Defenders of Wildlife Blog

When prairie dogs are poisoned with Rozol—an extremely dangerous pesticide—it’s not just the prairie dogs that perish. So do countless other species that rely on prairie dogs for food and shelter.

Black-footed ferrets rely on large prairie dog colonies for food and shelter.

Black-footed ferrets can only survive where there are enough prairie dogs for them to feast on. Burrowing owls use prairie dogs holes to escape from hungry predators. Badgers, golden eagles, swift foxes and dozens of other species benefit from having healthy prairie dog colonies around.

That’s why Rozol is so pernicious. The dust is left behind in prairie dog burrows where it can kill any number of species. But it doesn’t stop there. Rozol is toxic enough to kill any subsequent animal that feeds on the poisoned carcass as long as it persists in the environment.

Fortunately, thanks to the ongoing efforts of Defenders’ legal team, imperiled prairie species in six states will be safer this fall.

Last summer, the DC Circuit court sided with Defenders and put a temporary ban on the use of Rozol in four states. In addition, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency agreed to revisit the impacts of Rozol on threatened and endangered species across 10 states.

As a result of that agreement, EPA announced new conservation measures last week that will limit the use of Rozol in Colorado, Kansas, Montana, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Wyoming. These measures include:

• Prohibiting the use of Rozol in black-footed ferret reintroduction areas
• Prohibiting the use of Rozol in southwestern New Mexico to protect jaguars, Mexican gray wolves, and other species
• Shortening the Rozol application season where prairie dog range overlaps with grizzly bears and Preble’s meadow jumping mouse
• Amending Rozol label to require enhanced searches to remove poisoned prairie dogs before other animals feed on them

Defenders is still concerned that some of these measures don’t go far enough. So far, EPA has posted the new measures on their Bulletins Live! website, but there’s no guarantee that pesticide users will actually implement them. Further, EPA is likely to allow Rozol to be used again in areas not covered by the new conservation measures. Even if Rozol were banned completely, there are still other dangerous poisons on the market that can be substituted, some of which have dire impacts for non-target species.

But overall, the changes made by EPA are a step in the right direction. Meanwhile, Defenders will continue working to get rid of other pesticides that are harmful to imperiled wildlife.

One of the most endangered mammals in North America, the black-footed ferret, and the prairie dogs on which they feed, will have one less hazard to worry about this winter.  Defenders won a court victory barring the use of Rozol Prairie Dog Bait in the states of Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

Rozol, which contains the blood thinner chlorophacinone, causes death by internal bleeding and hemorrhaging.  Dead and dying prairie dogs can be scavenged by ferrets and raptors, which in turn become poisoned themselves.  Defenders sued the EPA for approving the use of Rozol and ignoring federal safeguards under the Endangered Species Act, the Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

In a recent decision, a district court in the District of Columbia sided with Defenders, ruling that EPA had indeed violated the ESA by approving Rozol without first consulting with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service over the potential impacts of Rozol on ferrets and other threatened and endangered species.

The final order in the case bars use of Rozol in those four states, requires that Rozol’s manufacturer Liphatech, Inc., notify its distributors not to sell the product in those areas, and prohibits Liphatech from selling or distributing existing stocks in its possession without relabeling it to reflect the ban in those four states.  EPA has also agreed to complete consultation with FWS over Rozol use in 10 states to prevent accidental injury to other listed species in the West.

A “newer generation” of incredibly toxic rat poisons have been responsible for killing hundreds of owls and other wildlife in the United States, Canada and Europe, according to a host of studies on both continents. These pesticides can kill with just one dose, but death isn’t swift or clean – the animals may “stagger about, dazed but not yet dead,” for days, writes reporter Robert McClure in an in-depth series of articles written for Environmental Health News and Investigate West.

The poisons prevent blood from clotting, causing the targeted rodents – and any other animals that feed upon them – to slowly bleed to death.

The poisons prevent blood from clotting, causing the targeted rodents – and any other animals that feed upon them – to slowly bleed to death. Wildlife ranging from coyotes to foxes, from owls to kestrels, and even songbirds, squirrels and deer, have been impacted by careless applications of these poisons. And humans are impacted as well – McClure reports that more than 10,000 kids get hold of these “super-toxic rat poisons” every year, sending many to the emergency room with dangerous bleeding or other symptoms. Some new restrictions on sales and applications of these poisons are scheduled to come on line next year.

Prairie Dog

But one poison of this type, known as Rozol, is currently approved to kill wild prairie dogs. Rozol also threatens the many wildlife species that depend on prairie dogs, including already endangered black-footed ferrets, swift foxes, owls, eagles and other raptors. Defenders has gone to court to persuade the Environmental Protection Agency to bar use of Rozol on prairie dogs. And this year, Defenders and other organizations helped save a large prairie dog colony in Wyoming from poisoning by relocating them to a protected area within Thunder Basin National Grassland.