Could your pet’s toxic flea treatment be damaging our Welsh rivers?
Vet surgeon and founder of Burns Pet Nutrition, John Burns, explains why he’s taking a stand against insecticides to protect our thriving and sustainable ecosystems.
John Burns & furry pal, Lizzie.
Every pet parent will know that fleas can be really unpleasant for everyone in the household. Many pet owners choose to use flea treatments on their cat or dog on a monthly basis to try and prevent an infestation. Yet not as many know that this routine flea treatment is often unnecessary and could actually be causing damage to our rivers, streams and wildlife in Wales.
Fipronal and imidacloprid, the active ingredients in the flea treatments used on dogs and cats, were banned from agricultural use in 2017 and 2018 because of their toxic effects on bees and other insect life.
Yet many of us may be surprised to find out that these ingredients are being used regularly in our homes on up to 80% of the 10 million dogs and 11 million cats in the UK. More worrying still, recent research has now found Fipronal in 99% of samples taken from rivers in the study. Scientists believe that these pesticides enter the water when pets are washed at home, or swim in rivers. Another popular method of flea treatment are flea collars, which work by releasing a chemical that dissolves and spreads throughout the animal’s skin to kill fleas on any part of its body. If that pet then swims in a river, both the collar and the pet will release these chemicals into the water.
Why does this matter? Well, our streams and rivers are home to aquatic insect life, which is vitally important to healthy, thriving and sustainable ecosystems. They provide food for fish, amphibians, and other wildlife, as well as helping to purify the water. Many people are already aware of the importance of bees for similar ecological reasons. Without insect life in our rivers, our ecosystem would ultimately collapse. To give you some context - it’s estimated that one flea treatment of a medium-sized dog with Imidacloprid contains enough pesticide to kill 60 million bees. So you can work out the likely destruction of insect life that this pollution of our rivers and streams is causing.
At Burns Pet Nutrition we are lucky to be based in a beautiful part of Wales. The area around our premises is rich in wildlife habitats and from our office windows we can see an estuary and river, forests, farmland and wetlands. We are passionate about protecting and conserving the environment, and strive to work in a way that is as sustainable as possible, as well as promoting a natural approach to pet nutrition.
As a pet lover, business owner and vet, I would argue that it is time to stop using these flea treatments routinely and free ourselves and our water from these toxic chemicals. Ask yourself, is the regular use of such treatment really necessary for your pet, especially in the winter months? As with most medicines, they should be used only for treatment, not for prevention. They should only be used when the pet is actually infested with fleas or ticks and if you follow the instructions fully. This is most likely to be a problem in the warmer summer months and not at all necessary in winter when fleas are less prevalent. A possible exception is when a pet is allergic to a flea bite and can develop a very unpleasant reaction. An allergy might justify routine medication but is not very common and this should be restricted to veterinary prescription only.
A major problem is that these treatments do not require a prescription from a vet. Their regulation and usage is controlled by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate (VMD). When these treatments were first introduced, it was thought that their use was not significant, so no real controls were imposed. In my opinion, this needs to change and requires action from the VMD to change the product licence to restrict the routine use of insecticides to POM (prescription only medicine). The situation is not helped by the fact that some, possibly many, veterinary practices supply year-round medication to their clients as part of a routine annual paid-for care package.
Of course, it follows that a great deal of money is being wasted by pet owners on unnecessary treatment of their pets. It also means that the pet and household is continuously doused with insecticide.
Minimising use does not mean your pet and home will continuously suffer from fleas. My own collie, Lizzie, lived for 16 years, and I think I treated her for fleas about three times in her life. If we can avoid saturating our families, pets and homes with these chemicals, we will all reap the benefit.
About the author
References and further reading:
John Burns is a vet surgeon and the founder of Burns Pet Nutrition which offers a range of premium quality, natural pet food. Burns Pet Nutrition is based in Kidwelly, Wales.
