Britain's Brodifacoum Boom

Brodifacoum is an anticogulant rat poison. Animals ingesting it, bleed to death into the lumen of their intestines. The EU recommend that this 'rodenticide' is generally only used inside buildings (such as homes and barns). Prior to 2016, that was also the case in the UK. From 2016, brodifacoum became usable anywhere in England. People, keeping this toxin, don't even have to be entered on a register. Birds of prey die, if they eat rodents who have ingested brodifacoum. Between 2005 and 2019, the Wildlife Incident Investigation Scheme found only single annual figures for birds of prey carcasses containing brodifacoum. There were, however, 23 cases in 2020 and 25 such incidents in the first half of 2021 (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/06/toxic-rat-poison-killing-growing-number-england-birds-of-prey). There is, consequently, a clear link between the 'more relaxed' use of brodifacoum (by gamekeepers and landowners?) and birds of prey deaths. Brodifacoum was certainly found in the body of the released Dorset White-tailed eagle. Data from its tag, suggested it took several weeks to die. Starvation may have been a factor, as the ability of birds of prey to hunt, strongly depends on their physical fitness.