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Rats! City program to suffocate rats halted because CO2 not registered as a pesticide
By adamg on Wed, 12/28/2016 - 11:22am
NBC Boston reports state officials have ordered the city to stop pouring dry ice down rat holes because the carbon dioxide the stuff gives off to suffocate the rats is not registered with the federal government as a pesticide and so is illegal, at least for killing rats.
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Comments
That
Is some impressive red tape right there.
Not really
The problem is that there needs to be an SOP for using CO2 as a pesticide.
This isn't red tape, but an impressive failure to do homework.
And yet
it's widely used to suffocate feeder mice etc.
Suffocate nasty public rat with CO2 = NOT LEGAL
Suffocate mousey from the pet store to feed to your elderly boa constrictor = completely OK
when you suffocate feeder animals ...
Do you seal up all the cracks in a room and do it that way?
The problem isn't CO2 itself, but how it is being used. Improper use of dry ice could result in a person sleeping in a basement apartment being asphyxiated. There need to be safe use rules when you use something to kill other things.
That's the problem.
The solution to the problem
The solution to the problem is more cats.
Oh wait, are cats registered with the federal government as a pesticide?
Cats
A: Well, I was wrong. The cats are a godsend.
Q: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by cats?
A: No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the cats.
Q: But aren't the snakes even worse?
A: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
Q: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
A: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.
[c/o http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/TheSimpsonsS10E3BartTheMother]
Or, as Daffy Duck demonstrated in the Looney Tunes
short "Dime to Retire":
There's a mouse in the guest's hotel room. So,
How do you get rid of the mouse? With a cat.
How do you get rid of the cat? With a dog.
How do you get rid of the dog? With a tiger.
How do you get rid of the tiger? With a lion.
How do you get rid of the lion? With an elephant.
And, then how do you get rid of the elephant?
With a mouse.
no
Cats just create a whole other issue with killing lots of other beneficial animals. I mean, if you can get them to agree to only kill rats, then I could get behind the idea.
I dunno
The cat lobby is pretty powerful in MA. I've been trying to get them to let up on the black squirrels for years with no luck.
Stupid me
And I thought that killing rats with something that was NOT a pesticide would be a good thing.
Consider this
If they were using CO, would you be so very glib?
CO2 can cause suffocation.
Drinking water is good. When drinking water floods a trench with workers in it ...
See the problem?
Yeah but
When CO2 floods my drinking water I get seltzer.
Actually,
CO2 is toxic, and will kill you if its concentration reaches 8 to 15% of what you're breathing, even if the rest of what you're breathing is pure Oxygen. In those concentrations, you're not suffocating from lack of O2; the CO2 changes your blood chemistry, rendering you very uncomfortable, then unconscious, then dead. CO kills at much lower concentrations, but CO2 is also toxic.
So are oxygen, water, and
So are oxygen, water, and burritos, in the right concentration or part of your body.
Dear Captain Obvious
The point I was trying to make is that the common idea that CO2 only kills people when it displaces too much O2 is wrong. Being aware of that could actually save your life. You may continue ignoring it, if you wish.
Nitrogen
Gotta breathe me some.
I wonder if they'd have to register dihydrogen monoxide as a pesticide if they used it to flood burrows.
That could also kill people if it cut off their nitrogen.
Um,
Nitrogen would not work as well as CO2. It isn't toxic. Nor is it a biologically-necessary part of the breathable atmosphere, if that's what you're implying.
The reasoning: kills pests = pesticide
I get why the gubbamint has rules like these - just because it's a naturally occuring element doesn't mean it's automatically safe to use around human habitation. I wouldn't want the city pumping chlorine gas into the warrens, for instance.
But of course on the other hand, one hopes that the procedure to get solid CO2 OK'ed for this use would be relatively quick, given its apparently obvious advantages over other methods.
That's fine
The EPA doesn't know what they are talking about. You don't kill rats with pesticides, you kill them with a rodenticide.
Pesticides kill pests. Rats are pests.
Pesticides are things that kill pests - like weeds, insects, or rats. Herbicides, insecticides, and rodenticides are specific sorts of pesticides aimed at specific sorts of pests.
Who you going call?
Once again the EPA oversteps its authority or as Bill Murray said in Ghostbusters 'Why don't you make yourself useful and go save a tree."
Don't Say You're Using It As A Pesticide
( you're using it to make the trees grow faster )
Wait, maybe this is one place that Trump can help
I am a big supporter of the work of the EPA, but perhaps our new leader (who seems to despise the EPA) can help the EPA to see that using CO2 is much better for the environment and for humans than using a bunch of poison.
He'll Also Allow DDT, Dioxin, Asbestos, PCBs, Lead, Mercury,Oil…
I wonder if they shut down
I wonder if they shut down NYC and Chicago too?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/09/16/urban-war-rats-cities-turn...
It's a greenhouse gas. The
It's a greenhouse gas. The state is protecting us from climate change caused by rat poison.
Animal cruelty
Death by CO2 sounds like torture. Surely there are more humane methods for controlling the rat population.
The usual method
The usual method is to poison them with Warfarin*, which makes them (or any animal that eats it) bleed to death. Is that better? CO2 has the benefit that it doesn't lie there waiting for your pet to eat it and die.
*Warfarin is called Coumadin when the doctors don't want their patients to know they've been prescribed rat poison.