Is your pet’s flea treatment dangerous?
Many of us administer chemical flea treatments to our pets once a month, as advised by our vets. Packaged in single-use pipettes, it only takes a matter of minutes to protect our dogs and cats from parasites. But should we be stopping to think about the side effects of these convenient treatments, both to our pets and our environment?
How do spot-on flea treatments work?
Chemical spot-on treatments applied to the back of your pet’s neck enter their system via the sebaceous glands in the skin. These chemicals are then slowly released via the hair follicles.
“FRONTLINE PLUS®, FRONTLINE TRI-ACT® and FRONTLINE® SPOT ON act topically, which means that fleas and ticks are killed through contact with your pet’s skin and coat – they don’t need to bite to be killed.”
Did you know that “one monthly flea treatment for a large dog contains enough pesticide to kill 25 million bees.” ?
The most common active ingredients in anti-parasitic treatments are imidacloprid and fipronil, which are both banned from agricultural use following evidence of their damaging effect on pollinating bees. The only remaining licensed usage for these chemicals is in biocides (ant/fly spray) and domestic pet parasitic treatments.
A recent study showed that 99% of UK river samples contained fipronil.
And 66% contained imidacloprid. So, how do they get from our pets to our rivers?
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Swimming. If our pets swim in freshwater sources, the chemicals can leach into the water. This is also true for pets that wear flea collars.
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Shedding. When bathing our pets, all the hair down the drain enters our wastewater. Washing bedding and clothes with pet hair on them contributes to this.
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Hand washing. And no, not only the first wash after applying flea treatment. The ingredients remain active in our pet's hair for the whole month. Every time we touch our pets and wash our hands, this is washed down the drain.
Imidacloprid and fipronil are toxic not only to fleas but to many invertebrates (such as mayflies and aquatic shrimps), which are in turn eaten by birds, bats, newts, and fish. Chemical flea treatments pose a risk not only to pollinators but our ecosystem as a whole.
Chemicals from pet flea treatments are also damaging the UK’s songbird population.
As a nation of animal lovers, it’s not surprising that many of us intentionally leave our pets fur out for garden birds to nest with. The University of Sussex collected nests from blue and great tits that used animal fur. 100% of the nests contained fipronil, and 89% contained imidacloprid. The study showed clear links that the insecticides from the pet fur were harmful to birds, with high numbers of unhatched eggs and dead hatchlings.
The risk of resistance
Toxic pesticides are all around us. They are damaging our lakes and rivers, insects, songbirds, and, more than likely, our pets. There are over 20 million dogs and cats in the UK. While one month’s treatment on a dog or cat may not pose a significant risk, the cumulative impact should be seriously considered.
Treating our pets for fleas has become routine, exacerbated by the popularity of ‘healthcare plans’ within veterinary business models. Many of us are encouraged by our vets to sign up for the ‘VIP’ plans, so we assume that is what’s best for our companions.
It is vital that we risk-assess our use of chemicals to avoid overuse and resistance. Choosing natural remedies over chemical flea treatments is becoming less of a choice and more of a necessity.
We all want to protect our pets from parasites, but could the treatments pose a greater risk than the fleas themselves?
