The movement to save wildlife from rodenticide poisoning is spreading in Franklin County.
Mass Audubon is raising awareness among residents that the increased use of second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides poses a growing threat to wildlife, as the impacts of the chemicals extend beyond the rodents, negatively affecting raptors and other predators that prey on rodents. The conservation organization is also recommending alternatives to rodenticide use and advising residents on how to turn information into action.
Second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides, or SGARs, contain chemicals like brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difenacoum, difethialone or flocoumafen in black bait boxes, according to the Barn Owl Trust’s website. The website also outlines popular SGAR products like Contrac, Ditrac, Erasor, Mouse Stop, Rat Killer, Vertox and Complete Mouse Killer. When predators such as raptors and foxes feast on rodents poisoned by SGARs, they, too, suffer slow deaths, Mass Audubon community organizer Heather Packard told attendees of a program at the Greenfield Public Library on Monday.
Anticoagulant rodenticides kill the rodents and wildlife by turning off blood-clotting mechanisms, leading to fatal internal bleeding. Unlike first-generation anticoagulant rodenticides, SGARs break down in rodents’ and their predators’ bodies gradually.
“This means that poisoned animals can become walking time bombs spreading dangerous levels of SGAR poisons around,” Act for Birds’ website reads.
“It’s not like they eat one poisoned mouse and they die. It builds up in their system and it breaks their bodies down,” wildlife rehabilitator Alyssa Giaquinto said.
During her video at Monday’s presentation, Giaquinto held an owl named Bella and told the audience that over her six years as a wildlife rehabilitator in Marlborough, she has seen dozens of animals before they die of rodenticide. Over a three-month span two years ago, Giaquinto said she rescued six red-tailed hawks suffering from SGAR poisoning.
“Those are just the ones we just see,” she said. “We don’t see the ones that are in the woods and dying.”
‘It’s heartbreaking’
Giaquinto and Tom Ricardi, who rehabilitates raptors at the Birds of Prey Rehabilitation Center in Conway, said the signs of SGAR poisoning are hard to miss. Instead of resisting a human’s grips like healthy birds do, the wildlife rehabilitators said their limp bodies do not fight back.
“That just goes to show how sick and debilitated and in pain they are, because no wildlife animal wants to be picked up,” Giaquinto said.
Ricardi said in those cases, the birds stare back at him without fighting back, walk in circles and appear starved before dying at his rehabilitation center the next day.
“Their body language is such I never saw before. They were just acting bizarre,” Ricardi recalled. “The birds look like they’re drunk, they look like they’re intoxicated.”
Over the past three to four years, Ricardi has tracked an uptick in these cases. Although he is unable to trace the “tame” behavior to SGARs without the proper equipment in Conway, he suspects the responses stem from rodenticide due to their peculiarity.
“I’ve been rescuing raptors for the last 40 years, and I’ve never run into the things I’m seeing in the last three, four years,” Ricardi said.
“Seeing the pain in their eyes, it’s heartbreaking,” Giaquinto said.
Four years ago, Giaquinto answered the call for a family of foxes under a woman’s car. At the scene, Giaquinto uncovered a litter of baby foxes huddled under the vehicle, all dead but one, who died minutes later from SGAR poisoning. She shared a photo of the litter at the presentation after warning the audience of upsetting imagery. Since that call, Giaquinto said she is committed to communicating the realities of rodenticide poisoning.
Getting to the root of the problem
Over the past four years, other targets of rodenticides gripped the public, like Flaco, the Eurasian eagle-owl and Central Park Zoo escapee; the bald eagle MK in Arlington; and an unnamed Boston eaglet. The deaths of these flying friends ignited pressure to crack down on SGARs. According to Mass Audubon’s Rescue Raptors Toolkit, 91 communities have organized to reduce the use of SGARs.
“It’s a movement,” Packard said.
Although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned the retail sale of SGARs, Packard said pest control companies continue to lay bait boxes with the poison, or “set it and forget it,” as Giaquinto described.
During her presentation, Packard outlined a Non-Poison Integrated Pest Management Plan to “deal with the root of the problem.”
The first step, exclusion, includes suggestions like sealing openings for rodents in pipes, cables and wires, and using repellents like spearmint, cayenne pepper or even hot sauce.
The next step, starvation, encourages visitors to avoid leaving out food and cutting off rodents’ access to trash with closed composters and “rodent-proof trash cans.” Packard described trash cans with holes as “a buffet for rodents.” She added that rodents also feast on birds’ leftovers from feeders, so she encourages bringing birdfeeders in at night or installing a pulley to catch the birds’ scraps when they feast.
For the last step, targeting rodents, Packard suggested using SGAR alternatives like snap and mechanical traps, rodent contraceptives, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide sprayers, and corn gluten meal products. If all else fails, turn to poison like cholecalciferol, or Vitamin D3, Packard said.
She stressed that exterminators often skip to the last resort and exacerbate the problem. By poisoning rats, SGARs poison their predators and humans’ “silent partners” for pest control, perpetuating high rodent populations, Giaquinto said.
“In the wild, raptors are the apex predators, but in the world, humans are the apex predators,” Giaquinto said. “It just goes to show the power that humans have in their hands, and we’re just using it so carelessly and we’re killing our wildlife.”
“It’s basically eco-cide,” said Northfield resident Martha Rullman, who organized Monday’s program as an advocate of Mass Audubon’s Rescue Raptors and Wildlife from Rodenticides Campaign.
To ban SGARs through legislation, Packard informed the audience of “An Act Restricting the Use of Rodenticides in the Environment,” a state bill phasing out anticoagulant rodenticides with the exception of urgent public health emergencies. The bill’s hearing is scheduled for Oct. 27.
Packard also encouraged attendees to talk to town officials about requesting a home rule petition. This would allow the town to adopt a bylaw restricting the use of SGARs on private land. According to Packard, this community action also “pushes our state Legislature to do something.”
“As the county seat, Greenfield has a responsibility to show other towns how it can be done and how to get things started,” Greenfield City Council candidate Max Webbe said at the close of the presentation. “This is a systems-wide thing to tackle. If you get rid of rats in your house, they just go to your neighbors, so we need to all be in this together.”
The Rescue Franklin County Wildlife from Rodenticides group will hold an event on Tuesday, Oct. 7, from 6 to 7 p.m. in the Greenfield Public Library to establish this Franklin County branch and brainstorm plans for tackling SGARs in members’ towns. Rullman described the group as “a starting point” for eliminating SGARs in the county.
Packard, Giaquinto, Rullman and Webbe stressed the necessity of chatting with neighbors and expanding awareness.
“Education I’ve found saves more animals’ lives than I could possibly save by rehabilitating alone,” Giaquinto said.
“I think there’s an idea that humans aren’t always good for the environment, but we can be,” Webbe said in an interview before the presentation. “Animals can’t speak. We can.”
