Thanks for posting about this alternative to poison, Emory. Besides the
"collateral damage" to unintended targets like squirrels and pets, I think
a lot of people are not aware of the secondary poisonings of predators
caused by rat poison. Many, though not all, rat poisons remain in the
corpse of the dead animal and can kill scavengers. Also some poisons don't
kill the animal right away and so also end up killing other animals, like
hawks and owls that seek live prey.
On Wed, May 26, 2021 at 9:50 AM Emory Luce Baldwin <
emory@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Even before the cicada invasion, we also noticed more rats in our yard
this spring.
We don't like the idea of putting out poison and pest control companies
all use poison. Our various traps don't work, so I did some research and
found that DC
<https://dchealth.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/doh/page_content/attachments/Dry%20Ice%20Flyer%208%2023%2018.pdf>
and
NYC are using dry ice to pack rat burrows, thereby suffocating the rats
underground with the carbon dioxide from the evaporating dry ice. It kills
rats inside their burrows WITHOUT POISON, so there are no sick rats
stumbling around or poison scattered about which is fatally dangerous for
pets, raptors, kids, other wildlife, etc. The EPA
<https://www.mypmp.net/2017/08/23/epa-clarifies-use-of-dry-ice-on-rats/> has
approved dry ice for rodent control.
Basically, the technique is to find the burrows, put a couple of scoops of
dry ice pellets into each burrow, then cover the burrow to force the carbon
dioxide into the hole and suffocate the rats. (I'm a very big coward when
dealing with rats, but this was really easy.)
The closest location I've found where we can buy dry ice pellets is at
Talberts <https://talbertsice.com/> Ice and Beverage store in Bethesda. I
bought 10lbs for about $30. We stopped seeing the rats in the garden after
using it. We're still checking and noticed that a couple of burrows opened
up again a couple of days later, so we applied more dry ice this past
weekend.
*Emory*
*503 Boston Ave.*
