Pilot program in Seattle business district aims to decrease rat population through nonlethal means

When a snowy owl landed between the roofs and trees on Queen Anne last fall, Tanea Stephens, along with other Queen Anne residents and daily visitors, regularly flocked to the back streets of Queen Anne Avenue to admire and photograph the wintering of the land raptors the big city.

The snow bird is affectionately called Yuki – the Japanese word for owl – and became famous in Queen Anne. Stephens, Washington director of Raptors Are The Solution, was concerned about Yuki’s safety. If the bird eats a poisoned rat that consumed a dangerous rodenticide in a bait box in an alley behind Queen Anne North, anyone’s favorite blonde feathers friend could die.

Stephens and other conservationists used Yuki’s time at Queen Anne to educate people about the dangers rodenticides pose to animals like birds of prey and other predators in the food web that normally eat rats.

“You don’t really have to use this really potent poison unless there are other safer options,” said Stephens.

Now Stephens is expanding this work. With the help of the FYXX Foundation, an organization that promotes non-lethal wildlife management solutions, and a willing local pest control company, Stephens launched the Poison Free by 2023 campaign, a pilot program aimed at getting people, especially business owners, to use Don’t traps filled with these dangerous rodenticides in favor of a non-toxic fertility control solution, ContraPest.

BIRTH CONTROL FOR RATS

In a year-long study conducted by the FYXX Foundation in a mixed-use neighborhood in Washington DC, the use of fertility control bait decreased rat populations by 99 percent. The Queen Anne top mixed-use study will see if similar results are achieved, Stephens said.

For the one-year pilot program, a FYXX Foundation scientist will guide Stephens and Parker Eco Pest Control through the process. Stephens said, basically, rats are lured into drinking the ContraPest in strategically placed bait stations. The rat populations are expected to decline as female and male rats cannot reproduce.

Stephens said in an email that the average infertility of a rat fed free-feeding ContraPest for a week is around six to nine months. Depending on the age of the rat when it first consumed the fertility control, the rat could spend most of its life sterile as the average lifespan of a rat is 8 to 12 months.

Best of all, Stephens said, the rats metabolize the fertility control product in minutes, and other species that normally hunt rats, such as owls like Yuki, are not affected if they eat a rat that has consumed the ContraPest. One of the great dangers of anticoagulant rodenticides is that the poison can kill them even if an animal prey on a poisoned rat. You can also poison songbirds and even children if they come across a bait box and consume the sweet-tasting rodenticide. In addition, unlike rat poison, the fertility control fluid will disperse in seconds and not seep into the soil if spilled, Stephens said.

She said FYXX scientists would use the amount of ContraPest rats consumed to determine whether the bait stations are working.

The bait stations are cleaned frequently, and the contrapest’s consumption is measured, and the boxes are refilled as needed, Stephens said. Stephens says that as the rat population goes down, fewer products will need to be displayed in the alleyways and business owners will save money in the long run.

At the end of the year, Stephens said, Dr. Loretta Mayer of the FYXX Foundation will analyze the initial consumption rates with the final consumption rates and develop a hypothesis about the success of the study, Stephens said in an email.

“We hope to have a log that can be used by other neighborhoods,” said Stephens.

STUDY START

Stephens has already successfully won the cooperation of Seattle developer BarrientosRyan to participate in the pilot program for a large residential and food complex that is being built on the site of the current Safeway on Queen Anne Avenue.

The future development site was a logical starting point for the pilot, as the city requires developers to take pest control measures before any demolition on the future construction site, Stephens said. The demolition of the future is scheduled to begin this autumn.

“This is the first time a Seattle developer has used a non-toxic rat fertility control strategy for its demolition, which we think is really exciting,” said Stephens.

Maria Barrientos, lead developer on the project, said the decision to participate was not a difficult one after speaking with Stephens and FYXX representatives.

“Once we understood the food chain and the eating habits of other birds and animals, this was the right way to prevent poison from being ingested by living things,” Barrientos said in an email. “… The snowy owl is a great figurehead for this effort.”

She said she wasn’t surprised city officials approved the non-toxic rat control alternative to traditional rat poison.

“… The city is very aware of these problems and they have supported us very much,” she said. “It makes sense to all of us.”

Stephens said that in the first few weeks since volunteers distributed 27 fertility control bait stations around the site in mid-June, the monitors observed consumer activity at two locations in nearby ivy beds that nest as a nesting site for rats.

NEXT STEPS

After completing the first phase of the pilot, Stephens began recruiting nearby businesses on Queen Anne Avenue between McGraw and Galer. She said that ideally all companies on that strip would participate.

“Fertility control works in a similar way to that [COVID-19] Vaccine – we have to attract a certain number of participants for it to be effective, ”said Stephens.

Meanwhile, Stephens continues her efforts to educate Seattle residents and business owners about the pilot program and the importance of eliminating rodenticides from the food web.

To learn more about the pilot program, visit www.raptorsarethesolution.org/Poison-Free-By-2023.

People can also email Stephens at searatschapter@gmail.com to learn more about the program and rat elimination or the use of rodenticides in their neighborhood.

Further information on the FYXX Foundation can be found at https://www.fyxxfoundation.org/. To learn more about RATS, visit https://www.raptorsarethesolution.org or https://www.facebook.com/RaptorsAreTheSolution.