Colorado’s SB26-062: Protect Birds, Pets, and Kids by Banning Deadly Rodenticides

Colorado’s SB26-062 is a commonsense, science-based bill that protects birds, kids, pets, and entire ecosystems while still allowing targeted rodent control in true public health emergencies.

What SB26-062 Actually Does

Prohibits the sale, distribution, and routine use of the most dangerous rodenticides and rodent glue traps across Colorado, with narrow exceptions in a declared public health emergency.

Requires professional rodent control operators to use integrated pest management first: exclusion, sanitation, physical barriers, mechanical and electronic traps, and other nonchemical strategies.

Directs state regulators to classify the targeted rodenticides as “restricted-use” and “limited-use” pesticides by 2027, tightening oversight and tracking of where, when, and why they are used.

Why It Protects Birds and Wildlife

Anticoagulant rodenticides often do not kill the target rodent immediately, which means poisoned animals stagger around long enough to be eaten by owls, hawks, eagles, foxes, bobcats, and other predators.

A study cited in the bill found a 96% exposure rate to rodenticides in birds of prey, showing that these poisons move through the food web and are not contained to the original target species.

Documented effects in wildlife include compromised immune function, infertility, impaired mobility, and slow, painful deaths from internal bleeding or neurological damage.

Why It’s Safer for Kids and Pets

Nationwide, rodenticide exposure has led to poisoning incidents and fatalities in children and companion animals, including documented cases here in Colorado.

Bromethalin, a non–anticoagulant rodenticide explicitly flagged in the bill, has seen human poisoning reports increase by 240% between 2012 and 2023, with children under five at particular risk.

Veterinarians in Colorado report agonizing, preventable deaths in dogs, cats, and wildlife from these poisons, whether from eating baits directly or consuming a poisoned rodent.

It Still Allows Rodent Control When Truly Needed

The bill allows restricted rodenticide use during a verified public health emergency, but only after all feasible exclusion and sanitation measures have been implemented.

Any such use must be temporary, documented, and paired with nonchemical measures, and bait must be removed once monitoring shows the infestation is under control.

Property owners must post clear signage (“Rodenticides in use for public health emergency”) so neighbors, families, and workers know when these high-risk poisons are present. Obviously, animals can’t read warning signs, so they can still eat poisoned rodents—but this bill will at least reduce how often these dangerous toxins are used. This is a step in the right direction.

Better, Proven Alternatives

SB26-062 explicitly promotes modern, effective rodent management: sealing entry points, improving waste and food storage, using mechanical and electronic traps, and emerging fertility-control tools.

These integrated strategies are more sustainable long term, because they address the causes of infestations—shelter and food—rather than scattering toxins that can poison entire food chains.

Other states (including California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont, and Washington) and the U.S. EPA are already moving to restrict similar rodenticides, and Colorado now has the opportunity to join this safer, modern approach.

Supporting SB26-062 means choosing effective rodent control that does not sacrifice raptors, pets, or children’s health for the illusion of convenience, and it aligns Colorado with a growing national movement toward safer, science-backed pest management.

Find your legislator and ask that they support the SB26-062 bill and protect the future for us all: https://leg.colorado.gov/find-my-legislator