Due to financial difficulties created by covid-19, the University of Reading has made the difficult decision to close the Vertebrate Pests Unit. Unfortunately this means that we are no longer able to offer resistance testing at the University or continue our part in the rodenticide resistance testing project.
As this announcement also means that myself and Montse will be leaving the University, we both want to thank you for your enthusiasm and participation in the project. Without your help we would not have been able to collect so many tail samples and fill in so many of the gaps on the maps. We truly appreciate the hard work of everyone involved.
The Campaign for Responsible Rodenticide Use (CRRU) and the Rodenticide Resistance Action Committee (RRAC), who have been funding our research, are in the process of finding alternative laboratories to continue this important work. So if you have tail samples stored in the freezer please listen out for future announcements by these two groups. It is essential that the mapping of resistance mutations continues for both the effective management of rodents and for the environment as a whole.
All of our results will be uploaded onto the RRAC online resistance maps https://guide.rrac.info/resistance-maps.html so please remember to visit their website for the latest resistance updates.
Thank you again for your support.
From the whole team at the Vertebrate Pests Unit.