A new biological analysis from the EPA finds that rodenticides are jeopardizing nearly 80 endangered species. Some animals have suffered hor
Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:
In humanity’s war against rats, other animals are often collateral.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released its final biological evaluation on rodenticides on Nov. 22 and found that the rat poisons are jeopardizing at least 78 endangered species such as black-footed ferrets and California condors.
The analysis adds to a growing body of research finding that the toxic ingredients in rodenticides frequently work their way up and down the ecological food chain—from iconic bald eagles and massive black bears to insects. If ingested at high doses, rat poison can cause internal bleeding, lesions, lethargy, weakened immune systems and, often, death.
Wildlife and health advocates are encouraged by the recent EPA evaluation, which could eventually inform federal decisions to limit certain rodenticides. But pushback from the pesticide industry and deregulatory fervor from the incoming Trump administration could stall this process. Delays could pose widespread risks for wildlife populations as rat poison use increases and climate change throws predator-prey interactions out of whack, experts say.
Kiawah Island in South Carolina is famed for its posh golf courses, pristine beaches and lush forests. It’s also gained a unique reputation as one of the country’s strongholds for bobcats, furry felines about twice the size of the average house cat.
“They are kind of like a regionally famous little population,” Meghan Keating, a researcher and doctoral candidate studying rodenticides and wildlife at Clemson University, told me. “Everybody in Charleston knows that Kiawah has bobcats.”
But in 2019 and 2020, three of these iconic wildcats met a grisly demise. Autopsies revealed that the animals had ingested second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides—the strongest and most long-lasting poisons that kill rats by inhibiting the body’s ability to clot blood. With this in their systems, two of the cats bled out while giving birth to kittens, which either died in utero or were stillborn. The male’s death was equally gruesome: “He basically was sick, wandering around in the middle of the day and just keeled over in the middle of a park, because he just had massive hemorrhaging throughout his entire body cavity,” Keating said. “His capillaries burst.”
These were the latest in a string of deaths through 2020. Though the species is not endangered nationally, the bobcat population in this area dropped from an estimated 30 to as few as 10 individuals in less than a decade. But bobcats are far from the only animals facing this toxic threat. In recent years, researchers and veterinarians have identified a wide array of species across the animal kingdom falling victim to rodenticides.
