Australia’s native birds, wildlife, and even family pets are being poisoned by Second-generation Anticoagulant Rodenticides (SGARs), a dangerous class of chemicals which are still readily available in supermarkets and online. BirdLife Australia is calling for all SGARs to be removed from public sale and restricted to licensed professionals.
Add your voice today
Make a submission now! Tell the regulator to remove SGARs from supermarket shelves and ensure that only licensed pest control operators can access these highly toxic products.
Last month, Australia’s national regulator — the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) — failed to act on mounting evidence of the serious risks posed by SGAR rat poisons. This puts our birds of prey, native wildlife, and household pets at continued risk.
The APVMA has instead proposed a set of inadequate, half-measures. The proposed changes will not deliver any meaningful reduction in wildlife poisoning. Check out our SGAR scorecard for more detail on why these changes fall short and fail to protect Australia’s biodiversity.
Have your say today. Be a voice for birds and wildlife.Don’t forget to share your personal perspective and tell the regulator to act.
Australia’s native birds, wildlife, and even family pets are being poisoned by Second-generation Anticoagulant Rodenticides (SGARs), a dangerous class of chemicals which are still readily available in supermarkets and online.
For years, BirdLife Australia, experts and our supporters have been calling for stronger action on deadly rat poisons that are silently kill owls, tawny frogmouths, magpies, other endangered and non-target species and even family pets.
In 2022, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) launched a federal review into SGARS and after multiple delays, a series of disappointing recommendations have now been proposed. Instead of removing these lethal poisons from shelves, the APVMA has proposed a set of inadequate regulatory measures that won’t stop the killing of our precious native birds.
Together, we can show decision-makers that Australians want action on SGARs. Protect our native wildlife and pets.
Wildlife exposure still occurs even when products are used in compliance with label instructions. The proposed measures ignore the biggest threat: birds like owls dying after eating poisoned rodents. The APVMA assumes that long-lasting rat poisons can be made safe through packaging, placement, and user compliance. They can’t. SGARs persist in the environment, build up in the food web, and continue to kill wildlife long after they are used. The proposed measures further do not currently include ways to monitor non-compliance.
Other countries including the US, Canada and the EU have already restricted these poisons, but Australia is lagging behind. Safer household alternatives exist, yet SGARs are still sold by the bucketload. BirdLife Australia is calling for all SGARs to be removed from public sale and restricted to licensed professionals.
We need the Australian Government and the regulator to act now to protect our birds, wildlife and pets.
Together, we can show decision-makers that Australians want action on SGARs. Protect our native wildlife and pets. Click here to submit your comments to the regulator today.
You can learn more about how SGARs threaten non-target wildlife like native owls, quolls, and family pets, and discover ways you can help.
Read more
Second-generation Anticoagulant Rodenticides are powerful poisons that cause internal bleeding, but they have two key drawbacks when compared with other rodenticides:
Australian and international studies have proven SGARs pose lethal risks to birds. Dangerous levels of SGARs have been found in studies on dead Australian birds including: Powerful Owls, Southern Boobooks, Wedge-tailed Eagles, Tawny Frogmouths, and more.
The public retail sale of SGARs has been regulated in the US, Canada and EU for years.But Australian regulations lag behind, and SGARs are available for anyone to purchase from supermarkets, hardware shops, and online throughout Australia.
Safer alternatives for household use already exist, meaning we simply don’t need SGARs available for retail sale in Australia.
Help give dying birds a voice by contacting our federal decision makers, and helping get silent-killer SGARs under control in Australia!
