Rodents gnawing through wires could result in short circuits leading to fire hazards; whereas damage to optical fiber cables could disrupt transmission of sensitive communication. Rodents often disturb underground train services and metro rail services. They are often responsible for heavy maintenance cost of duct & direct-buried cable networks.

Rodents are responsible for billions of dollars in lost crops each year. Reports of up to 20% of postharvest losses have enormous economic implications in developing countries. In Asia, a loss of 5% of rice production amounts to approximately 30 million tons; enough rice to feed 180 million people for 12 months. Rodents also cause pre-harvest losses by gnawing away at crops as also tubings used in drip irrigation systems and so on.

Sensitive applications such as gas transfer are also disturbed by chewing of rubber gas tubing and pipelines by these rodents. There have been instances of natural gas leaking out and leading to explosions because of chewed up pipes in which they were hauled.

Besides these rodents also cause damage to aircraft arrestor systems, automobiles, household appliances, landmines and the list is endless.

So far the most widely employed methods to tackle the rodent problems are the use of toxic rodenticides or traditional non toxic rodent aversives. Toxic rodenticides which are mainly pyrethroids based while being effective come with their own set of liabilities. Firstly and most importantly since they are toxic they are bound to have a lot of side effects mainly:

• There could be accidental ingestion by non-target species- which could have been otherwise useful, pets and so on. This can prove extremely detrimental in agriculture where upon application of such rodenticides there could be elimination of useful earthworms, honey bees and so on.


• Having high vapor pressure would mean that they would volatilize easily which would mean that their application in the wire and cable industry would remain limited. Toxic fumes resulting from these being in the vapor form are far more lethal than the rodenticide being in the original state itself.


• Moreover most rodenticide have a very fast release mechanism which means that they would leach out to the groundwater reserves as also degrade the soil condition.


• Accidental ingestion by human beings can also have unpleasant effects.