When people or businesses are unwilling to co-exist with rodents, or research methods of reducing their numbers humanely, they often, carelessly use poisons in bait boxes. However, this rampant and ignorant dispersal of poisons means that almost every kind of wild animal is liable to suffer and becomes another of the unintended victims.

When rats and mice eat poison, they don’t instantly they die. Instead, they are weakened and disoriented and thus become easy prey for owls, hawks, foxes, fishers, coyotes, bobcats, mountain lions, other wildlife, and dogs and cats, who consume the poison and become victims themselves. Approximately 70 to 100% of wildlife that prey on rodents test positive for anticoagulants, the deadliest and most dangerous of the all the poisons on the market.

While there are many poisons used against rodents, anticoagulant poisons are by far the cruelest, though the use of ANY poison is extreme animal cruelty. Anticoagulants interfere with blood clotting and cause internal bleeding, leading to a terribly slow and incredibly painful death. Other poisons induce seizures, brain swelling, and convulsions. This is no way for any animal to die.

Assembly bill AB 2596, authored by California Assembly member Richard Bloom and co-authored by Senator Fran Pavley, is a common sense solution to remove the most dangerous rodent poisons from use by consumers and pest control companies. Not only is it imperative to support this bill for wildlife, but we must also protect our children, both human and furry. These poisons are dangerous and there are far more humane ways in which to deal with unwanted rodents, such as birth-control laced food, or introducing a few cats or maintaining a feral cat colony program. We cannot afford to lose any more of California’s precious wildlife.

Please urge the California State Legislature to pass AB 2596 and end the use of these horrible poisons.

Click here to take action.