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By Katie Honan

The New York City Council on Thursday introduced a bill to protect the city’s wildlife — inspired by the death of Flaco the owl and other birds of prey sickened by eating poisoned rats.

“Flaco’s Law” would include changes to how the city mitigates its rat population, encouraging a different kind of birth control for the rodents — instead of poison. 

Councilmember Shaun Abreu (D-Manhattan), who introduced the rat contraceptive bill, argued the city shouldn’t just keep pumping pesticide at the problem. 

“We can’t poison our way out of this, we cannot kill our way out of this,” he said, noting the unintended consequences of using rodenticide — like a Rottweiler puppy who died after eating poison while walking in Washington Heights. The poison also contributes to untold animal deaths each year, including Flaco’s, THE CITY previously reported.

Under his proposed bill, the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene would work with the Department Sanitation to launch a pilot program to send out pellet-like contraceptives in the city’s “rat mitigation zones.” There would be at least two pilot program areas covering at least 10 city blocks and last at least half a year, per the bill. 

The pellet would work better than other previously-used contraceptive methods, according to Abreu, who chairs the Council’s Committee on Sanitation and Solid Waste Management. 

He pointed to other rat contraceptive attempts, like in Bryant Park recently, that weren’t that successful — but said the pellets would work better. 

“It’s salty, it’s sweet, and it has fatty materials within it that attract rats,” he said. “They’ll bring that back to their burrow for other rats to eat.”