How SGARs affect other animals
Second-generation Anticoagulant Rodenticides aren’t just a threat to target pest species like feral mice and rats, and can affect a wide range of non-target native wildlife or domestic pets.
Ingestion is the main way animals get poisoned by SGARs. There are two ways animals can ingest poisons:
Primary poisoning occurs where an animal consumes poison directly, such as a mouse eating poisoned bait.
Secondary poisoning occurs where an animal consumes another organism that has been poisoned, such as owls eating mice that have eaten poisoned bait.
Click here to learn how to help a suspected poisoned animal
Why SGARs are particularly dangerous for animals and the environment
Rodenticides don’t just affect mice and rats. Even sub-lethal doses of SGARs can result in slower reaction times and worse reflexes for a wide range of animals, meaning they are more likely to be preyed upon or to be hit by cars.
But, the most insidious problem with SGARs is that they don’t break down easily.
Because SGARs break down slowly, poison builds up in animal tissue more easily, making sub-lethal effects worse or ultimately killing animals outright. SGARs also don’t break down quickly through an animal’s decomposition, so animals can remain poisonous for months or even years after they die!
Finally, even though SGARs say they’re fast, they don’t kill immediately. This means that animals poisoned at unsecured baits have time to run around and spread the poisons around, greatly increasing the risk of secondary poisoning events.
In short, SGARs are long-lasting, lethal poisons, which quickly spread uncontrolled
Click here to read more about how SGARs work
Or click here to learn which products to buy and avoid, to better keep wildlife and pets safe
Animals at risk
Non-target animals are affected by primary poisoning:
When someone is focused on a pest rodent they are trying to bait, it can be easy to ignore the non-target animals that may also eat poisoned baits - note that this problem is true of all poisons, not just SGARs.
Besides feral rodents, poisoned baits can be eaten by a wide range of often common backyard animals, including:
native birds like native pigeons, parrots, ducks, ravens, and gulls
introduced birds like sparrows, pigeons, and free-range chickens and ducks
native mammals like possums and native rodents
reptiles like skinks
domestic animals like dogs, cats, and even horses
invertebrates, including many common garden slugs and bugs
Non-target animals are affected by secondary poisoning:
While animals that eat mice and rodents are the ones most obviously at risk of secondary poisoning, many insectivores, scavengers, and predators of larger prey are at risk too.
Of rodenticides, SGARs pose the biggest threat of secondary poisoning.
Non-target birds at include:
predators of rats and mice, like owls, falcons, frogmouths, currawongs, ravens, magpies, and kookaburras
larger predators like Powerful Owls and Wedge-tailed Eagles also eat possums and other birds that have been exposed to SGARs
birds that eat poisoned invertebrates, like ibis, robins, thrushes, rails, ducks, magpies, and shorebirds like plovers
carnivorous birds often scavenge dead rodents / prey, too
Other animals include:
carnivorous pets like cats and dogs
native mammal carnivores like quolls and Tasmanian Devils
native reptiles like snakes and some lizards
native frogs
scavenging invertebrates like carrion beetles