Taichung Wildlife Rescue Group, Taichung, Taiwan.
Taichung Wildlife Rescue Group, Taichung, Taiwan; School of Life Science, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan.
Ecotoxicol Environ Saf. 2022 Mar 15;233:113361. doi: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2022.113361. Epub 2022 Feb 28.
Rodenticides are widely used around the world since the 1950s. In Taiwan, an anti-rodent operation initiated 1977 and became a regular action annually implied by the government until 2014. This anti-rodent operation caused many animals of non-target species being exposed by rodenticides and became an environmental issue. The Black-winged Kite (Elanus caeruleus) is a small-sized diurnal raptor widely distributed in the Old World continent. Since 2000, a newly colonized population of this species occurred in Taiwan. Although the Black-winged Kites may suffer from the threats of rodenticides, the population is still growing and soon became the most abundant raptor in farmlands of Taiwan. Whether the Black-winged Kite accumulates higher anticoagulant rodenticide residues than other raptors are still unclear. In this study, liver samples of Black-winged Kites were collected from 2013 to 2016, when the detected residues of anticoagulant rodenticides increased annually. The concentration of residue rodenticide was above 0.2 ppm among 30% of the detected samples, which is the toxicity threshold concentration of other raptors. In the meanwhile, the lesser ricefield rat (Rattus losea), the most common prey of Black-winged Kites, also extended the survival period after fed on rodenticide. The longer survival days after being poisoned can enhance the predation opportunity of raptors, thus affect the accumulated rodenticides in the raptors. This study demonstrates that the Black-winged Kite has higher concentration of anticoagulant rodenticide than most other raptors, which provide the case that the raptor can quickly accumulate rodenticide residues within a short period of time.
自 20 世纪 50 年代以来，鼠药在全世界范围内广泛使用。在台湾，自 1977 年开始的灭鼠行动成为政府每年的例行行动，一直持续到 2014 年。这项灭鼠行动导致许多非目标物种的动物接触到鼠药，成为一个环境问题。黑翅鸢（Elanus caeruleus）是一种分布广泛的小型日间猛禽，广泛分布于旧大陆。自 2000 年以来，该物种在台湾出现了一个新的殖民地。尽管黑翅鸢可能受到鼠药的威胁，但该物种的数量仍在增长，很快成为台湾农田中最丰富的猛禽。黑翅鸢是否比其他猛禽积累更高水平的抗凝血灭鼠剂残留仍不清楚。在这项研究中，从 2013 年到 2016 年收集了黑翅鸢的肝脏样本，在此期间，每年检测到的抗凝血灭鼠剂残留量都在增加。在 30%的检测样本中，有 30%的样本中残留的灭鼠剂浓度超过了 0.2 ppm，这是其他猛禽的毒性阈值浓度。与此同时，黑翅鸢最常见的猎物——小褐家鼠（Rattus losea）在食用了鼠药后延长了存活时间。中毒后存活时间延长，可以增加猛禽捕食的机会，从而影响猛禽体内积累的灭鼠剂。本研究表明，黑翅鸢体内的抗凝血灭鼠剂浓度高于大多数其他猛禽，这说明猛禽可以在短时间内快速积累灭鼠剂残留。
