Owls and hawks
The animals that hunt mice for free are the ones poison hits hardest. Hawks and owls face high secondary poisoning risk from the strongest anticoagulants.
NPIC rodenticide fact sheet455 of 59
dead burrowing owls tested on Marco Island, Florida had rat poison in their systems.5
Owls, hawks and foxes hunt mice for free. Poison turns them into casualties.
- 1
The bait is built to be eaten
Rodent baits are flavored to attract animals. Pets and wildlife can take the bait too, which is why the EPA requires locked bait stations around children and pets.
Sources: NPIC, EPA - 2
The mouse doesn't die right away
Most rodent poisons are anticoagulants: the animal bleeds internally and dies days to two weeks later. Sick and slowing down, it keeps moving: back to the nest, into the walls, sometimes out into the open.
Source: EPA - 3
It often dies inside your walls
Mice rarely travel far from their nest, so poisoned mice often die inside the house. That's the smell coming from inside the wall, where you can't reach it.
Source: UC IPM - 4
The poison moves up the food chain
An owl, hawk, fox, cat or dog that eats a poisoned mouse can be poisoned too. It's called secondary poisoning, and it reaches animals that never touched a bait box.
Sources: NPIC, EPA - 5
And the gap is still open
Nothing about the house changed. The next mouse finds the same opening, and the cycle starts again.
Source: UC IPM: exclusion is "the most successful and permanent form" of control
