Latest news with #rodentcontrol
ABC News
05-07-2025
- General
- ABC News
Barn-owl project reducing farmers' reliance on poison to manage rats and mice
With a review into the risks of rodent bait in Australia about to be released, an award-winning initiative is using barn owls as a natural alternative to control rats and mice on farms. Wildlife organisations have called for a ban on second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides due to concerns that they kill and harm wildlife that eat baits or poisoned rodents. Studies here and overseas show some rats and mice are developing genetic resistance to poisonous baits, reducing their effectiveness while potentially increasing their use. But a pilot project in the Northern Rivers, New South Wales, is offering farmers hope of significantly reducing rat numbers in macadamia orchards. The Owls Eat Rats initiative has been in the works for a decade, with the pilot project launched at Banyula, a regenerative farm at Clunes, about 30 kilometres from Byron Bay, two years ago. It involved the installation of hunting roosts and barn owl nesting boxes, addressing Australia's wildlife accommodation crisis caused by clearing trees with hollows that take up to 150 years to form. Founder Alastair Duncan said it took time and effort to establish barn owl colonies, but the impact on rodent control had been so promising that three neighbouring farms had signed up. "They [owls] move in, they breed and they hunt and each breeding event takes about 1,000 rats out of the system," Mr Duncan said. "Farmers don't necessarily want to use poison; it's just that they don't have alternatives. "So when they see something that's working, they jump on board pretty quick." At Banyula, 70 nest boxes — including 12 for owls — span across the property, which has 7,500 macadamia trees and 75 hectares of new plantings of koala habitat and rainforest. Success is monitored by tracking nut damage in the orchards using trail cameras, physically inspecting nest boxes, and examining owl pellets — the regurgitated fur, bones, and feathers the birds cannot digest. "We're finding that 90 per cent [of pellets] is rats and the rest is house mice, which are a really significant pest in the agriculture industry," Mr Duncan said. Wildlife Health Australia notes increasing reports of toxicities associated with rodenticide exposure in Australian wildlife, including birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, and further work is needed to better understand and manage the risks. Mr Duncan said secondary rodenticides build up in predators' bodies every time they eat a poisoned rodent, affecting their hunting, breeding and survival. As opposed to the days it can take for rodents to bleed to death internally after consuming bait, barn owls are fast and efficient killers. Banyula director Matthew Bleakley said owls had allowed them to reduce rodenticide use, target applications and choose less harmful baits. Late last month, Owls Eat Rats was awarded $50,000 by Taronga Zoo's Hatch accelerator program, which helps ecopreneurs tackle serious environmental and conservation challenges. Mr Duncan said the grant would help fund academic research and further his goal of mainstreaming nature-based pest control. Mr Duncan planned to replicate the project on the Sunshine Coast, where he lives, and was working with the Australian Macadamia Society. "It's a massive boost for us," he said. Wildbnb Wildlife Habitat director David Brook spent a decade perfecting barn owl nesting boxes, prioritising comfort and safety. Each pair of owls needs at least three nesting boxes over a small area to provide variety in their habitat. "We realised that the owls were not only breeding back-to-back — so we had four different clutches of owlets in a 12-month period — but they were bringing in 10 to 15 rats a night to feed the owlets," Mr Brook said. "The next stage of this project is to rigorously investigate the idea. "We're bringing in university and industry partners and looking at just how replicable it is across other landscapes and other industries," Mr Brook said. Mr Brook said wildlife rodenticide poisoning and potentially associated road traffic strikes required more examination. "We're now starting to work with the local wildlife hospitals and with Taronga Zoo and universities to better evaluate the impact of toxic rodenticides on the barn owls," he said. Agricultural chemicals are regulated by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA). The APVMA is reviewing anticoagulant rodenticides warfarin, coumatetralyl, diphacinone, brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difenacoum, difethialone and flocoumafen, based on public health, worker safety and environmental safety. In a statement, an APVMA spokesperson said it was "preparing the documents for our proposed regulatory decision for the anticoagulant rodenticides review". "We expect to publish this in the near future, which will start a three-month public consultation period," the spokesperson said.
The Guardian
23-06-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Know thine enemy: my eye-opening ‘rat walk' with New York City's ‘rat czar'
I am standing near a tree bed in a bustling Brooklyn park, with only a few feet of dirt separating me from a 'small' family of rats – that's usually around 8 of them, I'm told. I've come on this 'rat walk' with a few dozen New Yorkers, all milling about awkwardly, subjecting ourselves to the kind of brainless small talk heard at speed dating events. But instead of looking for love, we've come to learn more about New York's rodent population. Tonight, knowing thy enemy means we must slink among the rats. We're led by Kathleen Corradi, the city's famed rat czar, appointed by Mayor Eric Adams in 2023, and we are united by our visceral hatred of rats. We don't want to see them scurry by on late-night walks home, or watch as they slink in and out of trash bags on the street. We especially don't want them in our homes. As one exterminator put it to famed metro reporter Joseph Mitchell back in 1944: 'If you get a few [rats] in your house, there are just two things you can do: you can wait for them to die, or you can burn your house down and start all over again.' An estimated 3 million rats live in New York – far less than the fabled 'five rats for every person' urban legend, but enough to cause problems. While it's unlikely you'll catch the plague, rats can spread leptospirosis, with a record 24 New Yorkers coming down the disease in 2023. Rats contaminate food, damage property and make a notoriously difficult city even harder to live in by ick factor alone. But game must recognize game. New Yorkers are nothing if not tenaciously, blindly in love with our city. Rats, despite humans' determined efforts, refuse to leave it. A lowly transplant might wear a 'New York or Nowhere' T-shirt today but move back to Ohio in a few years. Rodents have their claws sunk into New York, enmeshed in its lore. You have to give them that much. This begrudging acceptance – what Corradi calls 'the fear and fascination' – powers New York's Rat Pack, a club of 'anti-rat activists' who attend three events including a rat walk for education on easing human-rat relations. And for free swag: people who complete the training receive a T-shirt or hat with the Rat Pack logo. (For a club that aims to defeat rats, they sure made their enemy look cool as hell.) When I did my rat walk, I learned that I live in one of New York's official Rat Mitigation Zones (shortened to the rather militaristic-sounding RMZ). To be fair, I didn't need Corradi to tell me this. Rats are everywhere. They live in the walls between apartments. They chew through the electrical wiring on cars. At night, I often find myself stepping off the sidewalk to let them pass by first. In 2022 Jessica Tisch, then the sanitation commissioner, announced their status as public enemy. 'The rats don't run this city, we do,' she insisted during a press conference about a new garbage policy requiring landlords use bins with lids. It had taken New York, which was founded in 1624, 400 years to come to the realization that 'putting lids on trash cans' deters rodents – an undeniable victory for the rats. Soon enough, residents received fliers depicting a cast-out rodent toting a suitcase telling us to 'Send rats packing!' Some wondered: did they have to make the forlorn rat look so cute? In 2023, Corradi got a $3.5m budget to raise public awareness about rat mitigation. The city had long given up on any hope of totally eradicating them, and now prioritizes damage control. It has tried gassing rats by pumping their burrows with carbon monoxide. One vigilante group hunted them down with dogs. Last year, the city passed a law initiating rat birth control in the form of non-toxic pellets, winning the support of the notoriously hard-to-please animal rights group Peta, because it replaces rat poison. My rat walk took place on a chilly evening in April. As Corradi led us around the park, I learned rats only need one ounce of food a day to survive – a minuscule amount compared to the amount of trash on the streets. She urged us to remind our dog-owning friends that rats can survive off the undigested food in pup poop left on the sidewalks (a fun fact to bring up at dinner parties). She encouraged us to report bad actors such as landlords who flout codes intended to mitigate rodents. Corradi also pointed out telltale signs: you can see rats even when they're not scampering around, from the holes they dig for shelter, to the discarded soda cans or potato chip bags they essentially recycle to cover their burrows, to the droppings they leave. The lesson: don't get too comfortable. Ultimately, Corradi said, we're not so different from rats. Like us, they're looking for a home in a crowded, often inhospitable city. Studies have shown people who live near infested areas report greater psychological trauma, trouble sleeping and overall stress. All New Yorkers deal with rats, but the RMZs are historically lower income areas, such as the Bronx's Grand Concourse, Harlem, Chinatown, the East Village and Bed Stuy and Bushwick. In 2016, researchers from Johns Hopkins found that people who live in low-income areas consider rat infestations as distressing as drug sales on the street and the threat of random violence. Recent spikes in rat sightings have also been tied to rapidly warming cities. The rat czar noted, with a bit of frustration, that the city's leaders cannot curb this issue on their own; they rely on us to do our part. During this rousing kicker, a young man pointed toward the sky. We all looked up to see a hawk perched on a lamppost with something dangling from its mouth. Was it a rat? It sure looked like one. With that, we were dismissed from our walk, the hawk as our new rat prevention role model. A few weeks later, I pulled up to a community center for a 'Rat Academy' session – part two of the Rat Pack curriculum. Ostensibly, it was a lecture, but the audience was mostly home or business owners there to complain about the rat problem. Some detailed specific-to-them anecdotes about careless neighbors or insufficient action following reports of rat activity to 311. Again, it was stressed that it takes a village. Know your neighbors, so you can speak honestly with the guy who isn't putting his trash out correctly, or the woman down the street who doesn't pick up after her dog. Rats, who live communally, band together for survival. They look out for each other. Humans haven't really nailed this yet. When we got to the topic of rat birth control, one woman raised her hand and asked, with a straight face, 'Does it work on humans? Because birth control… that's a hard thing to get these days.' (It does not.) What would New York be without rats? It's a futile question: most experts believe that the war on rats is fundamentally un-winnable. We've been trying to kill these guys since the Middle Ages. To quote a 2022 study, 'there is no overarching solution' to the rat problem. We have to layer on all of our efforts – high-tech trash cans (OK, just ones with lids), birth control, cleaning up dog poop – to manage the population, and even then we'll still have rats. So was the whole 'the rats don't run this city' thing wishful thinking? Not exactly. Scientists say we're entering 'a new golden age' of rat research that could push mitigation efforts into overdrive. As Kaylee Byers, assistant professor at Canada's Simon Fraser University, told NPR this year: 'We need to not only understand the rat, but we actually also have to understand ourselves and our relationship to rats in order to move towards a healthier coexistence.' My final task, which would earn me a spot in the Rat Pack: volunteer service. For three hours on a Friday morning in Queens, I picked up trash and rehabbed trees, putting down new soil around their trunks. Fellow volunteer Alex, a freshly retired employment lawyer and Grateful Dead fan, told me he was a vegetarian and big animal lover. But when I asked him how he felt about rats, he shuddered. 'Absolutely not,' he said. 'I hate them all.' I had good news for Alex. According to new city data, rat sightings are down 18.4% this year in all boroughs, but especially my home in Brooklyn, which saw a 28.6% reduction. Still, any reports of the death of New York's rat population would be premature. The rats who live on my block – and maybe yours, too – seem quite comfortable indeed.
CNET
16-05-2025
- General
- CNET
This Humane Spray Is the Only Thing that Keeps Mice Out of My House
CNET's expert staff reviews and rates dozens of new products and services each month, building on more than a quarter century of expertise. The best way to keep a rodent infestation at bay might surprise you. It certainly surprised me. David Watsky/CNET Mice roaming your home is never a good thing. As adorable as their twitchy noses and big ears may be, these little freeloaders are known to nibble on cords, snack on your pantry stash, and leave less-than-charming surprises on your counters and floors. If you've got a gang of whiskered invaders turning your home into their personal Airbnb, don't panic—I've discovered a magical, totally humane, non-toxic trick to evict them. A few years back when the mouse situation in my Brooklyn apartment hit "full-blown invasion" status, I tried everything from lockdown-level food storage to an army of traps. But guess what actually worked like a charm? A humble $18 peppermint spray. That's right—just a few spritzes of this minty miracle, and my home has been a rodent-free zone for over a year. No squeaks, no mess, no drama. Just minty fresh peace. For a detailed breakdown, here are the various methods I used for getting rid of mice, ranked from worst to first. The best and worst ways to get rid of mice 5. Tomcat Bait Station Poison bait stations were the least effective method I tried. Tomcat Poison bait traps represented my third attempt. These devices lure mice in with an enticing smell and offer a block of green, edible bait that's laced with poison. These didn't work at all. I never found so much as a nibble taken from the bait block. And the more I thought about it, these posed a far crueler fate for my unwanted intruders than even snap traps. They also mean dead and decaying mice scattered about your home. Cost: $5 on Amazon. $5 on Amazon. Grade: F. Read more: Keep Bugs Out of Your Kitchen With These Common Houseplants 4. Starvation My first attempt was to remove temptation by overcleaning the kitchen. It worked to some degree, but this infestation required greater firepower. Sarah Tew/CNET My first approach was to starve the mice out by sealing up food as best I could and overcleaning the kitchen after every trip. It worked to a degree and I noticed fewer encounters, but my kitchen doubles as a busy meal-kit testing site; try as I might to keep food bits and odors from lingering for more than a few minutes, there's only so much one can do. Cost: None. None. Grade: C-plus. 3. Humane traps I caught several mice with these humane traps but not enough to stem the tide coming from next door. David Watsky/CNET Next, I tried humane traps at the puppy-eyed request of my partner, a dyed-in-the-wool pacifist. These contraptions work by luring mice into the hull with food; when they enter, their weight triggers a door, trapping them inside. Then, it's on you to release the live mice, preferably far away so that they don't come back -- mice have a famously good sense of smell and direction -- and hope they become someone else's problem. I set two, and they worked as advertised. I caught a mouse every few nights but it did little to dissuade others from following in their footsteps. Plus, having to relocate a mouse five blocks away every other morning got old fast. Cost: $10 (two-pack) on Amazon $10 (two-pack) on Grade: B-minus. 2. Classic snap traps Snap traps captured a lot of mice but did nothing to keep more from following behind. David Watsky/CNET Snap traps were the most efficient at stopping the parade of hungry freeloaders. Unlike the trapdoor traps, these mousetraps do kill the mice but they do so with merciful efficiency. The snap traps worked well and I caught more mice than I can count, but still more came. And these devices posed a danger to my curious terrier, so they could only really be used safely up high on the counter. Cost: $9 (6-pack) on Amazon $9 (6-pack) on Grade: B. 1. Mighty Mint peppermint spray I sprayed my kitchen's problem areas with Mighty Mint and haven't seen signs of mice for a month. That's $18 well spent. David Watsky/CNET Having exhausted most of my options short of an expensive appointment with an exterminator, I resorted to a 16-ounce bottle of peppermint spray for $20 on Amazon. (It's also available at Target for $10.) As directed, I sprayed the white peppermint solution near my kitchen baseboards, on the counter behind my toaster oven and in the crevice behind my wall oven. I reapplied the spray every couple of days. You can also use this spray in basements, attics, the engine of your car or any other spots you might not want rodents hanging out. The peppermint smell was noticeable for the first few hours, but I found it pleasant. The spray went on clear, and there was no damage to the wood floors or marble countertops where I applied it. Two weeks later (as of when I'm writing this) and I've seen no droppings or signs of mice at all -- the first time I can say that in months. To be sure it's working, I left two baited snap traps to gauge whether or not mice have been coming around. Neither one has been triggered. Cost: $19 on Amazon $19 on Grade: A. Peppermint spray is safe to use around pets; a big selling point in this house. David Watsky/CNET Is peppermint rodent spray safe to use around pets and children? Mighty Mint peppermint spray is made from natural ingredients and is safe to use around dogs and children. But you'll want to avoid getting in or near your eyes since peppermint oil can cause burning. It also contains soap, so it's not safe to ingest. How does peppermint spray repel rodents? Mice and other rodents hate the smell of peppermint. (Hard to believe, I know.) The spray contains a mix of peppermint oil (4%), water, glycerin, polyglycerol oleate and soap. What are the uses for peppermint spray? Peppermint spray is used to repel rodents from indoor spaces like mice and rats. It's also used to repel insects including mosquitoes, spiders, aphids and ants. It can be used in gardens and sprayed on plants to deter invasive pests and vermin. Could I make my own peppermint spray? You could easily make your own bottle of spray by adding two teaspoons of peppermint oil for every cup of water instead of buying the solution from Target or Amazon. More pest control tips:
