Online ban circumvention

PHOTO: Dr. NIAMH QUINN

California’s proposed ban of second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (SGARs) is nothing new. In 2014, California designated SGARs with active ingredients brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difenacoum and difethialone as restricted materials. Since then, only licensed applicators could buy and use them in the state.

March 2018 PMP Cover | Photo: ©Greg Gilbert/The Seattle Times

Fast forward to 2019 and California almost became the first state to impose an all-out ban on SGARs — with a few exceptions, including warehouses storing food for human and animal consumption; agricultural food plants, including slaughterhouses and canneries; and factories, breweries and wineries.

Dr. Niamh Quinn, Human-Wildlife Interactions Advisor with the University of California Cooperative Extension, Irvine, Calif., says rodenticides with these active ingredients can be easily obtained online. She worked on a project for which she tried to acquire rodenticide via the internet, and experienced few problems doing so.

“Another big problem we have in California is that there is a lot of access to restricted products over the internet. If the bill eventually passes, it wouldn’t address that,” Dr. Quinn says. “The Department of Pesticide Regulation in California is trying diligently to try and fix this issue, but the internet is a black hole.”

For more on this national issue, check out Pest Management Professional’s March 2018 cover story, “Illegal Pesticides Crackdown.”

Some of the rodenticides Dr. Niamh Quinn acquired online are shown here. Included are products with active ingredients not registered in the U.S., unregistered products, repackaged products without labels or instructions, and restricted products meant only for licensed professionals. “We actually have detected some of these products in coyotes found in Orange County, California,” she says.