Sodium fluoroacetate

Sodium fluoroacetate, also known as compound 1080, is an organofluorine chemical compound with the formula FCH2CO2Na. This colourless salt has a taste similar to that of sodium chloride and is used as a rodenticide. The effectiveness of sodium fluoroacetate as a rodenticide was reported in 1942. The name "1080" refers to the catalogue number of the poison, which became its brand name. The salt is synthesized by treating sodium chloroacetate with potassium fluoride. Both sodium and potassium salts are derivatives of fluoroacetic acid. Fluoroacetate occurs naturally in at least 40 plants in Australia, Brazil, and Africa. It is one of only five known organic fluorine-containing natural products. Gastrolobium is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae. This genus consists of over 100 species, and all but two are native to the southwest region of Western Australia, where they are known as "poison peas". Gastrolobium growing in southwestern Australia concentrate fluoroacetate from low-fluoride soils. Brush-tailed possums, bush rats, and western grey kangaroos native to this region are capable of safely eating plants containing fluoroacetate, but livestock and introduced species from elsewhere in Australia are highly susceptible to the poison, as are species introduced from outside Australia, such as the red fox. The fact that many Gastrolobium species also have high secondary toxicity to non-native carnivores is thought to have limited the ability of cats to establish populations in locations where the plants form a major part of the understorey vegetation. The presence of Gastrolobium species in Western Australia has often forced farmers to 'scalp' their land, that is, remove the top soil and any poison pea seed which it may contain, and replace it with a new poison pea-free top soil sourced from elsewhere in which to sow crops. Similarly, after bushfires in north-western Queensland, cattlemen have to move livestock before the poisonous Gastrolobium grandiflorum emerges from the ashes.