Anticoagulant rodenticides interfere with blood clotting, leading to uncontrollable bleeding leading to death. Supertoxic poisons include second-generation anticoagulants brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difethialone and difenacoum, which are especially dangerous and remain in body tissues for a long time. Predators and scavengers that feed on poisoned rodents are often poisoned by these slow-acting rodenticides. Children and pets are especially susceptible to rodenticide poisoning. Young children regularly consume poison intended for rodents, confusing bait with food. Similarly, pets directly eat the bait or eat poisoned rodents. Between 1999 and 2009, the American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC) received reports of an average of 17,000 people being exposed to rodenticides each year. The vast majority, about 15,000, of these exposures were for children under the age of six. The AAPCC reported more than 50,000 rodenticide dog poisonings in 2014. Rodents that consume anticoagulant rodenticides are often consumed by other wildlife, resulting in secondary poisoning and food chain poisoning.
Second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides developed in the 1970s are more effective than previous compounds. Supertoxic rodenticides have a half-life of more than 100 days in rodents. Rodenticides have always offered an effective solution for killing rats and mice, but secondary poisoning, which can endanger other animals and even humans, means the risks far outweigh the benefits. AB 1788 contains many exceptions, including wineries, breweries, warehouses, factories, agricultural sites, medical facilities, as well as pharmaceutical and medical device production facilities, etc. Reardon and others argue that with these exceptions, AB 1788 really does not protect wildlife from SGARs, as the proponents of the law have announced. „Guess what: places that are exempt, like vineyards, are right next to wildlife. The sponsors got what they wanted, but the fact is that this law does nothing to protect wildlife,“ Reydon said. The only safe solution is to use no poisons, but since Los Angeles and San Francisco remain among the five most rat-infested cities in America, it`s no surprise to hear that California residents are looking for other pest control methods to control the influx of rats. Anticoagulant poisoning has been found in many California wildlife, including coyotes, San Joaquin dwarf foxes, black bears, raccoons, mountain lions, bald eagles, tawny owls, skunks, and bobcats. Some of these include endangered and threatened species.
The California Environmental Protection Agency has documented rodenticide residues in 27 species of birds and 17 species of mammals. There is no way to determine the exact number of animals killed, in part because animals usually retreat to burrows or other hiding places in the last hours of their lives. Anticoagulant rodenticides are divided into first or second generation. First-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (FGARs) require several consecutive feedings for a lethal dose of poison to accumulate. Currently, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) lists three registered GAGs, including warfarin, chlorophacinone and diphacinone. „Rodenticides are known to cause extreme suffering and death in non-target animals such as birds of prey injured by secondary poisoning,“ said Kim Kelly, director of legislative affairs for the Animal Legal Defense Fund. „It makes perfect sense to end this cruel practice with much safer alternatives. Rodenticides containing warfarin, chlorophacinone and diphacinone are not restricted in California because they are classified as first-generation poisons and are considered less harmful. If physical exclusion is not possible, there are dozens of safer rodent control options, including providing owl nest boxes in rural areas to promote natural predators.
More than 175 less toxic rat poison products are still available. The Animal Legal Defense Fund works to protect animal lives and promote the interests of animals through the legal system with wide-ranging prosecutions. free legal advice to prosecutors; legislative advocacy; and resources for law students and professionals to advance the field of animal rights. aldf.org. Beginning in 1788, banned most uses of rodenticides containing brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difenacoum, or difethialone to reduce poisoning of non-target wildlife until re-evaluation by the Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) was completed; The Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) will also play an advisory role in the re-evaluation. While all anticoagulant rodenticides have harmful effects on wildlife, ARGS such as difenacoum, brodifacoum, bromadiolone and difethialone are particularly dangerous because they are more effective than previous generations of poisons. A single dose has a half-life of more than 100 days in the liver of a rat. Secondary poisoning of rodenticides in mammals, birds of prey and scavengers is a major environmental problem. Predators are a natural form of pest control, but by hunting and eating rodent prey, the predators themselves fall victim to the poison. The downstream effects of secondary poisoning are an exhausted pool of natural enemies that would otherwise control the rodent population. Some of the wildlife species affected in California include skunks, raccoons, foxes, coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats, hawks, eagles and owls. In the 1940s and 1950s, first-generation rodenticides (FGARs) were developed to combat the overwhelming number of rats and mice invading our cities and farms.
The first-generation poison works by using blood thinners to thin the blood and prevent clotting. After eating the bait during several feedings, the target animal begins to suffer from uncontrolled internal bleeding or bleeding. It can take up to a week for it to take effect. Despite the ban on sales to consumers in 2014, supertoxic rodenticides continued to be heavily used by commercial operators. Analysis of 11 wildlife studies conducted by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation in 2018 found that blood-thinning rodenticides poison a variety of animals, including mountain lions, bobcats, hawks, and endangered wildlife such as Pacific anglers, spotted owls, and San Joaquin dwarf foxes. But the bill authorizes the use of poisons to protect public health, citing rodent infestation, which poses an „urgent“ and „significant“ risk to human health. An alternative to using rat poison, like a bucket with a rolling tree trunk: in addition to environmental persistence, these toxins persist in the bodies of the animals that consumed them.