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Hello, neighbors - I just wanted to start a dialogue about safe rodent control and share some information with you.

In case you’re not aware, many of the commonly used poisons to control rats, mice gophers and ground squirrels contain anticoagulants.

Other animals get a dose when they eat a poisoned rodent, and the chemicals can stay in that animal's liver for about a year.

One poisoned rodent might not kill a bobcat or domestic cat, but if they keep finding poisoned rodents, they will die.

The good news is there are safer alternatives.

For rats and mice, exclusion works the best. That’s when you close up any holes leading into your home, then use traps to get them out, for good. Done correctly, exclusion is 100% effective and there’s no need to use poison during or after.

It’s also important to be sure you’re not attracting rodents to your property by leaving out pet food (day or night), feeding birds, or if you have chicken coop rodents can get into.

As for gophers and ground squirrels, they make a machine (and there’s an affordable adaptor, too) that delivers carbon monoxide into the burrows and kills them humanely, and will no secondary risk to animals.

Because of the harm anticoagulants pose to wildlife and ecosystems more people are turning to no-poison rodent control options. Here’s a link to a referral page of companies that provide no-poison alternatives.

https://www.humanewildlifecontrol.org/

There’s also an effort to end use of 6 particularly dangerous poisons. Here’s the link if you’re interested:

https://www.change.org/p/epa-stop-use-of-6-anticoagulant-rodenticides

Okay, thanks for listening and I look forward to your feedback.