Enacts the restriction of anticoagulant pesticide transactions for online and retail stores act

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why Pete Harckham says this is needed

The Bald Eagle has been the official emblem of the United States since 1782. They're held in such high regard that felony convictions for violating the Bald & Golden Eagle Protection Act can yield a $250,000 fine or two years of imprisonment. Despite the Eagles being a staple of American tradition, rodenticides have unfortunately led to the poisoning of the birds due to loopholes in protection taws. When homeowners or property managers discover a rodent infestation, the top effective rat poisons return with not only a solution to their issue, but also products containing an anticoagulant rodenticide. These pesticides differ from other rat control methods in 2 unique qualities: 1) A single feeding of Anticoagulant bait is fatal, but it may take 5-9 days for a rodent to actually die as it gradually becomes more sedated. 2) Due to this delay, the animals often eat multiple doses, allowing for super- lethal concentrations of the rodenticide to accumulate in its body & persist in the tissue between four months and a year. Unlike other raptors, the Bald Eagle doesn't typically hunt rats, but they are oppor- tunistic foragers known to scavenge or prey on small mammals. Not only can household pets face the adversity of these poisons, but thousands of children and adults must often call poison control centers for anticoag- ulant exposure. Even when used by professionals for their intended purpose, anticoagulant rodenticides have unfortunate impacts on unin- tended audiences. A $3 million ecosystem restoration campaign on a rat-infested island off the coast of Alaska, executed by a federal agency, successfully etimi- nated the invasive rodents, but tying dead amongst them were 46 bald eagles, 320 glaucous-winged gulls, one peregrine falcon, and 53 other birds representing 24 species. Equally troubling, rats are becoming genetically resistant to anticoagulants like warfarin. Turkish black rats and brown rats, common species globally, are showing increases in genetic mutations that allow for enhanced metabotization & alterations in enzymes that warfarin attacks. Continued use of anticoagulants will likely result in further decreases in effectiveness in rats while continuing to poison people and other animals. Compared to alternative pest control methods, one study conducted in homes and rice mitts over two years found that the anticoagulant rodenticide was less effective than cats, lethal traps, and non-lethal traps. Although the Rat Island project, genetic mutations, and effectiveness study occurred within the last two decades, the issue of non-target poisonings has been monitored by the DEC for over fifty years. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) monitored the poisoning of non-target wildlife with anticoagulants from 1971 through 1997, and though half the cases involved raptor birds, other poisoned animals included gray squirrels, raccoons, white-tailed deer, red foxes, skunks, and opossums. Cornell University found that 68% of red-tailed hawks had anticoagulants in their systems during a 2022 study, a shocking increase from the 6% DEC recorded in their study. In March of 2024, Flaco, the famed Eurasian eagle-owl who escaped the Central Park Zoo, died with lethal doses in his system of 4 different anticoagulant rodenticides commonly used for pest control in the City. Tragically, this same call for action went unheard a decade before Flaco's rise to fame, when anticoagulants took the life of Lima, iconic mate of a famous Manhattan red-tailed hawk named Pale Male. Interest- ingly, Flaco's toxicology tests also revealed trace amounts of DDE, a breakdown product of the pesticide DDT, which has been banned in the United States since the early 1970s following Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Even though the EPA declared that anticoagulants pose an "unreasonable risk" to kids, pets, and wildlife in 2008, and established regulatory hurdles to minimize the harm that anticoagulant pesticides inflict on non-target species, t

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.