By Guy Page

As Vermont faces problems associated with human interaction with one growing species of wildlife (Bear population now 9,000, double state goal, August 6 VDC), another nuisance species could see growth in the Green Mountain State if proposed legislation becomes law. 

Los Angeles is becoming overrun with rats and is experiencing a growing rate of typhus disease due in part to restrictions on rat poison, City Journal reports. Two bills restricting the use of certain types of rat poison were introduced in the Vermont Legislature last session.

Typhus, a sometimes deadly but treatable disease, is contracted when humans are bitten by fleas who had contact with typhus-infected rats. According to City Journal, the proliferation of public trash (in part due to rising vagrancy) and a growing rat population is responsible:

“Since 2009, the number of flea-borne typhus cases in L.A. has increased by a staggering 2,300 percent. Last year, the county recorded more cases than at any point in its history. Some patients have died. Behind the scenes, the authorities responsible for protecting the public admit that they lack the resources they need to get the situation under control. The rats, meantime, spread disease in predictable ways. They feed on trash, fleas feed on those rats, and the infected fleas bite people, who in turn suffer anything from a mild illness treatable with antibiotics to a sickness that ends in death.”

H.326, regulation of the use of rodenticides, and  H.758, banning the use of rodenticides, both were introduced by Rep. Larry Satcowitz of Randolph, Democrat representative for the Orange-Washington-Addison House district and member of the House Environment Committee. According to his State House website bio, Satcowitz holds an MS degree in zoology at Colorado State University. He then worked at the Colorado Division of Wildlife before moving to Vermont in 1999.

Both of Satcowitz’s bills were committed to the House Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry Committee.

The virtually identical bills would ban the use and sale of both first- and second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides in Vermont, including by commercial pest control operators and through internet sales. It includes limited exemptions allowing the Department of Fish and Wildlife to use the products when necessary to control pests or when no effective alternative exists. The legislation also would restrict the use of other legal rodenticides, such as bromethalin, near wildlife refuges, state parks, wildlife management areas, and other environmentally sensitive locations.

Satcowitz is running for re-election to his two-seat district (independent Democrat Jay Hooper is the other incumbent) and may well re-introduce his anti-rat poison bills. In the November election, he will face the winner of a rare Republican primary between Charles Russell, Lance Ryan, and Steve Webster.