Not all poisons will affect other animals. The bait stations will keep the bait for the rats. Once a rat is poisoned, it will go home to die-typically underground. Do some research on poison baits bc there are several and they have different ways of acting and some are metabolized by the rodent. Rendering them harmless to any critter that eats the rodent. Typically poison is going to be necessary to erradicate rats. They can be a serious problem.They have stated that they are hoping we will not use rat poison in bait stations because of secondary poisoning of birds and such - which I totally understand