In September 2023, over 3 million bees died at the San Diego Bee Sanctuary.  The case was investigated by the San Diego County Department of Agriculture.  Analyses determined that the bees died of fipronil poisoning.  None of the surrounding agriculture operations use fipronil and it is now suspected that the bee colonies were deliberately and maliciously poisoned.

Fipronil will come to mind as the insecticide involved in the 2017 egg contamination incident affecting producers in Holland, Belgium, France and Germany.  A company in Holland illegally used fipronil to control red mite in small egg producing operations. The insecticide was ingested by hens, stored in tissues and passed into eggs.  Subsequent detection of fipronil resulted in widescale testing and recall of eggs from affected farms.  Flocks housing facilities treated with the illegal  pesticide were depopulated and farms were cleaned at considerably expense.  The perpetrators of the disaster were eventually sentenced to relatively short prison terms in the Netherlands.

Fipronil is not registered for use as a domestic or agricultural insecticide in the U.S. but is used to control termites in crawl spaces and in areas that do not come into contact with humans or animals on a regular basis.