CVS Removes Rat Poison From Shelves in Malibu

In response to requests from the Malibu Agricultural Society, all rodenticide has been removed from the shelves of the CVS store in Malibu.

The removal was confirmed this week in an email from Steve Yamamoto, CVS' District Manager and a call to the store.

"We at the store level have removed the products from the shelves," Yamamoto said. 

In November, members of the Malibu Agricultural Society sent a letter to CVS asking for the removal of all rodenticide products from its shelves.

"Malibu is surrounded by national, state, county and city parks as well as other preserved natural areas that are filled with wildlife. Not only does the rodenticide kill mice and rats, there is a chain of victims of inadvertent poisoning including snakes, hawks, weasels, opossums, owls, raccoons, foxes, coyotes, bobcats and mountain lions, among others," Kian Schulman, the secretary at the Malibu Agricultural Society, wrote in the letter dated Nov. 2.

CVS carried two products that contain rodenticides, Ready Mixed Bait Bits and Mouse Trap.

Schulman and others sought to stop the sale of products with d-CON, a commonly use rodent poison. It is an anticoagulant which kills by causing internal bleeding.

"Rodenticide in the larger animals causes a weakness to the immune system that produces a slow and painful death. There is extreme emaciation, shock, convulsions and dehydration that can take weeks to kill the animal," Shulman wrote.

In August, James Smith of Sweetwater Mesa that several owls that frequented his property and other wildlife were disappearing. He later discovered that his neighbor had set out rat poison.

More recently, a year-old female mountain lion found dead by hikers in Point Mugu State Park had traces of rodenticide in her system.