Second-generation anticoagulant rodenticide (SGAR) use in British Columbia was banned in 2023.

Melissa Hafting says, “We can’t stop fighting until there is a federal ban and the province removes or heavily restricts more of these exceptions.”

You can read up about how British Columbia birders won the fight one city as a time on her blog, Dare to Dream.

Halifax is the biggest city in Nova Scotia and happens to be where I live so makes sense to start here.

I don’t think rats are inherently bad, but certainly having them breeding out of control and getting indoors is a problem

The Norway Rat are intelligent and friendly critters.  In fact, the rats they sell at pet stores are simply a domesticated version.  Nevertheless, you don’t want a rat problem on your property and certainly not in your house.  Also, they don’t deserve to endure cruelty.  Poison is very cruel and kills other wildlife who eat the rats who have ingested poison.  This is not limited to Owls, but they are hit hard by this problem.  And Owls are excellent rodent control so why not let them deal with the problem?

The photo above was taken in my garden in the subdivision where I used to live.  I had always seen the odd rat scurrying across the street late at night but never sitting in my garden.  But during the pandemic everyone was backyard gardening, and the photo was taken when there were ripe fruit and berries in every yard.  You can’t blame them for showing up for something to eat.  Solution, pick things as they ripen or just before and be vigilant about it. 

I never hat a rat in my house in all the years I lived there and never saw them in the garden again.  But the house I moved to had rats in the crawl space.  The inspector missed this and I was not present for the inspection.  When I moved in, I noticed a bad smell coming from the vents in the part of the house that is over the crawl space.  I removed the panel to investigate for myself and discovered there was lots of rat crap and pee.  Yuck.  They were tunneling up through the ground and into the crawl space.  And they had a constant source of food from the apple tree next to it. 

I worked on the problem in stages and two years later no problems.  First, all ripe fruit must be picked.  No leaving any apples on the ground.  The deer used to clean them up, but the apple tree is fenced in now for my dogs, so this creates a new job for me to keep on top of.  Next step sadly was to kill the rats there were inside.  I tried to discourage them out but four of them remained and I used heavy duty snap traps to get them.  They were more expensive than the cheap wooden ones but very effective.  Instant death and they died with a peanut butter grin on their face so assuming died happy.  I hate for anything to suffer and hated to do this, but they cannot live in my home.   Next, I bought some heavy-duty steel wool at the hardware store that is designed for rodent control and filled the holes they were coming in through.  Then I disrupted the area by making it unattractive to them.  So, the area I thought they were tunneling through I dug around and removed hiding places.  We also got heavy wire mesh to rodent proof any areas in the basement we thought they could come through if they ever did make it back into the crawl space on the other side of the foundation.

The thing they loved the most about the crawl space was the pink insulation.  Just tons of square footage of comfy nesting material.  They had been in there for years.  I phoned several companies who deal with biohazard materials, and they all quoted 5 grand just to remove the insulation.  Sorry I don’t have that kind of money.  I was researching protective gear to do the job myself.  I figured for a few hundred dollars I could wear a respirator and biohazard suit and do the deed.  But then on top of it there would be no insulation.  And the insulation was not accomplishing anything anyway as the floor was freezing to my feet and the room always cold.  So I phoned a few insulation companies and found one that would remove all the old insulation for me and then spray foam the walls and put a heavy vapor barrier on the dirt floor for 3k.  Sold! 

About 6 months after that had been completed and I confirmed no more rats had entered the space I had a heat lead run from the heat pump into the crawl space through the foundation wall of the basement.  So now the space is conditioned, and the heat rises.  The room is much warmer, and the heating bill didn’t even rise.

There is a resident Barred Owl who I assume keeps the population of rats in my yard under control because we rarely see any evidence of them.  We do see Deer Mice from time to time and I’m sure that is another reason the Barred Owl hands around.  We’ve also had a Short-tailed Weasel come through, as well the neighbours have seen Bobcat.  Assuming Coyotes would also come through occasionally as there are many in my area who are currently well behaved as they have a lot of existing corridors, sadly they are losing that over time, but I won’t go down that rabbit hole now.  We also have many Red Fox in the area and many Raptors such as Northern Goshawk, Northern Harrier, Merlin, and many others.  All these mammals and birds who ingest poisoned rodents would get sick and die as well. 

So why not let the animal kingdom look after itself?  The food chain works well in the wild.  We just need to keep our outdoor spaces tidy and not attract rodents.  So don’t provide food sources, be aware of water sources that may attract them, and be sure to keep an eye on spaces they could hide or make dens.

I think with poison you are never really addressing the key issues, and you need to continually use poison, and the problem is never resolved.  And all the critters who would do the work for you are now dead so it will definitely not get resolved on its own now.  Why would anyone want that?

I’m going to get in touch with Melissa Hafting or someone in her group to find out if their Owl populations are showing signs of recovery and ask for some advocacy tips.  There is no reason we can’t get rodenticides banned in Halifax, then Nova Scotia, and then the rest of Canada.  Who wants to help?