Woolworths has restocked and discounted a product so dangerous that Australia’s pesticides regulator has recommended it be pulled from shelves next year.
These household baits contain the same active ingredients as items the supermarket withdrew from sale in April, but the boxes now feature a sticker clarifying their use.
You may not have heard of the industry term — second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides (SGARs) — but the products that contain them, like Ratsak Fast Action and Talon Rat and Mouse Killer, are household names.
Scientists formulated SGARs in the 1970s to thin the blood of rats and mice, causing them to bleed out from the inside.
But a design flaw has led to them killing off native animals that naturally eat rodents, such as tawny frogmouths, owls, and even endangered mammals like quolls.
Unlike first-generation products, they accumulate in predators’ bodies each time they eat a baited rodent, causing secondary poisoning.
Inset: Winfield cigarette packets with warnings. Background: New Ratsak warnings.
Government agency intervenes as retailers sell poison
In many overseas jurisdictions, SGARS have been highly restricted.
But in Australia, retailers like Bunnings, Coles, IGA, Mitre 10 and Woolworths sold them on shelves alongside less harmful products, and both customers and staff struggled to tell the difference.
Wildlife groups had campaigned for a decade, calling on the retailers to voluntarily withdraw them.
Then, following a four-year investigation into harm caused by SGARs, the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) interned.
It found they posed an “unacceptable risk” to wildlife and recommended it be declared a restricted chemical product, effectively banning it from consumer sale.
In the interim, it suspended the import and manufacture of SGARs for a year and imposed new labelling requirements for any old stock that retailers wished to sell.
A line of owls tested for SGARS.
Coles remains quiet after making bold SGAR move
As they evaluated how to comply with the new regulations, Australia’s supermarket giants Woolworths and Coles pulled these products from their shelves in March.
For now, the shelf space at Coles where SGARs once sat remains empty, but the company has declined to reveal whether they will return.
It’s understood to be working with a supplier on next steps.
Bunnings is selling existing stock with SGARs on the basis that it is giving customers a 1200-word handout instructing safe use of the item.
Woolworths discounts SGARs and adds warning label
Woolworths confirmed it will cease selling SGARs by July 2026, ahead of the proposed APVMA ban, tentatively scheduled for March 2027.
After this, it said, “Customers can continue to purchase a range of alternative pest control products.”
Wildlife advocacy groups are understood to be quietly fuming that the retailers are continuing to sell the SGARs, when there is overwhelming evidence, much of it from Edith Cowan University, that they are killing native species.
Earlier this week, much of its stock was temporarily discounted by 25 per cent, bringing the price down to $6.70.
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Products in Woolworths have new small black-and-white labels around the size of cigarette packet warnings from the early 1990s — before they added the gory pictures of diseased gums and lungs.
Complying with the APVMA regulations, they direct buyers to use them only inside and to house the contents in a tamper-resistant bait station.
But if a shopper opts to follow the new instructions and wants a tamper-resistant bait station, they’ll likely have to shop around elsewhere to find one.
That’s because Woolworths doesn’t supply standalone bait stations — although it does sell preloaded options in some stores.
While the new instruction labels were added to physical products inside stores, these warnings were not added online.
Woolworths concluded the new APVMA regulations did not extend to guidance on its website.
Yahoo News has raised the matter with Woolworths, and it’s understood that product information will be updated.
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