Rodent menace, their management and role of possible new rodenticide formulations to combat resistance

Abstract

Rodents have caused havoc with human’s economy as they destroy all food items in field, godown, storage house, poultry farm and premises. Due to its closeness to man habitation, it spreads number of diseases like plague etc. Rodents are estimated to cause around 5-15% damages, losses to cereals and other areas. Rodenticide is one of the important ways of controlling rodent damage. However, limitations with present rodenticides are accidental or secondary poisoning, risk to non-target organisms and probable development of resistances. Under such circumstances, there is need for awareness generation among the farm growers and manufacturers, who are involved in using and developing these rodenticide technologies. Possible new innovative rodenticide formulations like spreading oil, encapsulated bait etc may be successful to combat rodent resistance.