In Fall of 2025, Seeta Sistla noticed a build up of rodenticide boxes, or bait boxes for rats and other pests, on campus. The natural resources management and environmental sciences professor emailed Cal Poly’s sustainability team and Facilities Customer and Business Services about the issue.
After a month of email correspondence, she received an explanation from the landscaping supervisor, via email from Dane Wolff, customer service coordinator. At the end of their contracts, pest control agencies are expected to remove boxes from campus, but in practice, that has not always happened.
The landscaping team’s first responsibility is to keep a safe and hygienic campus environment, which involves the consistent suppression of rodents, the landscaping supervisor wrote in the email. They currently rely on conventional methods, like using the rodenticide boxes, but are always exploring other options.
Frustrated with the inactionable response she received, Sistla brought her concerns to Cal Poly’s Wildlife Club. Their club advisor, biological sciences professor Tim Bean, introduced her findings to club members to gauge interest in mapping the boxes on campus.
Her hope was that she could then use this data to accurately demonstrate to the university the harm these boxes pose to the campus environment.
“So who’s gonna manage all of these dead and dying animals that have just ingested this toxin?” Sistla questioned. “Where are they going? There’s no documentation of it.”
Services provided by pest control companies on campus are managed by multiple entities, each responsible for their own contracted areas, according to university spokesperson Keegan Koberl. Entities include departments like ASI, University Housing or Campus Dining.
“Due to the size of campus and the involvement of multiple service providers, we do not have a centralized inventory of previously placed bait boxes,” Koberl wrote.
The poison in these bait boxes has led to non-targeted wildlife showing symptoms of rodenticide poisoning, according to Kelley Bowland, Pacific Wildlife Care Center development coordinator. Club board members have been in close contact with the center as they have been noticing animals coming in with these symptoms.
Since November 2025, the club has documented 464 rodenticide boxes on campus, and they are still collecting data in the outskirts of the main campus.
Pest control company contract
Currently, pest control company Orkin has a general campus contract with the university, which covers the main campus, and a contract with University Housing. The main campus contract began Jan. 1, 2025, and University Housing began Aug. 1, 2024. However, club members have been finding more than just Orkin’s rodenticide boxes on campus.
Due to performance issues, Cal Poly terminated its contract with its previous company and opened up rebid in November 2024, hiring Orkin shortly after, Koberl wrote in an email to Mustang News.
The facilities team has not yet identified any performance issues with Orkin, but they meet monthly to discuss service performance, ongoing pest management strategies and ensure compliance with contract requirements, Koberl said.
According to Orkin’s contract with Cal Poly, they are responsible for removing materials like temporary structures and waste around or on site and dispose of them in a safe and legal fashion. The contract was obtained in a public records request by Mustang News.
The previously contracted companies were directed by the facilities team to remove the bait boxes within 30 days of the end of their contract, according to Koberl.
The Wildlife Club’s project
Five other types of rodenticide boxes were found during this search: Western, Terminix, Protecta LP, TOMCAT, Ecolab and a handful of unknown traps. Once this was brought to facilities attention, they began fixing the issue and are actively disposing of the rodenticide boxes, Koberl wrote.
Oliver Chamberlin, vice President of the Wildlife Club, created a map reflecting the locations of these rodenticide boxes. The environmental management and protection senior used geographic information systems software, ArcGIS, to compile and display this data.
“But, like, using that information to help inform management decisions that are based on the cause of the problem as opposed to just treating it symptomatically,” said Anna Foehr, President of the Wildlife Club.
Foehr and Sistla recognized there are always overflowing trash receptacles on campus that could be attracting these pests. And that would need to be managed first, before implementing new solutions for catching the rodents.
“We need to work as a community to reduce our trash on campus and incentivize other means of rodent control,” Sistla said.
Rodenticide boxes need to be properly disposed of to ensure community members do not get contaminated, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
After compiling their data, members have found that 33 of the 464 documented boxes don’t have labels, according to Chamberlin. Per the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, a label must detail the name and address of the producer or registrant, directions for use and use classification, among other things.
Small groups of club members were assigned an area on campus to cover and document how many boxes were in that area, according to Chamberlin. Each photo documentation contains the exact location of the photo and any notes that could distinguish the area, like if the trap is up against a storm grid or near running water.
“We want this to be a form of accountability, essentially, for the university and for these companies as well, to do what they’re supposed to be doing,” Chamberlin said.
While their findings have not spurred any action yet, both Foehr and Chamberlin stated how excited their club members are about the project and some have even expressed interest beyond just collecting data, like investigating the potential impacts of rodenticides on non-target species.
Effects on other wildlife
Chamberlin explained that the rodenticide boxes raise huge issues for wildlife because when rodents go into the boxes and ingest the poisons, they don’t die right then and there. They leave the area and die over the course of the next couple days.
Rodenticide boxes are engineered to kill pests rather than catching them, according to Orkin’s website. Bromethalin, a non-anticoagulant rodenticide poison, is most often used in rodenticide boxes. The type of poison should be noted on the rodenticide boxes if emergency treatment is needed, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. California has the strongest legislation restricting anticoagulant rodenticides in the country, as part of the Poison-Free Wildlife Act which began Jan. 1, 2025.
Larger predators, like foxes, coyotes and predatory birds, will eat the deceased rodents and the rodenticide will bioaccumulate in their system over time, according to Chamberlin. The Pacific Wildlife Care Center in Morro Bay has been noticing birds and larger mammals dropping dead because of the accumulation of these rodenticides.
Staff at the wildlife center are concerned about the use of rodenticides and do not support their “indiscriminate” use because of their effects on non-target wildlife, Bowland wrote to Mustang News in an email.
Great horned owls, barn owls, red-tailed hawks, turkey vultures, Virginia opossums and gray foxes are species that the center most often sees with suspected rodenticide exposure, according to Bowland.
State research demonstrates how widespread non-targeted rodenticide exposure is, as detailed in a report by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in 2024, Bowland explained. They found that 29 of 54 tested raptors and 75 of 97 mammals had been exposed to anticoagulant rodenticides, including three golden eagles that were submitted for testing from San Luis Obispo County.
“We hope that our findings, along with a supporting review on the broader environmental and wildlife impacts of rodenticides, and comparisons to pest management strategies used in other countries, will encourage the University to move away from this ineffective approach,” Foehr said. “Instead, we advocate for methods that address the root causes of pest issues and prioritize proper assessment from the outset.”
Wildlife Club hopes for advocacy
Not only could these pest control products be harming other wildlife in the campus community’s direct surroundings, it could pose questions about human health if people become exposed to the poisons used. Exposure can cause severe health effects and even lead to death, according to Chamberlin.
“And are we willing to sacrifice our bobcats, our mountain lions, our hawks, our vultures, our ground squirrels, and potentially ourselves, for controlling rodents in this way?” Sistla asked.
Foehr doesn’t believe the university is being responsible in disposing of previously placed bait boxes. Additionally, the club observed that many of the boxes were not in discreet locations, which Foehr says raises concerns about oversight and proper disposal practices.
He puts emphasis on wanting the university to adopt more holistic methods like sustainable pest control methods and introducing a safe way to dispose of the rodenticide boxes.
“I just want something actionable,” Chamberlin said. “Something that the university will want to do something about because we don’t want to, you know, create conflict with the university. We just want to motivate a positive change, you know?”
According to Koberl, the university and the facilities team is happy to engage with community members on maintaining a healthy and safe environment for students, faculty and staff.
This story originally appeared in the April printed edition of Mustang News. Check out more stories from the issue here.
