a publication of note

Here's an excerpt from the first of the relevant publications:
(bibliographic data in APA format follows)

In France, rodenticides are classified into two major product categories: (1) long-acting anticoagulants, representing over 95% of rodenticides used, and (2) short-acting products, such as crimidine and alpha-chloralose, which are still in use, particularly against mice (ACTA, 2005). Anticoagulants are used to control field voles (Microtus arvalis) and water voles (Arvicola terrestris), although widespread use of bromadiolone, a second-generation anticoagulant, has been associated with substantial secondary poisoning of predators and scavengers, mainly birds of prey (Berny et al., 1997, 1998; Berny and Gaillet, 2008). Secondary poisoning has also been observed in some water birds, such as the grey heron (Ardea cinerea). Anticoagulant poisoning is reported less frequently in other birds with some 14% detected in waterfowl, 4% in pigeons and 18% in partridges; however it did account for 47% of all poisoning cases in birds of prey (Lamarque et al., 1999).' Alpha-chloralose is another common poisoning agent in birds in France, primarily in game species, such as water birds (43%) and partridges (10%).

Guitart, R., Sachana, M., Caloni, F., Croubels, S., Vandenbroucke, V., & Berny, P. (2010). Animal poisoning in Europe. Part 3: Wildlife. The Veterinary Journal, 183(3), 260-265. doi: 10.1016/j.tvjl.2009.03.033

baby bunny found dead by poison box

Today got a bit busy, what with the rebuild of the uvicbunnies.org site, and all. No poison write-up, yet, or pics of the bunnies in the construction areas. I did get pics of that baby bunny found by the poison box, so I thought I should address that briefly:

The poison boxes are not a "smoking gun". If someone was intentionally giving feed laced with bromadiolone to the rabbits, that would be an entirely different thing. The stuff is toxic, but it is also what is approved for its intended purpose (killing Norway rats) and also for how it's deployed at UVic to that end. I hope to get into this a lot more thoroughly tomorrow, but the bottom line is that it might be killing some wildlife, but the numbers are not statistically significant given what would be the impact of not killing the rats on campus. Since rats have been observed attacking rabbits on campus, including baby rabbits, this isn't a point that should be dismissed, IMHO.

Apparently UVic has a lot of rats.

poison

I had a little bit of time at lunch today to do some digging into the poison that's used in the poison boxes. Nasty stuff called bromadiolone. If you're bored and have access to journals through a university library account, do some digging...

I found (in a short search) 15 papers on the stuff and it's effects on wildlife as an unintended side effect of its use on mice and rats, primarily Norway rats. These were all in refereed journals, btw, and I should be able to put excerpts and citations up tomorrow. Today was just too nuts :(

I've put up an excerpt from an report that LGL Ltd. did for UVic back in 2008; have a look in the pages. This came from the results of an FOI request, and was kindly donated to our efforts. There's more where that came from, too, it's just a question of time to get it typed up...