A new article from Audubon on the issue of rodenticides; a good, long article from which I am posting only a few snippets.
http://www.audubonmagazine.org/articles/conservation/poisons-used-kill-rodents-have-safer-alternativesPoisons Used to Kill Rodents Have Safer AlternativesA second generation of ultra-potent rodenticides creates a first-class crisis for people, pets, and wildlife.
By Ted Williams
Published: January-February 2013<snip>
Both first- and second-generation rodenticides prevent blood from clotting by inhibiting vitamin K, though the second-generation products build to higher concentrations in rodents and are therefore more lethal to anything that eats them.
...
Because they are weapons of mass destruction, second-generation rodenticides are the preferred tool wildlife managers use to restore native ecosystems to rat-infested islands. But the EPA has declared them too dangerous for public use and ordered them off the general market. They’re still widely available, however, because stores have huge stocks and because a recent court decision has allowed three of the largest manufacturers to defy the order
....
In New York rodenticides were found in 49 percent of 12 species of necropsied raptors. For great horned owls the figure was 81 percent. <snip>
But at least in California and New York, nontarget rodenticide poisoning is a public issue. New York City is much enamored of a 22-year-old red-tailed hawk named Pale Male (“How the Nest Was Won”). In February 2012 Pale Male’s mate, Lima, was found dead shortly before she would have laid eggs. The inside of her mouth was pale, as were her heart, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, and brain. The necropsy turned up fatal doses of three rodenticides, including brodifacoum, in her liver. Pale Male then took another mate, his sixth—Zena. In 2012 the pair fledged three chicks, one of which is thought to have been killed by rodenticides and two of which were gravely sickened by rodenticides but treated with vitamin K and released. The city, of course, has lost many less famous birds.
New York City Audubon entreats the public never to use the two second-generation rodenticides most toxic to birds (brodifacoum and difethialone) and not to use others except as a last resort and never during nesting season, when adults can feed poisoned rodents to their young and each other. But some bird lovers are scolding the organization for not demanding a complete ban. Director Glenn Phillips offers this defense: “Our city has a huge rat problem. We can’t ban all use of rodenticides; it’s never going to happen. If we were to advocate that, we couldn’t get the support of a single city agency. If you want to tilt at windmills, you can try. If you want to actually make things better for birds, you have to do what you can to reduce rodenticides, even if you can’t eliminate them.”
<snip>
Learn more Support RATS (
http://www.raptorsarethesolution.org/) and the Hungry Owl Project (
http://hungryowl.org/). Log on to their websites to find out what you can do to limit secondary rodenticide poisoning in your area.
Take Action Don’t buy baits containing second-generation rodenticides. And if you see them on store shelves, urge managers to remove them. If they resist, give them a photocopy of this article.
Be heard Tell the EPA to cancel general-use registration of second-generation rodenticides. Email: Wasem.Russell@epamail.epa.gov. And cite Docket ID: EPA-HQ-OPP-2011-0718.
