By Nicole Rivard

While Friends of Animals work spans the globe, this month it hit close to home, literally outside our Darien, Connecticut, headquarters.

A staff member spotted three black rodent bait boxes placed against the building.

Talk about shocking.

FoA has been working tirelessly to get legislation passed in Connecticut that would ban the use and sale of second-generation anticoagulants (brodifacoum, bromodialone, difenacoum and difethialone) in the state, the most toxic class of rodenticides.

Raptors and mammals in CT are under siege from these powerful, long-lasting poisons making their way up the food chain.

We sprang into action and pressed our new building superintendent to get the bait boxes and educated him on safer, less toxic options such as sanitation and exclusion and birth control.

A few days later the pest control company arrived and picked up their poison. To say the least, we’re relieved.

For the past several years, we’ve had a front row seat to the full and interesting daily lives of a pair of red-tailed hawks who have decided to build a nest in the crown of a tree across the parking lot of our office. We’ve watched them repair their nest every year, hunt, preen themselves in the sun and raise young. The thought of them slowly bleeding to death from ingesting second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides is sickening.

The truth is you don’t have to wait for legislation to pass to stop using toxic second generation anticoagulants. People can vote with their wallets and insist the pest management companies they hire don’t use them.

Our superintendent said the pest control company assured him the poisons were safe. Pest control companies will say rodents die in the boxes or go someplace to die right after they eat the poison. But the truth is it can take up to 10 days to die, and sickened prey is easier for wildlife to catch and consume.

Compounding the problem—SGARS are being misused by the supposed trained applicators. SGARS have become a preventative tool even when no infestation or health threat exists! Part of the issue is the USDA requires many commercial entities to have a rodent mitigation plan in place for inspection. The easiest thing for places to do is put out bait boxes, and it checks the mitigation plan box. Not to mention they’re making a mint off their monthly contracts.

Sure enough, we checked out the pest control company’s website. It says: if you are a commercial property manager with a problem, please contact us. And if you don’t have a pest problem you should also contact us to get a program in place to prevent a problem from arising.

The poison mongers will also say that SGARS are the most efficient & cheapest tools in the toolbox and that sanitation and exclusion are too expensive. Exclusion and sanitation are a permanent solution for rodent infestations. There won’t be any new costs if exclusion is done right. Over time you’re going to save a lot more money not having to keep putting down poisons.

On the contrary, SGARs will never solve the problem—they’re counterproductive because the bait keeps attracting new rodents to a site with diminishing their population. Pest control companies don’t want to solve the problem—they want the guaranteed repeat business—they’re making a mint off their contracts with homeowners. One FFLD County town’s contract averages $1,200  a month.

Like FoA, Robert Corrigan, the worldwide expert on rats, is pressing people and municipalities to stop relying on poisons and instead improve the storage and management of trash at both commercial and residential properties, such as high-quality metal or heavy-duty plastic containers.

Bushnell Park in Hartford is an example of successful integrated pest management without using anticoagulants, therefore protecting wildlife. Their four-pronged approach: improved waste management & landscaping to remove potential rat habitat, carbon monoxide sprayer in burrows, as well as the birth control product Contrapest.

In January 2024, the company that makes Contrapest released a new and more advanced solution—Evolve™ Rodent Contraceptive (Evolve Rat and Evolve Mouse).

Here are a few of the many success stories!

● Once considered rural, the area surrounding Arizona Worm Farm has seen dramatic change. Farmland once used for cotton and alfalfa has been replaced by housing developments, displacing wildlife—particularly rats—onto the farm. They quickly found a home in the welcoming environment of the farm’s compost piles, worm beds, fruit orchard, and prized tomato house. Within two months of using Evolve, rat sightings dropped dramatically. They no longer have thriving colonies, just the occasional lone rat that doesn’t reproduce. The farm didn’t have to give up its no-poison policy to rid the infestation.

●In September 2024, UC Irvine’s Campus Housing replaced all rodenticides and snap traps across 267 bait stations with Evolve soft bait. After nine months there was 98% bait consumption, indicating strong rodent attraction and real-world acceptance. Because of reduced rodent sightings and complaints, rodenticides have been fully eliminated from the pest control program.

●A premium mixed-use high-rise in the heart of Hong Kong’s is home to a celebrated Korean restaurant on the first floor. It faced an intensifying rat infestation despite the high-rise’s substantial investment in rodent control, including the regular deployment of over 1,000 poison bait blocks monthly. Rats quickly adapted, avoiding the bait and continuing to breed at a rate that outpaced eradication efforts. Within the first month, sightings and signs of rodents dropped significantly. By week three, bait consumption decreased — an early sign of a shrinking colony. After three months, no new litters were detected.