Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Regulating and currently education outreach efforts. And then an effort that we've been involved in since early last year, we recognized it's gonna be an issue that we're gonna be talking about, is working with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife agency to collect information on how to improve Brentanoside stewardship. This is the wrong number. Sorry. I apologize.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Looking for command. Paul Bowden?

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah. There's a page three. Yeah. For some reason, that's not oh, here it is. Oh, sorry. Okay. Yeah, he had commensal rodents. Wanna talk a little bit about why we use herbicides. And so just a little bit of information about commensal rodents. They're called commensal rodents. The word commensal means to share the table. And that's what they do. They share our table. And they've been doing it for a long time, probably as long as humans have been engaged in agriculture, we've had to contend with these two different species, musk musculus and retus norbigicus. And they're both here in Vermont. These are the commensal rodents that we deal with. They only exist where humans exist. You don't find them out in the wild. They don't live in the wild. They depend on us to survive and they're very well adapted to living with humans. They're nocturnal, they're secretive, they eat just about anything we eat and some things we don't, and they can survive on it and reproduce. One of the key factors that you have to take into account when managing these two species is their rapid reproduction rate. The mice, the common house mustn't much with us can become reproductive at two months of age and then have a litter every month. And then the offspring then become reproductive at two months and then they have a litter every month. It's similar for the rat, Rattus nordechicus, a little slower. Mice tend to be weigh about an ounce. Rats can weigh up to a pound. So they're considerably different but they both reproduce very rapidly. And if you wanna, if you have time you can fool around, you can go to AI and you can ask AI, how many mice will there be if a single female reproduces and all our offspring reproduce? And you'll get some incredible numbers pretty quickly, thousands and tens of thousands. So that's one of their features is they reproduce very rapidly. And if you're not, if there are no restrictions on their resources or don't increase mortality, you will have a lot of mice very quickly and rats. So that's one of the factors we have to deal with.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Another is Sorry, question to representative. Steve, predators,

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: human or cats,

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: they start eating each other? Like do they reach out or disease strikes them?

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: The classic population curve is what they call an S curve where they increase rapidly and it's almost exponential and then it levels off, either because carrying capacity or predation or whatever. It's usually carrying capacity. The thing about rodents and other organisms that have high reproductive rates, Predation is marginally successful because they reproduce so quickly. They're sort of geared toward overwhelming their predators. I had an experience when I was in Florida, we had an outbreak of the house mouse in an area that had been agricultural, it was converted to a water quality project where the farms went out of production and the land just grew up. And there were so many mice yeah, people were killing a 100 mice a day in their homes and we had a big emergency response thing. But one of the things we noticed was there were a lot of avian predators in the area And when you went down, there was kind of a clumsy, you went down the street and you saw these really fat birds sitting on the lines and you could hear them thinking, I never want to see a mouse. They just overwhelm predation basically. What really restricts these particular organisms is resources, food. So that's what their limiting factor is, is that they're carrying capacity in the environment. Okay, so why we're concerned about them and why we want to control them is disease transmission carburetors. You've to the CDC, have about 30 different diseases that they can either spread directly or indirectly. There are bacterial diseases that they will spread either by just walking over food or food preparation surfaces. They also have a, both species have a habit of food on their food. And they do that to market for their nest needs. The other problem with these as far as disease transmission is the fleas and ticks can spread diseases. Of course, the classic case is plague, which still exists in The US in isolated pockets. And then there's another one called murine typhus, which is also spread by fleas. And that has actually had a little bit of an uptick down in California, which we'll be talking about California in a minute, but so they spread disease. So that's one of the big issues. The food contamination is the other big issue. Any kind of food preparation enterprise, a restaurant, schools, grocery stores, food storage facilities, anything like that, they have to have a zero tolerance for rodent epistemics because of the potential that if rodents are in there and they contaminate food and the food gets consumed, then people will get sick. So regulations on occurrence of rodents in food establishments are pretty strict for the people.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. So what happens if I'm

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: at a

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: restaurant and I see a mouse or I see mouse feces and I notify the Vermont Department of Health?

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: No, I can't speak to what exactly they would do. Most health departments would shut the restaurant or take some kind of severe action because that's a problem. You're potentially contaminating food and people. The most likely thing that can happen is you'll get some kind of, you'll have a bacterial like salmonella or something like that will result as a result of them. But there is another disease called leptospirosis that can be spread by rodent urine. So it's something that has

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: to be taken seriously. Steve, I know that you had some tech issue there. Just wanted to know that what's up on the screen there is not, I think what you're I

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: might do this. It's like me apologize.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Sure. Sometimes I think we should have a page aside to each committee room because those

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: kids can figure the classroom sketch. Not a bad idea.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Put them away in slots. Yeah, so actually, Kimbell, yeah, so I mean, we're concerned, you know, as a society you have to be concerned about birds, you have to manage and burn crops. There's also the potential for property damage, especially the rat, the brown rat, the rabbits, vervetschias that we have up here. It's a burrowing rat. If you can look at the profile of the animal, it has a sort of a blunt nose and a short tail and they're designed for burrowing. That's what they do. You can go down to New York City in around Central Park and find their rodent girls all over them. So they can undermine foundations and damage plumbing and that kind of thing and construct gardens, etcetera. Both species have to continually gnaw on something so their teeth, keep their teeth in check. And so gnawing is a problem on furniture, wood structures, wires. There's some pest control and some rodent experts say that a percentage of unexplained house fires are from rodents, not on wires. So that's something that And they've then we've had a, recently there's been an issue with vehicle. A number of manufacturers a few years ago switched to a soy based wire cover and it's a track that device. I had a coworker who had to replace her wire three times. It's not covered by insurance, it's expensive.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I know a veterinarian that had to replace her wire in their vehicle last year.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, so it is something that happens and it can be expensive. And then in agriculture of course you have problems with construction of crops, contamination of feed, and then stored product issues if you have, that's the classic rats in the green bin. Rats in

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: a bunker silo. Right. Through your plastic and creating big rot spots. Right. Representative O'Brien?

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Just a comment, Steve. Don't know if you ever heard of it. Remember maybe eight years ago, Carl

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Hammer, who runs Vermont Compost Company. One

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: quarter of the world's grain is

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: eaten by rodents. Was produce.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: With quid and gas, I was oh wow, we eat grain a lot

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: of food for rodents. Right, right. Yeah, like I said, rodents and humans have been together for a long time. The expression, if you build a better mousetrap, then there will be, I mean, the reason that expression exists is before rodenticides, except for rodenticides, everyone's looking for a better mousetrap because they keep the control. The other thing, this isn't really in the presentation, but prior to the rodenticides we have now, the way to control rodents was to use arsenic. And you could buy arsenic at the drugstore and mix it, sometimes it was liquid, sometimes it was powder. And as recently as 1970, if you could buy liquid arsenic and the instructions were to put it in bottle caps around your house. So All that's changed now, now we have better products. But anyway, What

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: happens when the whites use the arsenic

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: to get rid of the hogs, brides, they forget the white arsenic. Arsenic in all the places. Yeah, the baby food. Okay, and then one thing we've learned over the last year is that Vermont actually has the highest percentage of structured investment brokerage in The United States. And that's based on a US census survey that's done. They do a thing called the American Housing Survey. They survey every state, every county, every state. And they have, can put the reference in testimony if you like, it's a statistical document. But essentially Vermont has the highest percentage reported of rodent infestation in house mills. And speculation or the rationale or the reason I think that occurs is because we have old houses. We have old housing stock, the constructions of stone foundations, etcetera, etcetera, older houses are more likely to be infested. Then the fact that there is it's cold, and so roads are open for shelter. So that's why we have a model in Vermont. I personally have that experience. I lived in Florida for a long time, owned several houses, never saw a rogue. I've been here three years, I've had rats and monks in the house. And then the other factor here, I said before, the biggest limiting factor for rodents is resources, food primarily, and we have a universal compost line. So we have a lot of compost piles in people's yards which are great for bruits. We got an issue of bruits. In terms of what product we have registered, I think this committee has heard multiple times about first generation and second generation anti flagrant or genocide, so Michael spent a lot of time on it. But the first generations are the ones that came about in the 1970s, warfarin, diphasalone, chloro, diphasalone. Second generations came in the 80s and 90s. These are active at lower concentrations. The idea is that you don't need repeat feedings by rodents to be effective. Then these are the Bromodilone, Difenicone, and Difenethylone. And then there are non anti quagodraninocytes, Bromamethylene, Focalciferolmes and Phoside. So we have all these products registered. I

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: know the second gen are restricted. Yes. First gen are the EPA number you have to use them with rules. Right. But second generation are restricted to the only license.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, was going to talk about that.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: And what about the non ARs?

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Most of those are available for consumer use. The EPA as far as their risk reduction efforts in the mid, well the 2019, 2022 area era, they restricted sale of the non anticoagulant and the first generation anticoagulants to preloaded bait stations. So if you go into any of the big box stores, you'll find rodenticides being already in bait stations. Or you can buy a small quantity up to a pound of a refill. Of the stuff that's being sold in Vermont now that I've seen is bromomethane. That's the primary one that's on the shelves. There is some Difasanone, warfarin is hard to find and I've never actually seen forward Difascinated on the shelf. But representative enough, you're correct, the second generation anticoagulants are classified as state restricted use. Some of them are also federally restricted use, some formulations, but as a result of the legislation in 2024, all second generation anti fragments in Vermont are state restricted use. They can only be purchased by a certified act. And they'd have to be sold by dealer who is licensed to sell restricted products. So those are the products. This is just sort of a breakout of the different types of products. And you can see that, and this is as of I think the end of last year, so it varies a little bit month to month products being canceled or new products coming in. But you can see that the Bromomethylin products are the majority of the products that are registered because those are ones that are designed and marketed for constituents. We were able to pull together the use records for the last couple of years finally. And this is the use reported by the certified applicators who use the second and first generation anti flagrant. And again, only certified applicators can use the second generation anti flagrant. So this is primarily pest control companies who are reporting this use, okay. This does not include use by private applicators or non restricted use products by private applicators or non certified by private. But this is just the amount used. So one way to look at it, this is the amount used in the pest control, in pest control in Vermont. And you can see these numbers are very low like bromodilolome in 2024, the total amount reported use is just a little over a pound. Okay, the entire stakes of the entire year. And I'll show you why that is, is because the amount that's in each block or pack is so small. So this is an example of one Bromodilol product. The concentration of the active ingredient is point zero zero five percent, okay? And if you do the calculation as to how much is actually in each unit, you're looking at in terms of ounces, you're looking at 0.000075 ounces, okay? If you do the math, you get to a pound with that concentration, you need to have 21,300 foot pounds, okay? So the numbers do make sense when you go back. Yeah, so if you go back and look, the amount that's reported for use is consistent with using a fair amount for a number of units that have very low cost

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: of goods. So this same distinction I think came up the other day when we were talking about paraquat use that's reported to the agency. I'm imagining that retailers, for example, so food stores, they don't have a licensed applicator on staff. So they're contracting out to somebody. So those would be capped here. A farmer who is controlling it himself, herself, is not necessarily reporting it. They don't have a business of

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: If they're applying the material, if they're a certified applicator and they buy the material and they apply it on their own property, it would be another report. Or if

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: they use the non restricted. Right. Or if

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: they use the non restricted. So yeah, so this is just what, you know, like I said, this is essentially what the pest control should make

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: the state. Representative O'Brien?

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: I was just wondering, I see with almost the molecular level of, you know, concentration that works, are the big companies that make this like Dow, do they make a gallon a year for the folio nitrates? Mean, it seems like

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Actually the companies that make the rodenticides are very specialized in this fall they make. There's two or three big ones, Bell Laboratories, Loufet, and stuff like that. But they specialize in rodenticides. And yeah, so the total amount of active ingredient used in The US is in the pounds, if you're Right. Interested Hundreds of pounds. Right. Any more questions about that one?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Should probably keep going, just Okay, so staying on track

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: like we talked before, the second generation anti coagulants as a result of the legislation appointment for their all state issued can only be purchased by certified applicators. If it's a certified applicator applying on another person's property they have to report it to us. The labels require, outdoor use requires a tamper resistant bait station. The first generation anti chlor aliens are some are class B which is restricted sale or controlled sale and the class C which is available to consumers. The class C products are sold pre packaged or limited refill amount like we're just talking about. They can be sold, the EPA's risk reduction scheme allowed the sale to uncertified applicators if it was sold in packages at least four pounds up to eight pounds. And the theory there was that consumers would not want to spend that much money on a bait but a farmer plant. So that's why they were sold out. But again, all the outdoor use requires, bait stations are mandatory for outdoor cooking. Gathering bait in open areas is a label violation. Then the idea of the bait stations, using the tape reducer bait stations is to minimize exposure to children, pets, and on target sportivisms. Representative Nelson?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: On the slide before that, you show the number of persons certified in pest control. Does that is that only commercial? That's that's commercial people. Yeah. Yeah. So that doesn't count me.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: No, that's the folks who are working for pest control companies, 89 companies, and that number varies. So as a result of the work that was done in 2024, the legislation in 2024, and as a result of the concerns about non target, the agency has been working or has pushing or trying to educate the public about how to use it. So any of the stores that are selling the bait that's not already pre packaged, Dave's inspectors went around to every one of them and provided these posters, educated about them, made sure they didn't have the escaras on the shelves anymore. And so if you go into any of these stores, you will see this poster or something like it. The QR code there is a video that our folks made that answered there about how to properly use rodenticides and basics. That's on YouTube. So we've also been working educating the pest management industry on rodenticide stewardship. We have had multiple meetings. We participate in their regular meetings and talk about how to use IPM, not overapplying using base stations, maintaining base stations, and we inspect their activities and we'll take action against them if they're not properly working. We've had a number of actions for folks who weren't properly maintaining bait stations for one reason or another. So anyway, that's kind of where we're at. So like I said, after short form bill was filed last year, We got together with Vermont Fish and Wildlife to talk about ways to mitigate or to improve their antisite stewardship, I guess that's what they say. And I don't know if you plan to have them come in or not, they've got a, been doing a lot of work with us, certainly they had a lot of information. So we basically got together with them and started having phone calls with folks who've had information about rodenticide stewardship, including Vermont Pest Management Professionals. There's a organization called the Rodenticide Task Force, which is the manufacturers of rodenticide and they have a whole bunch of information. We've got some information from them. And we also were able through the Rodenticide Task Force and through some of the PMVs, we're able to and Vermont Fish and Wildlife get ahold of researchers who are looking into the issue of exposure of wildlife to rodenticides. And in particular from the University of California in Cornell, we got some good information from them, which I'll go into in a little bit. And then there's another organization called the Bot Cyber Institute, that's an international organization and they work on fertility control for wildlife and they have a fair amount of work going on on rodents. And so we've got a whole bunch of information then and basically just to educate both agencies with the view toward at some point developing some recommendations for the pest management industry and for the public about better ways to use your medicines. We're not there yet, but that's what we've been doing. We also looked at regulatory efforts by EPA. California has a lot going on right now. Massachusetts just completed a scientific review of rodenticides which is public. Anyway, so some of the things that, some takeaways I think. One is that the researchers and it's pretty well established that exposure to wildlife happens. Vermont Fish and Wildlife has a lot of information here in Vermont and some recent information which we probably would like to hear from them. The highest exposure occurs in areas where you have wildlife in urban, suburban interface areas. So it's not urban areas and it's not just direct farmland, it's where you have the interface, which makes sense because that's where people are trying to control rooms. Then the base stations alone did not reduce wildlife. So the original idea from EPA was to use these bait stations that would reduce wildlife exposure and that doesn't appear to be the way it mean, it's not Bait stations alone are not reducing because the roams consume the bait, they'll go out to die, the predators get a hold of the of the roads. Representative Nelson?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Thank you. I just recalled a conversation I had with a licensed gentleman in a poem, and I asked him, I said, what's your go to if you have to go into a restaurant? And he had an example of me putting, I won't make a restaurant. But anyway, and he went in with a chlorate calcipherol. Right. And I said, why did you use that one? He said, because the it it it he said it didn't present secondary. Yes. Poisoners. Right. So I take it all the non anticoagulants of bromethylene and the zinc phosphides.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: They don't appear to have the same issue of the secondary toxicity

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: that. And you're saying in the first generation one, there's very little that being sold now? There

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: are some, I haven't done any kind of systematic survey, just my observations and looking around stores. And most of the products you see are like most of the products you have registered are wrong.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, I bought some the other day to protect my wife's car and it's this bromothym. Yeah, bromothym. Yeah, but

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: the non anticoagulants don't appear to have the same issue with persistence in the roads that consume and that results in secondary. The other takeaway in talking to the researchers is that the most effective way to reduce wildlife exposure is to reduce rodent problems. So if you can manage your rodent populations effectively, there's less opportunity for wildlife to be feeding on the commensal rodents and take a bait. And it can reduce its total amount. Steve, maybe this is a better question for the commissioner. Are wildlife predators relying on this population now? The conventional rodents? Yeah. I hope not.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: It seems like if humans went away and house mice and Norway rats went away, would any of our coyotes, foxes, raptors, mustelids, would any of them, I mean, all seem like they would adapt if actually be fine, because there's enough

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, and again, that'd be, that's something, they'd be the best people to answer. Coyotes would learn to fish. I think they already do. Yeah. I see on the Internet here where you mix a plat plaster and cornmeal and a little molasses. Does that work? Like a little cookie or something. I would not expect it to be super effective. I'm just saying something that they don't pass gas and it's a blow up or I don't

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: Baking soda. Yeah,

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: baking soda. Actually, you bring up a good point because one of the issues with restricting access to registered products is people will then start getting free and do all kinds of things to try to control awareness. And it could be much, it's very tight use.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: At this point there, reducing rodent populations is the most effective way to reduce wildlife. Isn't that a cyclical argument? Like you reduce rodent populations by increasing using rodenticides, which affects wildlife, but then you

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Well, are other ways to reduce your hypothesis, and that's kind of where we're heading to. It's not just increasing the amount of rodenticide. Is that I

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: have another question. There mention of orchards using because of rodents gnawing the bark.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Right, so

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: you wouldn't be using it around dwellings then. How do they apply?

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: So that is something I still need to learn more about, frankly. But they use different products and what they're concerned about there is not the commensal rings, but they're both, which is a native that will feed on the plants while they're being established. I think they use zinc phosphate for that, which is a anti chlorinated. Zinc phosphate is used a lot in agricultural road control situations.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: For your label, but you just had there, mentioned Spet O'Halls. Yeah,

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: there are restrictions on how you can use the product. It has to be within 100 feet of the structure. The whole risk reduction effort from EPA was to help mitigate well enough to just not allow us to produce broadcast or a wide area, which is to keep it near structures. So as part of reducing road influence, you have to monitor and find the application. That's what this is about. So this we took from our Addison task force. So as the curve there is population of rodents, as rodents increase their population, if you time your application of control methods in the right time, you can reduce the population over time. If you do it at the wrong time, you're just wasting, you're putting the bait out and you're not really gonna have an impact. And so this depends on monitoring the population which takes time and labor costs. So this is part of what we're trying to work toward with the pest management industry. And there are best management companies that are starting to take this approach now of monitoring the population as opposed to just they get an account and they put the base stations out if they didn't go away. They don't actually try to monitor and control the population. So that's where having effective rodent management comes into the picture and that's where you have to, you know, it's integrated pest management, is what it is. What does monitoring look like, Steve? Well, there's different ways to do it. There's a new technology, relatively new technology for electronic monitoring. Essentially there are stations with electrical sensors and there's different models available. Some are set up on WiFi, some are set up on Bluetooth or whatever. And they actually will alert the monitor when a rodent enters the station. In big accounts, pest control companies use game cams, trigger game cams to actually track them. You can use what are called detect blocks, so they're non toxic baits you put in there and you just monitor and see what kind of feeding you have. Using your flashlight and walking around the building and seeing what's going on, just another monitor.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: The commercial pest control companies in Vermont using anything like this or other? Some are, some aren't. Representative Bos-

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Yeah, I was just going to ask, we heard a lot of testimony around the rodenticide issue last year. And one of the people that testified for us, I can't remember if he was from California or Hawaii, but it was somewhere much warmer than where we're living now. And he had designed and ran a company that electronically in some way, like, I don't know, do you guys remember the details? It was like, almost like a trap shoot or something. It was like a giant mouse trap sort of, but like, it was like an industrial version. And it sounded like they're being widely used. I think it was in California where they were being widely used. I'm wondering, in Vermont, do we have anybody that's utilizing any of these alternative practices or has nobody tried that in Vermont yet?

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: I don't know. Okay. I mean, I think it'd be good to talk to the pest control folks to see what they're doing. There are a whole array of lethal cracks that you can control and have been used forever. The problem with trapping is that rodents, mice and rats are pretty cagey and they don't necessarily go into traps. Trapping is about 30% effective.

[Katie Nolan (Wild Animals Campaigner, In Defense of Animals)]: That wouldn't be the statistic that

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: I remember from this particular one, we'd have to go back and revisit it because I don't remember the details about how that works.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, I and I worked with the pest control industry for a while, whenever you're trying to control a rodent population you pretty much gotta get it fixed. Know, you can use the trapping, you can use the baiting, you use monitoring, you can do everything you can do because know, roads have figured out how to live with us and avoid getting to it and they're pretty good. So you gotta do everything you can.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I wanna move on, Steve, to our next witness. So if you wanna finish up, I think there were a couple more slides he skipped over.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Yeah, I guess just this one last, just this last one, I guess. That one of the discussions we had talking to folks is that if you restrict anti flagylin or other NSAIDs, the effect is you raise the costs of regulatory control. Because if you have to go to a trapping only service that dramatically increases labor costs up to 10 times the cost for what they do, Dan and Ellie. And then exclusion efforts can work, but they can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per section because essentially it's construction. Again, it's all about using every tool you got but using them correctly.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: From my laboratory animal training, a rat can fit through a hole the size of a quarter. In terms of rat proofing the house.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: It takes a lot of work to come And mice can go through the size of the doubt. So you've got to really work at it. Yeah,

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: just quickly. If you take away your food for these two commensal rodents, so they decide this is not a nice habitat for them, do they tend to migrate?

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: So if you were

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: in South Burlington and you figured out how to get mice and rats out of your house, do they

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: just migrate? So the population of it They will move. If you're ever in New York City and you see a construction site, you'll notice that all around the construction site, there are bait stations. So it's a regulation in New York City that whenever they do construction, they have to install bait stations because they know the rats are gonna move somewhere else.

[Rep. John O’Brien (Member)]: So it's catching them on the way out.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: So it's reducing the population anyway. Steve,

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: thank you very much. Just wanted to ask the task force that you mentioned, was that set up in statute? No, no,

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: that's the Rodenticide Task Force. That's a national task force. And they're available.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: You also have here in the slide increased potential for illegal or dangerous control methods like what would that be?

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Well, if people do not have access to legal materials and they really want to control rooms, they might do something. Unfortunately, people can buy things over the internet and that could be an issue. Parsnip. Yeah, mean there are lots of

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Buy for your car. I've heard people at the University of Artists had their dogs die because they had antifreeze out.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Mean people will get desperate to do this.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Well, appreciate your, on very short notice, putting this presentation together and coming back to testify on this question. Thank you, Steve. Yeah, sure. Thank you. All right, we've got, before we take a break, Katie Nolan is testifying next. Good morning. Good morning. And welcome. Thank you. Also on a short notice, I think.

[Katie Nolan (Wild Animals Campaigner, In Defense of Animals)]: No worries.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, so you were continuing testimony on the same bill. If you want to just introduce yourself, we've got about twenty minutes.

[Katie Nolan (Wild Animals Campaigner, In Defense of Animals)]: I do have a short video that we can play or not play. I don't know if I should send that over.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Why don't we hold off on the video for now, see where we go, how much time we have.

[Katie Nolan (Wild Animals Campaigner, In Defense of Animals)]: Perfect. Sounds good. So hello, everyone. Good morning. My name is Katie Nolan. I am the wild animals campaigner at In Defense of Animals. I'm also on the Bolton Conservation Commission. I'm a resident of Bolton, and I am a volunteer at Protect Our Wildlife, previously was a board member. I'm here to speak about the negative impacts of rodenticides and alternative methods of rodent control and why I believe you should support this bill. If I'm repeating myself, if you need me to speed along certain areas, please just go ahead and jump in or let me know. So I kind of just dive right in. It's common knowledge that rodenticides don't only impact rodents. We know that these toxins can move through the food chain in a process called secondary poisoning. So basically, your rats and mice eat the poison. And then when they go off, it takes them often three to seven days to die. So they're weakened by these poisons. They're disoriented, so they often are easier prey for predators. Hawks, owls, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, who we all have in Vermont, are eating these animals who have poisons in their body. And those can build up over time. There are studies of both FGARs and SGARs can build up in predators. Over time, They experience lethargy, decreased coordination, which makes them less effective at capturing prey and more susceptible to vehicle strikes, to confrontation with humans. So the irony is that we are poisoning predators that naturally control rodent populations, undermining the effectiveness of this natural version of pest control. This is something that is currently impacting our wildlife in Vermont. I know the bill language has some statistics from Vermont Fish and Wildlife. They found that I think nearly one hundred percent of fisher carcasses that were tested tested positive for rodenticides and twenty one out of twenty nine bobcat carcasses from 2021 to 2022 tested positive for anticoagulant rodenticides as well.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Those were all before the Eschar Ban of '24, though, or the change in the rules, and before bait stations became the management tool of choice. Correct?

[Katie Nolan (Wild Animals Campaigner, In Defense of Animals)]: True. Yes. That that is a good point. Alright. Thank you. Yeah. Absolutely. A little personal anecdote. I live in Bolton, as I said. I can hear owls calling from my house. We saw bobcat just on Monday. So we have a lot of beautiful wildlife in Vermont that I think, I wanna see our local wildlife populations thrive. I know a lot of a lot of you do too. So next is impact on human health. Her genocides continue to cause, I think, an unacceptable number of public health incidents. There's an alarming number of human poisonings. Often those include children who put colorful bait in their mouths. I know that we talked about having tamper proof bait control boxes, but there are still high incidences of human poisonings happening throughout the country. Additionally, as I mentioned earlier, the use of rodenticides can blunt immune systems. Actually, don't know if I mentioned that earlier, but the use of rodenticides can blunt the immune systems of rodents and predators. So animals who are exposed to these poisons can actually have an increase in diseases and pathogens that can be harmful to humans. So that's something to keep in mind. There's also negative impact on pets. Rodenticides can be really harmful to our companion animals. I have two personal stories, if that's okay to share. I have two pet rabbits, and I was renting in South Royalton, Vermont. I didn't know that my landlord had placed bait boxes around the house and the property. Actually, mice were taking bites of the poison from the bait boxes, and they were storing them around the house in spaces with the seeds that they were collecting for the winter. So there was poison throughout my house in drawers and my closet, and eventually in my rabbit enclosure. She ended up One of my rabbits ate a bit of poison. I was able to get her to the vet and she made a full recovery, but she's very lucky to be alive. And I think that just showcases how even when we have these bait boxes that keep poison in a secure place, mice and rats are still able to move them around and they can get into the hands of children and our companion animals. Speaking of mice and rodents, I would be remiss if I did not mention the impact of rodenticides on their targets. I know that they're supposed to kill rodents. Obviously, rodents are a big issue, but the deaths they experience are less than humane. Anticoagulant rodenticides prevent blood from clotting. So this causes internal bleeding in the muscles, organs, and under the skin of rats and mice. It can take them several days to die from this. Then there's bromelain, which I know we talked about is not an anticoagulant. It's actually a neurotoxin. This can cause paralysis and respiratory failure. I do want to mention that this is also toxic to humans, to companion animals. There are cases where humans and companion animals get into this toxin as well. There's also a 2023 study that was done by Tufts University that I can send the link to if you all are interested, that found this poison can also bioaccumulate in birds of prey. So I believe it's not just anticoagulants that are a risk to predators, it is other rodenticides too. So if I could give you one more personal anecdote just to kind of garner up some sympathy for mice and rats. We have a lot of cats and they do catch mice in our house, which is another concern for our companion animals getting exposed to rodenticides. But we had a cat catch a mouse who we ended up rehabilitating. And turns out, when you rehabilitate a mouse and it's wintertime, you're not supposed to let them back outside. So we were working under the guidance of a local rehabilitator, and she advised us that we needed to overwinter this mouse in our house. So we ended up purchasing this big aquarium. Our mouse has, like, a a wheel. His favorite snacks are banana chips. And it's it's kinda garnered some sympathy from us for these animals. We had rescued another mouse who we successfully released over the summer. One of my roommates works at Forest School in Underhill. She brought that mouse to her class of eight year olds, and they released the mouse together through a program where we taught the the students about the importance of rodents in our food chain. They are an indispensable source of food for these predators. And they're just a very, very important part of the food chain. They help aerate the soil. They help with seed dispersion. So just my little plug for the for the rodents. I will that was the video I was gonna show. It was just a our little mouse is scrappy running on his wheel, so I can email that later for the committee. So a lot of talk about why rodenticides are bad, but what we can do instead apologize for not handing these out sooner. There's a couple of flyers on one's the Fisher information, but two others are from a group called Wisdom Good Works. So they are actually a pest management company that focuses on fertilization. So it's kind of the same approach as putting bait stations out, but instead of poison, it's mouse birth control. So it targets the reproductive system of rodents. Their active ingredient is plant based, and you can see from the study that it's actually cheaper than using rodenticides. And there's a case study that has a pretty high effective rate. So if you look Olsengrain Mills, the case study there, it was pretty effective in reducing rodent populations. I do have the contact information for Loretta Meyer of Wisdom Good Works. Her email is also on that fact sheet. She let me know that her and some other scientists behind this work are available to testify or if you have any questions on these studies. Which which handout is that? Both the green ones. Sorry. The yellow one is kind of just an additional fact sheet from Protect Our Wildlife. There's kind of like an overview flyer, and then the two sided one is the actual study from Olson Grain Mills. I may not have printed enough out.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Right. We can I think we may have it? If you sent it to Patricia, we'll have it on our website. Yeah, so

[Katie Nolan (Wild Animals Campaigner, In Defense of Animals)]: Loretta has over 25 of experience doing this kind of work. Their organization is not based in Vermont, but Hart Wildlife Removal is. They're based in Chittenden County. I think they would be a great group to contact as well. They mostly focus on exclusion of animals from structures, and especially with rodents using integrated pest management solutions that combine several different management approaches. I definitely recommend contacting them for further information. I know that Oh, sorry.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Go ahead.

[Katie Nolan (Wild Animals Campaigner, In Defense of Animals)]: Yeah. Okay. I know that they have someone who's working on getting licensed to distribute fertilization control, but they are not currently licensed to do that. There is a group in New Hampshire that is licensed to do that though, and I can also provide contact information for them if you're interested. And then other general things like sanitation, securing waste, proper food storage, all that classic stuff. I guess in conclusion, I think the bill is a smart science based step forward. Think we had the opportunity to be leaders in the Northeast for responsible wildlife and pest management, set and set a standard for balancing public health and environmental well-being and looking out for our Vermont businesses. So thank you for the opportunity to speak. Happy to answer other questions.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Katie? Yes, representative Basil.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Yeah. So I'm looking at this Olson's Grain Mill case study, and it says they had 95% reduction in finished product losses, which sounds good. And then it says that in terms of maintaining the rodent population, it was reduced at a level of 83%. I'm wondering that, do you know how that compares to an organization or for them in using traditional rodenticides? Like how does 83% as a birth control method compare to using a rodenticide? Very good question. I am not sure about that answer, but I

[Katie Nolan (Wild Animals Campaigner, In Defense of Animals)]: can definitely reach out to Loretta and get back to you on that. Okay.

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: Mean, 83 sounds good. Just don't know how that compares. Like, is it 100% with rodenticide? I would guess not, but I don't know what the number would be.

[Katie Nolan (Wild Animals Campaigner, In Defense of Animals)]: Great question. Will absolutely get back to you on that.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: Representative Burtt. I'm curious, I was just looking at this but is there, does it mention

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: what drug

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: or what material they use to provide for Chernetsky?

[Katie Nolan (Wild Animals Campaigner, In Defense of Animals)]: Yeah, that's another question for Loretta, but it is a botanical based, plant based material. So it's not like a chemical. It's natural.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Representative Bartholomew. Looking at the same thing that our representative Bartholomew was just mentioning, That sentence can be read a couple of ways. The rodent population was reduced and maintained at 83. Does that mean that it was maintained at 83%, which is a what 17% reduction or maintained at 83% lower?

[Katie Nolan (Wild Animals Campaigner, In Defense of Animals)]: I'm pretty sure it means 83% reduction.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: The

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: sentence is written means the former. Anyway, I just wanted to clarify what that meant.

[Katie Nolan (Wild Animals Campaigner, In Defense of Animals)]: Yeah. 83% reduction, but noted on the the wording of that sentence.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Questions.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: We have close readers in this committee, so. Always good.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I wanted to make sure I understood what was meant by that. Thank you.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: This case study that talking about is on the fly, what's the location of that?

[Katie Nolan (Wild Animals Campaigner, In Defense of Animals)]: It's a good question. Not in Vermont, I know that.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: All right, anything else? I don't know whether you had a chance to cover everything you wanted to say, if there's anything more, Katie, or

[Katie Nolan (Wild Animals Campaigner, In Defense of Animals)]: I did speed through the beginning just to kind of make sure we had enough time. Think I did get to everything, though. Thank you all.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So we understand that there are first and second generation and that there's non anticoagulant.

[Katie Nolan (Wild Animals Campaigner, In Defense of Animals)]: Yes.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Do you have a position on whether the non anticoagulants are safer in terms of wildlife alternatives?

[Katie Nolan (Wild Animals Campaigner, In Defense of Animals)]: Yeah, I think certainly a lot of the studies right now are highlighting anticoagulants as the primary issue. I think the remethylin study is quite concerning personally, that these non anticoagulants are turning up in the food chain. I think that if there is an alternative that is not poison, that is not turning up in the food chain, that would obviously be my recommendation and preference. But I do know that there are more studies out there that show FGARs and escaras are present in the food chain, not necessarily anticoagulant or non anticoagulants showing up. But I think research is definitely needed in that area.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Well, you for coming in.

[Katie Nolan (Wild Animals Campaigner, In Defense of Animals)]: Thank you all for the time and appreciate you taking up this bill.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Chino Valley, Arizona. Arizona. Okay. Thank you for building that up.

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: We're

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: gonna take a break, and then we have, after the break, the chamber of commerce would like to speak to the bill. So we'll take some testimony from them, and then we have witness coming

[Steve Dwinell (Director, Public Health & Agricultural Resource Management Division, Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets)]: from