NSW government buys outlawed mice poison before regulator decision on ban

The NSW government has not waited for the poisons regulator to approve a banned mouse bait before ordering the first shipment. VIDEO: See how the plague spread.

The first barrels of a mouse poison so potent it has been banned for years will arrive in NSW this week. And hundreds of farmers are jostling for some of the “napalm-like” weapon in their war against mice.

But when trucks loaded with the most lethal mouse poison in the world arrive in Dubbo this week, it will still be illegal for use.

The state government is sweating on an emergency permit from the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) to spread grain laced with the lethal bromadiolone around the perimeter of farm paddocks across NSW.

More than 400 farmers have already signed up to use the poison as mouse bait.

Bromadiolone kills mice by causing uncontrolled bleeding because it prevents the body from recycling vitamin K, which is necessary to clot blood.

One man caught more than 500 mice in one night, Picture: Matt Hansen Real Estate Dubbo via Facebook

“We’ve secured more than 10,000 litres of bromadiolone already, ­announced and established 20 distribution points across rural NSW, and have our qualified staff ready to go as soon as we get the green light from the APVMA,” Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall said.

“Our sites will be ready to go. We just need approval to use bromadiolone — as farmers were able to the last time we faced a mouse plague.”

The barrels of bromadiolone have been gathering dust at a warehouse on Melbourne’s northern outskirts for the past 10 years, since it was banned from widespread use in paddocks because it is also lethal to mouse-eating predators such as snakes, eagles and owls.

The state government’s main supplier of bromadiolone is Animal Control Technologies Australia, whose managing director Linton Staples considers it the “lesser of all evils”.

Professor Linton Staples, Animal Control Technologies Australia.

Agriculture Minister Adam Marshall.

Mr Staples said bromadiolone could not replace the zinc phosphide currently in widespread use because the environmental fallout would be disastrous, but there was a risk in not escalating the fight against the mice currently chewing through grasses that feed native rodents.

“Bromadiolone was discontinued 10 years ago because of environmental concerns, so why am I supplying the concentrate?” Dr Staples said.

“The answer is because we are at war and the mice are outrunning our ability to bait them.

“On the balance of acceptable risk, it is better we use bromadiolone to help landholders in the current emergency, even if it is not the ­perfect option. But if we swapped from zinc phosphide to bromadiolone, we would have significant environmental consequences.”

Another alternative being considered is doubling the concentration of zinc phosphide applied to grain bait, but there are fears it will quickly ­exhaust supplies of the chemical with negligible benefit.

Chemicals flown in from India are scarcely keeping up with demand, but Dr Staples is confident his company will continue to keep the poison flowing “albeit barely”.

NSW Farmers vice-president Xavier Martin thinks bromadiolone is a red herring and the government should instead commit to continued subsidies for zinc phosphide.