Here is a very interesting article from America on how Pest Control Professionals (PMPs) are being blamed for 'wildlife incidents' when it is almost certainly down to misuse by amateurs. And it has some interesting facts and figures to back up the argument.
That is a very interesting article. Due to the unusually high use of Brodifacoum by amateurs the statistcs are able to show who the likely offenders are. With this in mind, is there anyway of altering the formulations of the amatateur / agricultural / professional products so some traceable 'marker' could be present? This may then give a better indication as to who the main culprits are. I assume it would mean three different registrations though????
Shouldnt be too difficult. Any of the blue/green or red colured baits tend to also colour the droppings so other colourings will probably also work. Production costs would likely prohibit any change. A simpler way would be to just limit the quantities able to be sold to the public. Restrict the sale of commercial amounts to registered professionals and leave small, expensive packs for the general public.
I asked a question about distinguishing between amateur and professional misuse at a seminar when data re the UK situation was presented. I was told that data was not available. To my mind for DEFRA (or their Wildlife Incident Reporting Scheme) to be able to categorise a situation as "misuse" surely they must know enough about it to be able to say which side of the amateur/professional fence was responsible for the misuse? Even if they were only able to find this out in a percentage of cases it would be useful information. If they don't know enough to be able to categorise as such it begs the question as to whether they know enough to say it is "misuse" or whether this is their default category for anything that they cannot pin down.
Hmm, and who among us hasn't gone into a domestic garden at some stage and found OPEN saucers etc laden with bait from the local shop accessible to any passing omnivore ?
Unfair Criticism of 2nd Gen Anticoagulants
Posted - 16 Oct 2006 : 11:11:44
