Banned pesticides | Montreal reauthorizes poison against rats

After banning the use of 36 pesticides on its territory in 2022, the City of Montreal is changing its mind and removing rat poison from the list of prohibited products, in response to complaints from extermination companies who fear a proliferation of rodents in The city.

“Since last year, we have had to use traps to catch rats outdoors, because all the rat poisons on the market contain ingredients prohibited by municipal regulations,” explains Nathaniel Leavey, co-owner of the firm of extermination Les Entreprises Maheu, which is delighted with the City’s decision to once again allow the use of products containing diphacinone for rodent control.

According to the pest management expert, traps are much less effective than poisons in getting rid of rats outside buildings, since they only catch one rat at a time.

Rise in demand

Leavey says he’s seen a roughly 50% increase in calls from customers with rat infestations in 2022, and the ban on rodenticides has certainly contributed to that increase, he says.

By removing diphacinone from the list of prohibited outdoor products, the City is at least giving exterminators a poison option for rat control.

“It’s an adjustment that happens after a year. We banned the use of 36 pesticides, but we realized that one of these products was necessary,” explains Marie-Andrée Mauger, head of the environment on the executive committee.

“We want to make sure that pest control companies have what they need in their toolbox. »

Complaints about the presence of rats are stable, according to the elected municipal official, at least in the borough of Ville-Marie, which includes the city center. “We receive around a hundred complaints a year in this borough,” she says. In November 2022, we had reached 84 complaints since the start of the year. »

Not harmful to the environment

Diphacinone is not the most effective poison, but it is one of the least harmful to the environment, notes M^me Mauger.

“It’s not the best product, but we should be able to manage with that,” comments Nathaniel Leavey.

To be effective, diphacinone must be ingested several times by a rodent, which will die after a few days, whereas other poisons, now prohibited, act much more quickly, after a single ingestion.

The executive committee on Wednesday approved the removal of diphacinone from the list of pesticides banned outdoors. This decision must be ratified by the municipal council before coming into force.

The municipal documents explain that “after a first year of application of the new regulation, an adjustment must be made”.

“In fact, the extermination sector has reported that it no longer has chemical control options to intervene effectively against rodents outside buildings, in particular because of the lack of availability of certain products. In addition, the City has received questions from the food and pharmaceutical sectors regarding extermination options around their buildings. »

Protection of biodiversity and health

Montreal’s decision to ban several outdoor pesticides, including glyphosate, the most frequently used herbicide on the planet, which is used in the composition of Roundup, was taken in 2021 to protect biodiversity, the health of the population as well as ensuring the quality of the living environment, had indicated the elected officials.

The list of prohibited products includes 6 fungicides, 12 herbicides, 11 insecticides and 7 rodenticides (minus one with the removal of diphacinone from the list).

In total, 109 pesticides were removed from the shelves of Montreal stores and businesses on 1^er January 2022.

But Nathaniel Leavey notes that withdrawing these products can have perverse effects. “Knowing that companies can no longer use certain poisons, people say they will do it themselves with products found on the internet, which they apply anyhow, so it can be dangerous”, says he remark.

Pest control companies make sure that when they use poison outdoors, they put it in a box that a child can’t open and that’s safe for other animals, Leavey says, which the ordinary citizen does not always do.