Title image above is copyright © Birdlife Australia

Have you ever heard or seen tawny frogmouths, boobooks, or barking owls at night (we do!)? This post is for them, with much thanks to NP for sending me this following the Update: An Effective, Homemade Rodenticide post.

SGAR rat poisons are Second-generation Anticoagulant Rodenticide poisons and they are killing wildlife and pets. Warfarin and Coumatetralyl are first-generation anticoagulant rodenticides.

Second-generation poisons bioaccumulate, while first-generation poisons are fully gone from an organism in weeks.

The above header image is in full below, and from this page:


copyright © Birdlife Australia

You can also download that image as a print-quality A4 poster from that page, or directly here.

The Birdlife Australia "“What to buy and what to avoid!” page lists alternatives to SGAR poisons, including one made by Ratsak with natural ingredients! This one, called Ratsak Naturals, is widely available and is made from corn gluten meal and sodium chloride. It works similarly to my homemade one, in that it forms a mass rats can’t expel.

Sodium chloride is simply table salt. I had to look up ‘corn gluten meal’ as corn doesn’t contain gluten. Corn gluten meal is indeed not gluten, but is the main protein in the endosperm (corn kernel). It is a byproduct of processing corn and used as an animal feed. It isn’t cornmeal, or what we’d call “polenta’ in Australia.

I can’t determine the exact cause of death. This patent claims (with great detail) suffocation as the cause. This page claims (also with great, but different detail!) dehydration.

Other SGAR-related articles on the Birdlife Australia site worth a read (and perhaps act on?) are:
The evidence against SGARs
Protect Aussie birds from dangerous SGAR rat poisons.

Great news! It looks like (some, at least) SGARs will soon be pulled from shelves. A big win for owls, nightjars, quolls, Tassie devils, goannas, snakes and any other rodent-eating Aussie critters!