Research overview: anticoagulant rodenticides, immune suppression and mange severity in wild cats

A growing body of work links sublethal anticoagulant rodenticide exposure to severe mange in urban bobcats and mountain lions, implicating chemical immunosuppression as the hidden driver. This overview surveys the evidence: near-universal rodenticide residues in animals dying of mange, experimental and correlative support for immune effects, and the ecological pathway by which predators accumulate poisons through contaminated prey. It examines how second-generation anticoagulants persist and bioaccumulate, the regulatory debates they have spurred, and the broader implications for predator health at the urban-wildland interface. The synthesis connects toxicology, immunology and disease ecology into a single causal chain. It aims to help readers appreciate that some felid disease outbreaks are best understood as the downstream consequence of widespread environmental contamination rather than as primary infectious events.