Proceedings of the Vertebrate Pest Conference

California State legislation as passed in 1971 established the Agricultural Pest Control Advisors licensing program with the intent of providing agriculture with competent and professional personnel who make pest control recommendations. Today, nearly 4,000 advisors are licensed in California and approximately 1,350 are licensed vertebrate pest control advisors. Recent amendments to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act will add new responsibilities to the advisor by requiring certification of both private and commercial applicators throughout the U.S. beginning in 1977. More than one-half of the vertebrate pest control advisors are employed in agrichemical sales while the remainder are employed by government agencies or are self-employed as consultants. Today, about one-third of the licensed vertebrate pest control advisors are not actively using the license and of the remaining licensed two-thirds, 94% are infrequently engaged in making vertebrate pest control recommendations. Control recommendations are most often made for rodent and bird pest problems. The majority of advisors feel that additional training, education, and upgrading of the industry is important for all advisors.