HI Jade and all
I support what Greg said about live trapping - certainly the most
appropriate if there are risks of killing native rodents as well as the
introduced ones. Ian Temby in his great "Wild Neighbours: the humane
approach to living with wildlife" says Swamp Rats and Grassland Melomys are
the native ones most likely to come near houses in coastal Queensland.
But introduced rodents can be so numerous that trapping may not work. So, as
Ian suggests, why not just try to prevent them being a nuisance by reducing
food availability, netting fruit trees etc.?
If you must use poisons, the message below from Stephen Debus was posted on
22 January this year.
It checks out with expert advice I had a few years back about controlling
rats near bushland and rakali habitat, but note that warfarin may not work
in some areas because pest rats have evolved resistance to the stuff.
Michael Norris
The answer to this one would depend on what bait is used on the rabbits or
other pests. There isn't much risk of secondary poisoning to raptors if
they eat a rabbit baited with 1080, but I think pindone (rabbit bait)
carries a higher risk of secondary poisoning. Same with some of the
rodent poisons-- the older, multi-feed ones like warfarin ('Ratsak') and
coumatetralyl ('Racumin') are much less risk to raptors and owls that eat
mice than the newer, single-dose rodenticides like brodifacoum ('Talon',
'Klerat') are. 'Talon' kills raptors and owls that have eaten poisoned
rodents. There are some other bad ones for raptors too, in the same
family as brodifacoum-- among them I think 'Bromakill' and others in the
'bro...' or 'brom...' (=bromine, i.e. brominated anticoagulants) family.
I'd have to look it all up to find better information.
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