Proceedings of the Vertebrate Pest Conference

Regarded from both the economic and health aspects, the control of rodents is a pressing worldwide problem. Continued improvements in food storage facilities, crop husbandry, and environmental control are likely to do much in the long term to help reduce rodent populations and damage. Looking ahead again, it is possible that biological control methods involving for example the use of reproduction inhibitors or rodent predators or diseases may ultimately be developed for rodent control purposes. In the immediate future, however, it is likely that rodent control operations will continue to be based on the use of rodenticides. The rodenticides in current use are either of the single dose, acute type or of the multiple-dose, chronic-acting anticoagulant type. The relative paucity and shortcomings of existing acute poisons and the emergence, particularly In Europe, of anticoagulant resistant rodent populations emphasizes the need for alternative rodenticides of both the acute and chronic types. A search for new rodenticides is now being conducted at the Infestation Control Laboratory, Tolworth, U.K. in cooperation with various chemical and pharmaceutical companies and in collaboration with the World Health Organization. Candidate rodenticides provided by Industry are evaluated in a programme employing laboratory and wild rats Rattus norvegicus and mice Mus musculus. The test procedures developed and the rodenticidal performance of standard and candidate compounds are considered.