabian Horse Association, Nethery is
leading a petition drive and lobbying county supervisors for an anti
oleander measure. Supervisorial aides say their bosses are listening, but
have made no commitments.

Meanwhile, Nethery has collected about 125 signatures on a petition to help
persuade county officials to enact a new anti-oleander ordinance.

"Nobody should have to go through what I did, especially if it can be
prevented," she said.

The affected area would stretch from Temecula to Riverside and from Hemet
through the San Gorgonio Pass. Property owners would be required to yank out
the bushes if livestock was threatened.

Nethery also is working with experts to come up with a short list of other
poisonous plants for her proposed ordinance.

It wouldn't be the first anti oleander ordinance in the county. Norco, a
town reputed to have more horses than people, outlawed oleanders about 25
years ago.

Nobody doubts the toxicity of the plants. Many experts say the only way to
keep animals safe is to keep them away from the plants. Livestock and even
endangered bighorn sheep have perished after eating only a few leaves. Two
horses died of oleander poisoning last December in Southern California.
Coatie was one of them.

Nethery still recalls watching helplessly as her brown and white spotted
pinto suffered a slow, agonizing death. It took three days before the show
horse succumbed on Dec. 8. Test results showed the 6 year old horse died of
a heart attack from oleander poisoning.

"Coatie wasn't just a horse," she said. "Coatie was a member of my family."

Yet California's roadsides and medians have been filled with oleanders since
the 1930s. They make great hedges, require little water and are very hardy.

And until Nethery came along, there were very few threats to oleanders.

Only an incurable, fatal disease known as oleander leaf scorch seems a
threat to the plant. The disease is caused by a thumbnail sized leafhopper,
the glassy winged sharpshooter. The bug sucks the juice out of oleanders,
then spreads bacteria that eventually clog up water carrying tissues.
Slowly, the bush dies.

Riverside and Orange counties have been particularly hard hit.

The oleander leaf scorch was first noticed in the Palm Springs area in 1994
and has since destroyed plantings along freeways, in shopping centers and at
homes. It recently killed half the oleander in a 11/2 mile hedge in a Palm
Springs neighborhood. Bontanists say they have no way to control the
disease.

The red and white blossomed oleander is native to the warm parts of Asia and
to the Mediterranean region. As an ornamental flowering shrub, oleanders can
top 15 feet.

But with poison flowing through the plant, it has earned a sinister
reputation.

About five to 10 medium sized leaves are enough to kill a full grown horse,
according to Dr. Frank Galey, a veterinary toxicologist at the University of
California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine. About once a week, Galey
gets a call about oleanders poisoning livestock. Dried leaves that fall to
the ground or blow into a feed area are the biggest culprit, he said.

Jim DeForge, executive director of the Bighorn Institute in Palm Desert,
said oleander poisoning has wiped out five endangered Peninsular bighorn
sheep over the last six years. Sheep often venture down from rocky hillsides
in the Coachella Valley to nibble on backyard gardens.

"Oleanders are a serious threat," DeForge said. "They are a silent killer
and people don't realize the effect on wildlife."

Some city officials do. Norco's ordinance reads, in part: "No person,
corporation, or public agency shall plant or cultivate the oleander plant at
any place in the city for any purpose whatsoever."

Each month, Norco asks one or two people to remove their oleanders and they
do, said James Daniels, director of community development. The ordinance,
updated in 1997, is enforced on a complaint only basis.

"Most people are reasonable when we talk to them," he added.

But some balk at pulling up their oleanders.When Morris Sternberg bought his
property, a couple of rows of oleanders came with it. Last year, he fought a
ticket ordering him to remove the bushes.

A judge recently found Norco's ordinance unconstitutional, tossing out the
citation. But the ruling only applied in Sternberg's case and the law
remains on the books.

And Rancho Mirage rushed to protect bighorns in 1996 after two sheep died of
oleander poisoning.

Oleanders were banned from new developments south of Highway 111 near the
Santa Rosa Mountains, an area frequented by the sheep. The edict by the
planning department led to a plea in the city newsletter.

Rancho Mirage residents living on the mountain side of Highway 111 were
asked not to plant any more oleanders and to remove existing hedges.

Meanwhile, a bitter battle rages over a lone oleander planted near a fence
in Cherry Valley. For now, Nethery wants the bush transplanted somewhere
else on her neighbor's property to protect her remaining horses.

"We don't want to kill it," Nethery said. "I'm sympathetic. I understand
that her late husband planted it."

Patricia Kramer says her 77 year old mother feels horrible that Nethery's
horse died, but said she must draw the line somewhere. While her mother is
willing to trim the oleander, she fears uprooting the plant could cause it
to die, Kramer said.

"My mother is sorry their horse passed away," Kramer said. "She cares deeply
about animals. She would never deliberately harm an animal."
Pat responds:
So kill the #%* plant. For God's sake, don't trim it and let the leaves blow
into the field. What an idiot!!!!!!!





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