LETTER: Sweetwater Mesa Murder Solved

Ten days ago I wrote about the disappearance of owls and hawks by my house.

At the time this event occured my neighbor had hired a pest control company to treat his property.

Fourteen bait stations were placed around his house. When he found out what had happened, he was extremly upset and felt terrible. The bait stations have been removed.

The issue is: How do you inform people about the full story of the most popular rat poison? The poison in the bait stations was Brodifacoum, an anticoagulant that causes internal bleeding leading to a slow death.

Of the rodenticides used, this is the most toxic and is especially lethal to raptors. It is the active agent in D Con. Check it on Google and you can see the extensive record of this poison. It also happens to be the best selling product world wide with tens of millions of dollars in revenue. Unfortunately it continues to kill anything that eats the poisoned rodent.

The EPA has attempted to restrict the use of Brodifacoum to licensed pest companies and remove it from consumer off the shelf availability. This effort is tied up in litigation. Actually all it would do is transfer the placement of the poison from cardboard boxes from which pets and children can be exposed, to plastic bait stations only rodents can reach.

This does nothing about stopping the secondary poisoning of wildlife. In my neighbor’s case, using a pest company resulted in far more poison being placed on his property than a normal home owner would set out himself.

D Con is not the only way to control rodents. Electronic traps are very affective as well as the old fashoned mouse trap. Hopefully those who read this will pay more attention to what is used on their property and inform others.

James Smith