Philippines Field Station Records--

In 1968, the Denver Wildlife Research Center (DWRC) (predecessor to the NWRC) established its first overseas field station on the campus of the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture in Los Baños. The mission of the Philippines Field Station, known as the Rodent Research Center (RRC), was to increase the human food supply by reducing rodent damage to field crops and stored food. The rodent control program was a joint Philippine-US government research effort and was staffed by DWRC scientists assigned through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as well as Filipino scientists from the U.P. College of Agriculture and the Philippine Bureau of Plant Industry. While participating in the international program, DWRC researchers studied the movements and population trends of rodents damaging food crops, developed more effective methods of rodent control in rice production, identified and tested safer rodenticides for agricultural use, and assisted the Philippine government in training wildlife damage specialists.

During the 1970s and early 1980s, DWRC personnel at the field station in the Philippines tested locally available anticoagulant rodenticides (primarily warfarin, diphacinone, coumachlor, coumatetralyl, and chlorophacinone) as well as zinc phosphide. DWRC researchers also developed a procedure for detecting anticoagulant resistance in rodents and developed a sustained baiting method used to protect crops on small acreages of rice, coconuts, and corn from damage caused by rats. As well, NWRC researchers developed an innovative method known as crown baiting, where anticoagulant rodenticide bait was placed in the crowns of some palms, for increasing bait acceptance by rats in coconut plantations. In 1975, the field station began developing nonlethal approaches such as electric barriers to protect coconut, corn, and other crops from rodent damage, however, dry season village-wide baiting programs directed by experts from the DWRC became the mainstay of rodent control efforts in the Philippines.

By 1976, the RRC had grown to include seven regional Crop Protection Centers and had become an administrative unit within the College of Agriculture at the University of the Philippines in Los Baños. The programs of the RRC were absorbed by the National Crop Protection Center (NCPC) at the U.P. College of Agriculture in 1976. The partnership between the DWRC and the NCPC ended in 1983.