CHARLOTTE AMALIE — A stateside-based biotech company recently announced via press release that a product designed to stamp out rat fertility will soon be deployed to the U.S. Virgin Islands.
That was news to the U.S. Virgin Islands.
In a June 26 press release, Arizona biotechnology company SenesTech said that a soft bait called “Evolve” — which purportedly impacts rat fertility — “will be deployed in the U.S. Virgin Islands as part of an international effort to control invasive species in environmentally sensitive areas. This effort is administered by the Wild Ecology Group.”
According to SenesTech, Evolve is a soft bait for rats which impacts their fertility and stops the rodents’ propensity for rapid reproduction.
The SenesTech press release quoted Wild Ecology Group’s Nick Morrison as saying that his company “sees Evolve as part of a long term, sustainable solution to invasive species proliferation and is being rolled out to over 60 islands in our care. Ultimately, Evolve will be our standard of care as we assess our programs worldwide.”
Morrison told The Daily News on Wednesday that he said no such thing.
He said that he had just been made aware of the press release, which he called “full of inaccurate information.”
“There’s no intention of putting Evolve out to ‘60 islands,’ as they put it,” he said, adding that he didn’t think there even were 60 islands in the Virgin Islands. “We’re actually going to use it on a small number of islands — and just a trial, to see if it functions.”
Morrison said the Wild Ecology Group has evaluated a number of islands for rat infestation. But he disputed SenesTech’s characterization that the Wild Ecology Group would deploy Evolve “worldwide.”
“I don’t even understand what that means,” he said, “so I think that’s some hyperbole on their part.”
DPNR, SenesTech and the Wild Ecology Group differed on whether Evolve is even approved for use in the territory.
The active ingredient in Evolve is cottonseed oil, and the product is categorized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a “minimum risk pesticide” which is exempted from registration under a section of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act. But such products still must be registered for use in the territory, and a DPNR spokesperson confirmed on Friday that had been registered in June.
DPNR spokesperson Jamal Nielsen told The Daily News that Wild Ecology Group is a sub-awardee of federal funds. According to the Virgin Islands Government transparency website, transparency.vi.gov, the company received $96,000 in 2023 for work related to the territory’s pest management efforts.
“And we support the project idea, and we look forward to good results here in the Virgin Islands,” Nielsen said on Thursday.
SenesTech is a publicly traded company. Its CEO, Joel Fruendt, doubled-down on the press release during a call with The Daily News on Thursday when asked to explain the discrepancies.
“Well, we’re not misleading anyone. The press release was issued, and it’s based on an order that we received from Wild Ecology, and that’s … that’s as much as that we need anybody to know,” he said.
Fruendt is quoted as saying in SenesTech’s press release that the “initial multi-pallet order is already en route to the U.S. Virgin Islands, and we have reserved The Wild Ecology’s regular order in our production schedule.”
When pressed about Morrison’s quote, Fruendt said on Thursday that “we got the information together and issued a press release based on what we had from the customer.” Later, he said that “everything that we do, in regards to press releases and those types of things, we send those out to the appropriate people for their approval.”
The Wild Ecology Group acknowledged that a small order had been placed, and they are “evaluating the product and that includes their ability to deliver it to the islands.”
Municipalities have tried combatting rats through fertility control before. Proponents have argued that the process is more humane than traditional rodenticides, and poison doesn’t travel up the food chain to impact other species like birds of prey. A rat contraception pilot program is currently being considered by the New York City Council, where it has received overwhelming community support based on testimony submitted to the NYCC in May. Most testifiers expressed support for the measure on humanitarian grounds.
An outlier was the New York City Health and Mental Hygiene representative, who wrote that the department “has operational and effectiveness concerns about this legislation.”
“There has been significant study of rat contraceptives over the last decade — including our own study in 2017 — the studies have found that rat contraception is not effective for an urban pest control program,” wrote Corinne Schiff, the department’s deputy commissioner of environmental health.
In April 2023, New York City’s Bryan Park Corporation tried using another SenesTech product — ContraPest — to stop rats from procreating in a city park. A spokesperson for the Bryan Park Corporation told New York media outlet Gothamist that the pilot program ran for a month and a half, but it was unsuccessful. Fruendt told the Daily News on Thursday that like any other product, pest contraception products have to be used as recommended.
“Certainly, a product that’s used to control the birth rate — to just put it out there for one month and try to get some results, it’s just not something that . . . They might as well have not done anything,” he said.
Fruendt said the company tries to work with clients to achieve best results and called the products “very palatable” to rats.
“And once they start consuming it, after two to three months you’ll start to see a decline in the population, because they start reproducing at the age of 2 months,” he added.
Locally, Morrison called DPNR and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service good partners in the U.S. Virgin Islands and said all parties agreed that good things don’t happen quickly. Morrison told The Daily News that stakeholders are in it “for the long haul.”
“We’re gonna test it first, and we’re not gonna take them at their word — we’re not gonna take the data ‘as is’,” he said. Rather, Morrison intends to see if the product works. If it does, “I think that’s great news for everybody.”
Morrison underscored the importance of managing invasive species and giving native, threatened species a chance to recover as well as safeguarding the health of human beings.
“Rats are a massive vector of human diseases,” he pointed out, in addition to the damage they wreak on an environmental level. “I don’t think there’s many people running around saying, ‘well, you know, we need more rats around.’”
By KIT MACAVOY/V.I. Daily News