Wildlife Control CEO Advocates for Alternative Control Measures

Editor's note: Watch behind-the-scene footage of Rebecca Dmytryk conducting environmentally friendly wildlife control. 

MOSS LANDING, Calif. — “There is no normal day in the [wildlife] business,” said animal behaviorist and Humane Wildlife Control CEO Rebecca Dmytryk, Moss Landing, Calif., describing her company’s work to alter human and animal behavior in the pest control industry.

Dmytryk, along with her husband, Duane Titus, run Humane Wildlife Control, which offers an alternative approach to nuisance wildlife control. Their service areas include Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Benito, and portions of San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. The southern California location serves Agoura, Calabasas and Malibu.

Although Dmytryk has worked with wildlife animals for three decades, she has spent the past 12 years dedicated to solving wildlife conflicts and “resolving those humanely, ethically and mostly non-lethal, and with respect to the environment,” she said.

“We're changing the human's behavior, whether that's their house that has holes that the rodents are getting in, so we're altering the human landscape, and thereby altering the human animal behavior,” Dmytryk said.

Dmytryk considers her business to be a “branch of pest control” by not using rodenticides and by following their strong code of ethics policy, she said.

© Courtesy of Rebecca Dmytryk

“We don't kill the rats and mice,” Dmytryk said. “We let them go right in front of [a customer’s] house, and it's not just because of the ethical reason, it's also because that's the only way that I can guarantee your house is 100 percent rodent proofed is by allowing these little guys to live and to try and get back in the repairs that we've made.”

In some instances, the couple uses colored dye on rats tails to better detect the entry spots of a home.

“If Mr. Green tail gets back in again, we'll know that we either missed something, or it got through somewhere else,” Dmytryk said. “ [Cameras] have really helped us find some places that no way would we have found without that kind of surveillance with the live animal and the cameras.”

Dmytryk also is providing her community with important wildlife observations. For example, she studies the coyote population and builds a report for a local municipality.

In 2012, she published her first book, “Wildlife Search and Rescue: A Guide for First Responders,” and currently heads Wildlife Emergency Services, a wildlife consulting nonprofit and emergency response training, as well as local assistance with difficult and technical rescues.

BRINGING TOUGH CONVERSATIONS TO THE TABLE

Dmytryk believes wildlife has become a “separate, diverging branch” of pest control.

“I'm proud to be part of the pest control industry, but I see it a little differently,” she said, adding that she wants to bring those tough conversations to the table and have dialogues to hopefully change the overuse of pesticides and rodenticides.

© Courtesy of Rebecca Dmytryk

“Without empathy, there’s no drive to find alternative means of resolving pest problems,” Dmytryk said. “Methods that are more respectful of all living things and our place in nature, not separate of it.”

Dmytryk was a 2023 National Pest Management Association (NPMA) Women’s Impact Award recipient for growing her woman-owned-and-run wildlife control company across California, and said she wants to encourage more women to bring compassion back into the industry.

“[Using pesticides and rodenticides] is counterproductive in most cases, unless you have a closed environment where no animals are coming in,” Dmytryk said. “I feel like it's important this award being recognized as a woman in the field, both administratively and being in the field.”

Dmytryk recently designed an outdoor exclusion barrier to keep rodents out of small and large-spaced areas.

“I'm using it currently on a job site keeping rodents from getting into a wine a wine room because they have really antique doors that have lots and lots of holes like a barn door,” she said.