If you care about the secondary poisoning of our wildlife by anticoagulant rodent poisons, this is your opportunity to do something that really matters.
We are very proud to live in Malibu, where the City Council on July 8 passed a resolution stating “The City Council urges businesses in Malibu to no longer use or sell anticoagulant rodenticides, urges all property owners to cease purchasing or using anticoagulant rodenticides on their properties in Malibu and commits the City of Malibu to not use anticoagulant rodenticides as part of its maintenance program for city-owned parks and facilities.”
We in the campaign to ban anticoagulant poisons have been waiting anxiously for these new rules from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (CDPR). The new rules are at the proposal stage. They are not yet confirmed. Please e-mail the CDPR with your support.
The proposed rules can be found at: cdpr.ca.gov/docs/legbills/rulepkgs/13-002/13-002.htm
The CDPR started working on revised rules in December of 1999. Since then, many of our bobcats, coyotes, mountain lions, owls and hawks have died needlessly. The new rules can definitely eliminate a big contribution to the ocean of rodenticides in the ecosystem by banning consumer sales of the really bad second generation poisons. Unfortunately, it still allows their use by commercial pest control operators and other licensed permitees. For more information, and a simple form which will send a support letter to the CDPR, if you do not want to write your own, visit action.biologicaldiversity.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=14107.
There are two points you may want to consider emphasizing to the CDPR:
Please do approve the new rules. We have been waiting since December, 1999. Do not let the pesticide industry stop them or water them down.
Please ban the second generation anticoagulant rodenticides by commercial and private applicators. There are other solutions. If the CDPR will not rule for a total ban, please ban them outside of houses, where poison bait boxes are commonly seen.
The deadline for comments is Oct. 4. You can e-mail the comments to dpr13002@cdpr.ca.gov. Even just a short note commenting briefly on the new rules will help.
Kian Schulman, secretary, The Malibu Agricultural Society