We have all seen them: those black plastic boxes hiding around the foundations of businesses and municipal buildings, perhaps near overflowing dumpsters, and—the bulk of them—outside private homes. Designed to be unobtrusive, many people might not think twice about what they are, but “once you see them, you can’t un-see them,” says Heather Packard, Mass Audubon’s community organizer for the Rescue Raptors Program. These bait boxes, meant to solve the rodent problem, contain an especially worrisome class of poisons that have ripple effects far beyond the intended target.
After a rodent nibbles the bait, these second-generation anti-coagulant rodenticides, referred to as SGARs, prevent its blood from clotting, causing it to slowly die of internal bleeding, organ failure, and paralysis. The problem, explained Packard at an October 16 campaign launch event at the Pleasant Valley Audubon Center in Lenox, is that the rodent doesn’t die for two to seven days. Running around in a weakened state, it is an easy meal for predators.
Rather than break down, SGARs bioaccumulate in the liver, so anything that catches or scavenges the poisoned rodent—raptors, foxes, dogs, and cats—also ingests the poison. SGARs were federally banned for retail sale in 2015 as a result of grassroots activism that proved they were harming not only pets and wildlife but children. And yet SGARs have become the primary means of pest control. They can still be bought online, but it is mostly licensed pest control professionals who set up the poison bait boxes—and keep restocking them, with what is, after all, tasty food for rodents.
Peggy White, a resident of Peru, Mass., and a Mass Audubon member, is one of a few concerned citizens spearheading the effort to curb rampant use of SGARs in the Berkshires. When she heard about Mass Audubon’s campaign, she eventually connected with Packard, who is providing support to individual towns and groups across the state who are working on the issue. “Rescue Berkshires Wildlife” will hold their first meeting to strategize on Zoom on Monday, November 4, from 8 to 9 p.m.
“Being nature connected is really what brought me here,” said White. “In rural areas, we have close connections to these raptors; we see hawks every day. At the same time, lots of people have old homes that are no strangers to rodent issues, she said, and bolstering alternatives to SGARs would have a big impact. White is hoping to start with community education on a county-level, given how spread out our small towns are, and find out what motivates people to get involved.
“We’re beekeepers,” she added, “so we’re acutely aware of the effects of poison and pesticides, so this is just another level of how poison impacts wildlife and throws things out of balance.” She points out, “This is a highly focused campaign, but that gives you something tangible in these days when things are so overwhelming.” It could be easier to say, “I can work on this one issue that might save a fox or a raptor.”
There have been a few cases of “celebrity” raptors falling victim to poison, like the bald eagle known as “MK” near Boston that died of SGAR poisoning. In California, where activists had worked to ban SGARs for a decade, the poisoning of a mountain lion galvanized the public and resulted in California passing a statewide moratorium on them (with exemptions for a public-health crisis). But wildlife vets and rehabbers regularly take in hawks and owls exhibiting distressing signs of poisoning. And even if a raptor doesn’t succumb to the poison and people don’t find it, a 2020 Massachusetts study found 100 percent of red-tailed hawks tested carried SGARs in their blood.
The ironic part is that a raptor can eat over a thousand rodents a year. “We’re literally killing the solution to our problem,” said Packard. (A group called Raptors Are the Solution, or RATS, was integral in getting the ban in California.) “If our ecosystem was in a natural balance and we weren’t overfeeding and housing rodents, those raptors would manage the rodent populations,” she said. SGARs won’t solve the problem if we don’t address what’s attracting rodents in the first place. Boston recently developed a “rat action plan” that addressed sanitation. As of August, it had pulled all SGARs from city property, except sewers, and was using carbon dioxide as a control. “If Boston can do it, anyone can,” said Packard.
Rodent contraceptives are another promising tool garnering a lot of interest and research, which many municipalities have found effective. The pellets, said Packard, are also really healthy, and healthy rodents are ideal for raptors and humans, as they would carry fewer diseases. They work for 45 days, and “the more pressure to not use SGARs, the more options there’ll be.”
Pest-control companies often have long-term contracts, and Packard says it is important to be aware that reducing SGAR use would impact people’s livelihood, but she wonders if we can’t shift the business model and retrain workers in these other safe, effective techniques. There are non-poison pest control companies out there. “We need someone to manage rodents; it’s not like that’s going to go away,” she says. We just don’t need to use these poisons that are “uniquely problematic to our wildlife and pets.”
Packard and Mass Audubon are hoping to “build a movement across the state,” and they decided that focusing on grassroots-level organizing and local regulations would be more effective. The pest-control, lawn-care, landscaping, and golf-course sectors have paid lobbyists in the state house, and a variety of bills have failed at the state level due to this “well-organized and funded opposition.”
Mass Audubon’s campaign focuses on educating property owners and getting towns to eliminate SGARs on public property. Towns can also use the “home rule” petition or ask for an exemption from the state law which effectively says that SGARs can’t be restricted on private property. “If we could get 20 towns,” says Packard, “it would be a huge voice in our state legislature.”
The Rescue Raptors webpage has a comprehensive Toolkit, which has more info on how to get involved and links to many resources, such as this letter from a wildlife-treatment center outlining why SGARs are the “most pernicious problem” they encounter. And register for the November 4 Zoom meeting, at 8 p.m., to connect and get involved in the Berkshires.
