Research overview: bobcat mange and anticoagulant rodenticide exposure

Research in human-influenced landscapes has revealed a troubling link between anticoagulant rodenticides and severe mange in bobcats, and this overview reviews it. Bobcats accumulate rodenticides by eating poisoned prey, and studies in California and elsewhere have associated this exposure with immune suppression that allows notoedric mange to become lethal, driving localized die-offs. GPS tracking and necropsy work have documented the pathway from urban rodent control through prey to predator. These findings highlight an indirect, under-recognized threat to carnivores from common pest-control practices and have informed efforts to restrict certain rodenticides. The bobcat serves as a sentinel, exposing how toxins move through food webs and harm wildlife far from the point of application.