EPA Moves to Ban 12 D-Con Mouse and Rat Control Products / Action Will Prevent Thousands of Accidental Exposures Among Children Each Year

Release Date: 01/30/2013

Contact Information: Dale Kemery (News media only) kemery.dale@epa.gov 202-564-7839 202-564-4355; EN ESPAÑOL: Lina Younes younes.lina@epa.gov 202-564-9924 202-564-4355

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is moving to ban the sale of 12 D-Con mouse and rat poison products produced by Reckitt Benckiser Inc. because these products fail to comply with current EPA safety standards. Approximately 10,000 children a year are accidentally exposed to mouse and rat baits; EPA has worked cooperatively with companies to ensure that products are both safe to use around children and effective for consumers. Reckitt Benckiser Inc., maker of D-Con brand products, is the only rodenticide producer that has refused to adopt EPA's safety standards for all of its consumer use products. 

"Moving forward to ban these products will prevent completely avoidable risks to children, said James Jones, acting assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. "With this action, EPA is ensuring that the products on the market are both safe and effective for consumers."

The agency has worked with a number of companies during the last five years to develop safer rodent control products that are effective, affordable, and widely available to meet the needs of consumers. Examples of products meeting EPA safety standards include Bell Laboratories' Tomcat products, PM Resources' Assault brand products and Chemsico's products. 

The EPA requires rodenticide products for consumer use to be contained in protective tamper-resistant bait stations and prohibits pellets and other bait forms that cannot be secured in bait stations. In addition, the EPA prohibits the sale to residential consumers of products containing brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difethialone, and difenacoum because of their toxicity to wildlife. 

For companies that have complied with the new standards in 2011, EPA has received no reports of children being exposed to bait contained in bait stations. EPA expects to see a substantial reduction in exposures to children when the 12 D-Con products that do not comply with current standards are removed from the consumer market as millions of households use these products each year.

For a complete list of the homeowner use rat and mouse products that meet the EPA's safety standards, visit:http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/mice-and-rats/rodent-bait-station.html. 

For a complete list of Reckitt Benckiser Inc.'s non-compliant products, visit: http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/mice-and-rats/cancellation-process.html#cancellation.

The EPA's final Notice of Intent to Cancel will be available in the EPA docket EPA-HQ-OPP-2013-0049 atwww.regulations.gov. After Federal Register publication of the Notice of Intent to Cancel, Reckitt Benckiser will have 30 days to request a hearing before an EPA Administrative Law Judge. If a hearing is not requested, the cancellations become final and effective.
Information on Rodenticide products and EPA's review is available at:http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/reregistration/rodenticides/

More information on preventing and controlling rodents is available at:http://www.epa.gov/pesticides/controlling/rodents.htm 

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Houndsmen support bear hunting, oppose lion trapping

SAD...apparently not one trapper turned out to speak in favor of this proposal. I find it equally sad that another consumptive user of wildlife would speak against trapping.
Houndsmen support bear hunting, oppose lion trapping

Mass. man attacked by bobcat in his garage

Mass. man attacked by bobcat in his garage

The Associated Press

BROOKFIELD, Mass. — A Brookfield man says all he heard was a hiss, before a bobcat pounced on him in his own garage, sinking its teeth into his face and its claws in his back.

Roger Mundell Jr. went into the garage Sunday morning to fetch some tie-down ratchet straps for a friend when the animal attacked.

The wildcat ran out of the garage where it bit Mundell's 15-year-old nephew on the arms and back.

Mundell and his wife pinned the cat to the ground and shot it dead.

Mundell, his nephew and his wife, are being treated for rabies. His wife was not bitten, but got the animal's blood on her.

State environmental police took the bobcat to have it tested for rabies, which they think is likely given its unusual behavior.

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Montana's first-ever wolf trapping season opens Saturday

Montana's first-ever wolf trapping season opens Saturday

Narwhal Smuggling Ring Busted

An illegal narwhal smuggling ring has been busted by US and Canadian officials in Maine,reported the Associated Press, ending a wildlife trafficking operation that had lasted for a decade.

Two Canadian accomplices smuggled the ivory, which was purchased legally in Canada, into Bangor, Maine inside of a secret trailer compartment, and then shipped them to American agents via FedEx, who sold them to buyers for thousands of dollars each, said the AP.

The National Post reports that the two Americans indicted in the case could face fines upwards of $250,000, and 20 years in prison.

Narwhals are listed as "near threatened" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and as animals of "Special Concern" by the Canadian government.

It has been illegal to import narwhal ivory into the US since 1972, when the species was first protected, although it is possible to buy ivoryimported before the ban online.

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