Hi, and welcome to the Animal Welfare Junction. This is your host, Dr. G and our music is written and produced by Mike Sullivan. This is part two of our episode, Stop Poisoning Our Birds, which is about Massachusetts advocates that are fighting against anticoagulant rodenticides. So if you have not listened to part one yet, I would recommend you pause, listen to part one, and then continue on to this episode. On this episode, part two, we're going to hear from Marci Cemenska from Save Lexington Wildlife and from James Joyce II from Friends of Horn Pond. Our next guest is Marci Cemenska. Marci is the founder of the Save Lexington Wildlife. Thank you, Marci, for being here, and welcome to the Junction. So can you start by letting our listeners know about your background and then what led you to where you are at today.

Well, that's an interesting question. I'm not exactly sure how I got here, but I find myself here. So, um, yeah, I've always liked animals. So I grew up in Illinois. Um, I always liked animals. Uh, then I lived in Colorado for a long time. Then I moved to Massachusetts, but I really wasn't involved in a anything politically or, you know, any, you know, Action like this. But then I started getting involved with Indivisible in 2017 and started a group in Lexington. And so that was probably sort of the start of my activists, you know, being a unpaid protesters. My husband says, um, and then a few years ago, I got involved with the North Atlantic right whale issue. Uh, uh, so they're one of the most endangered species on the planet. And, um, a friend of mine was leading up some campaigns and supporting federal legislation to get ropeless gear, get funding for ropeless gear. So I got greatly involved with that and helped her out through my indivisible network. And so, um, we had, I think, all of the congressional delegations signed on to that by the end of the campaign. And so, um, and then in 2021, I think I heard about the owls that were dying of rodenticide. And I learned about that issue, and I guess I just thought it was unacceptable. That, you know, that we're killing all these wild animals, and that there's all these readily available alternatives. And so, um, in 2022, I got more involved, and then I helped, um, Laura and Gary Menon at a table in Arlington, and then in 2023, I hosted the two of them at a, at a presentation in Lexington, and then late last year, and, you know, I just kept kind of getting more and more, more involved, and then late last year in November, um, I did a couple things. One, I started Save Lexington Wildlife. And I also decided that we should bring something to town meeting in Lexington. And so Save Lexington Wildlife was sort of a vehicle to raise awareness and, and get that article to town meeting.

I think it's important to educate people because I think that a lot of the public do not, is not aware of the dangers of rodenticides. Not only to the wildlife, but also to even their families and their pets. But also just the, uh, The death of these animals is something that is pretty torturous, right? It's pretty excruciating. How would you say that, that the way that these wildlife animals are poisoned, how does it affect you directly?

Well, these perfectly healthy animals are just bleeding to death, and there's just something wrong with that, right? I mean, the, the raptors tend to just bleed out of their feathers. You know, where they attach to their body, um, with mammals, I think it's more internal, but I think it's extremely painful and, um, it's just, it's just senseless, um, you know, that we have this going on. And yeah, so it's a, it's an excruciating death because they're essentially hemorrhaging inside.

I know that you've taken part in this petition through the Harvard Animal Law Clinic, uh, but what other things have you done as far as to be able to engage the community in an advocacy effort?

Uh, so, you know, I held the public forum with Laura and Gary in 2023, and then since Creating Safe Lexington Wildlife, um, we, the first thing that we kind of did was I ordered the 100 yard signs. And then, you know, people in, say, Lexington Wildlife helped me get those distributed, so if you drive around Lexington, you know, there's a hundred yard signs that say, you know, don't poison our food, and it's got a picture of the owl on it. Um, and then we held a, another public forum in February. We had Laura and Gary come back to educate people on the issue. And then on March 2nd, we hosted a big event in Lexington Center, and we had Jane Newhouse and Eyes on Owls come. And then we also had several organizations that were tabling, like the SGAR Brigade, and then Gary had a table. Um, and so that was a big event to get the word out. And then, really, the, the town meeting was a huge way to get the word out, because your, um, You know, it's, it's on the town meeting warrant. People are seeing it. There's all these presentations you have to make, whether it's to the select board or the conservation committee or the recreation committee or, um, or, you know, local groups that asked us to come, like Lex Climate Action Network to find out about the issue, because some of these local groups will, um, will lend support to these, um, Uh, to these various articles, they're environmental related. So that was just a really great way to reach a whole lot of people on the issue. Actually, two years ago, I actually created bookmarks. So I went to a conference, an individual conference in the summer. I created bookmarks that had information on it and the bill numbers. Um, so, so that might've been the first thing that I created, but the last year with town meeting, it was just a, a really great forum to reach a whole lot of people.

What kind of feedback are you getting from like the public and the lawmakers? Does it look like somebody is listening?

Well, the public is very supportive of this issue. I always say that, um, people don't know about it, but as soon as they hear about it, they're supportive. I think most people just don't like the idea of perfectly healthy animals bleeding to death when there's readily available alternatives. I think most people see the injustice in that.

How was it working with the Animal Law Clinic?

Oh, it's been wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. So I knew of the clinics at Harvard Law School before. And so that's why I contacted them. Um, but it just, you know, just the whole crew at Harvard Law has, was just wonderful throughout the whole process.

So what what do you hope that will come out from these petitions? Do you think that something will happen? Or do you think this is just like the first step to what's next to come?

Of course, we all hope that they'll disagree to the petition, right? That there will be enough evidence for them to suspend the registration. I honestly don't have enough knowledge to say what will happen. But, um, I also try to take these things one step at a time, so if, if they deny it, you know, I, I don't know enough whether they can deny it in, um, the whole thing or whether they might accept some of it, but not others, I, I really don't know. But I think that, uh, the petitioners are all committed, so we'll see what happens and then take, do whatever steps we need next if, you know, if that's what, if that's what happens.

So if somebody that's listening is interested in being an advocate, what would you tell them is going to be what they should be doing?

I think find out about the issue, try to educate yourself, you know, either, uh, from other activists or from materials that are up on, you know, the internet, there's all kinds of materials. Um, I'm going to say putting those yard signs out was just a fantastic way of getting the word out. Because when you're driving around, Lexington's not that big of a town, but when you're driving around and there's a hundred yard signs out there, it just, it catches people's interest. And then we, I also have these t shirts, uh, that have that same, you know, owl emblem. And those T shirts attract attention, and people start asking about it. So I think if you can put these things out there and have people start saying, What is that? You know, and you tell them, You start getting, you start seeing a lot of support. For the issue.

How can, how can individuals find information about your organization?

So we have a website, safelexingtonwildlife. org. And then we also have a, um, a Facebook page. So either one of those, they can find out about us.

So we're, we're thinking about, you know, the department of agricultural resources, putting these rodenticides out, but there's also businesses that will do it privately. So what have you done in that regards and how, what, what have been the results?

Well, I think that's been limited so far, but it's something that I kind of would like to do, you know, one of the next steps. We did a lot of work with Whole Foods, the Whole Foods in Arlington, Massachusetts, I should say. But we also contacted the home office that was out west of here. I don't know that that had a positive effect other than, I don't know. You know, a lot of activists came together. And so that's always, you know, energy generating to go and be there at the store, but Whole Foods was not receptive at all to hearing about it. And then there was a campaign that Laura organized to essentially everybody call the home office and leave messages and fill their box, which did happen. But I don't. There wasn't really any movement as far as I can tell on that issue, um, which I think Whole Foods is a perfect candidate to target in the sense that it's part of their mission to be a good, you know, neighbor and citizen, but at least in this aspect they're not, but I still think that that's a good organization to target if we can gather enough resources in the future. Um, the other, um, business that was Petition was the New England Aquarium and so they had bait boxes outside and, um, you know, due to various advocacies and conversations and then Laura created a petition. They took away the bait boxes from their location. Yeah, I mean, I think that was another. I don't know what you call it, crazy case. Here you have the New England Aquarium, whose thing is conservation, saving right whales, saving, you know, things in the ocean, and they've got a bait box outside the seal enclosure in the back, you know? Um, in fact, I went to a event once on right whales and the president of the aquarium was there and I basically took her over and pointed to the bait box, you know? Um, yeah, I think it's an issue. A lot of people just don't know about it. You know, they just don't know, and so until it comes to their attention, I think, um, you know, it just happens. I've come to believe that this whole rodenticide issue is like an afterthought. You know, people put together, whether it's a plan or an IPM or they don't really think about it at all, but it's like an afterthought, you know, they'll just rubber stamp something versus really thinking about the dangers of these chemicals and what they might do. And so the more you can talk to people and raise awareness, I think the better.

Yeah, I think that, you know, they've been presented with a problem, which is the rodent population. And then that was kind of the easy fix, right? It's like, we're just going to. Plant poison and it just takes care of itself and not really thinking about the repercussions to the environment. So I think that now, you know, it's unfortunate that so many animals have had to suffer and die. But hopefully, you know, we can use this information to show them that this needs to stop. And that they are better, more humane, not just, not just more humane for the wildlife and for companion animals, but even for the rodents, even if you don't like rodents, you should not want them to suffer a horrible death, right?

Their death from these second generation anticoagulants is horrible. You know, they're hemorrhaging and, you know, maybe living for a couple of days in the state, so it's really horrible. Um, I mean, so I've attended the wildlife rehabilitators of Association of Massachusetts, RAM. And even on there, you know, you get people that rehabbers basically say, actually the most humane way is like snap traps. You know, it's quick, right, versus any kind of poison. But I've also come to believe that part of the problem with these rodenticides is that people are so squeamish. They, it's almost like they just can't bear to see a mouse dead in a trap. Unfortunately, you know, you can use rodenticides. And then it's going to go up the food chain, right? And so side out of mind, out of sight, out of mind, because I think they, they don't want to have to deal with seeing that, that mouse or, you know, that rat, you know, dead. But in the meantime, you know, things are dying all around us. Um, so I, I, I sometimes wonder if that's another part of the, of an education campaign. You know, not just alternatives, but trying to decide what, what people find less scary or, you know, how to get over that.

Yeah, and in talking to Laura, you know, we discuss about how us humans create the problem. Like sometimes, you know, the way that we dispose of our trash, the way that we, you know, deal with things that, you know, we leave, uh, people that have colonies of cats, for instance, outside and leave the food outside all the time and don't clean out at all. After them bird feeders like sometimes we are causing the problem and we are inviting these these pasts these so called pasts into our environment And then we're scrambling to find a solution where the solution is for us to change The our actions just change the way that we're doing things.

Right. And so, and you know, Laura probably mentioned this, but in 2022, you know, 530, 000 pounds of this stuff was put down in the state of Massachusetts. That's a lot of poison to be putting whether an animal consumes it, or it ends up in the dirt or a waterway. It's just a lot of poison. Right. And, um, that is not. That quantity is not the last line of defense, do you know what I mean? If it was the last line, you wouldn't be having this, this quantity. And so that's really the problem. So I guess it's just easy. It's easy for people and pest control operators to put it down versus doing a slightly harder work. Although, you know, unless you do the exclusion, do the other things, you're still going to have mice. You're going to have mice in, in your house or, or whatever, right? Until you do these other prevention steps.

Yeah, as long as the resources, you know, the area has the resources to feed and maintain the mice, they're going to be there. So we need to be there.

Yeah, you know, and I went to a webinar once and it was interesting. They made the case in some way, you know, you may not ever get down to zero, but there's maybe some acceptable level. You know, there's two mice. If I get a mouse in my house twice a year, one mouse, I can probably live with that, right? With a trap or something, you know? If I have a thousand in my house, you know, that's a different story. That would be a huge problem, right? And so I'm not sure if some people also walk around thinking that there should, there shouldn't be a rat on earth, right? There should be no rats. Versus if there's one rat and he's out there, it's not bothering me, you know?

Well, and we need, and they need to be there. They need to exist because they are feeding all of these other animals, right? Because we, we say we love the birds and we want to save the birds from these rodenticides, but we can't eliminate all the rats and the mice because that's what they're feeding off. I know that I, I often, as I'm driving home, I will see a big bird that will come just flying all the way down and then they just come off the field with something on their, on their grasp. So, they, they're doing their job. So, if we, you know, if we poison their food and we kill them, who's gonna do that job? We're gonna be in, in worse trouble than we're in right now.

Yeah, there's all these other threats. I think that's another for me. Another part of the equation is, you know, there's the rodenticide threat. There's all the building threat. There's the climate change. There's all these threats on animals. And here's 1 that we can actually, we can actually deal with and use something else. And so, I mean, climate change, it's, it's such a much bigger problem. It's harder to deal with, but I can use a different poison that doesn't go up the food chain, or I can use snap traps, or I can use repellents, or, you know, I can maybe figure out, you know, how to get this hawk to come down to my yard more often. You know, I can put an owl, an owl, a box in my yard, you know, there's all these things that we can do. Um, so it's just, it's just. It's just crazy that we're using this, you know, the second generation anti coagulant so much. I mean, nobody wants rats in their, in their house or their school or right. Nobody wants that. So then the trick is to, to find a way to eliminate it or, you know, to manage it.

Yeah, different problems are going to have different solutions to, like, for instance, in my house, like, I would, I would hope I don't have any mice with my cats, right? I would hope that they would do their job and, and eliminate them. But you think about, like, a school or a food place or somewhere that cannot have animals inside, then they're going to have to think about a different, um, source. And that's where, in these collaborative efforts, everybody coming together and saying, you know, like, this works for this situation, this works for this situation, so everybody can. Can work towards a solution.

I mean, I think it's fair to say you probably wouldn't want to go to a restaurant where there's rats in the kitchen. Right? I think we can all agree on that. Right?

Yes.

Um, but I think there's all these possibilities to use before you get to these anticoagulants. You know,

I don't want rats around my food. I also don't want poison around my food.

Yeah, you don't want poison around your food. Yeah. I'm going to go back to a question you asked me in the very beginning, and I don't know if this is helpful, but you said, what's my background? The thing is, I don't really have any background in biology or that, not that much in activism or anything, you know, but I think if you care about an issue, you can get involved and you can make a difference. And that's why I kind of like, froze when you asked me that question, right? But I just think if you care about an issue, you just start somewhere, either with a friend or doing some research or talking to your town, and you just, you know, you just keep building on that. So, you know, now I find myself, right, leading up this organization in Lexington and, And, uh, I mean, the, our article passed 157 to one, so resounding success in Lexington, you know, on, you know, resounding support for this article. So what, what, what was

the article?

Um, the article we had was, uh, basically to, uh, it was a resolution to ask the town to develop integrated pest management policies that prohibit the use of escars on town on land and also to provide public education about the hazards of these rodenticides. And so, um, so that was our first step. We hope, you know, um, we hope to come back.? At town meeting. So, um, I don't know, I'm not from the East Coast, so this idea of town meeting was new to me. But here towns do town meeting and Lexington has what they call representative town meeting. So every precinct elects nine town meeting members. Uh, so they're kind of the legislative body of the town. Um, and so that, you know, that was, you know, where you take these kinds of things. Yeah, so if you look at, um, I don't know if you're interested, but if you look at Lexington Town Meeting 2024 and you go to Article 40, you can see the kind of materials I had to, I had to put up there, the presentation, the slide deck, uh, recommendations or support from the select board and, and other entities in the town. And then actually the Harvard effort that provided us with, you know, just a, A huge amount of information and, um, I mean, I say every, every activist in this, you know, rodenticide movement should read that petition and that request because we can all speculate how it works or what the law is or what the rules are, you know, but unless someone interprets it from a legal standpoint, it may not be accurate. And so I found that like vastly important for my knowledge on this issue to be able to advocate for it.

And we're going to be sharing the petition again, not just to bring awareness to the problem there in Massachusetts, but I'm sure that this is happening in other places. So, you know, they may not know that they have a problem.

I think each state that does something, we'll do it a little different, but then each state will add to the body of knowledge for other states. That wanna take action. And so I think, I think the value in, in creating this petition and everything, I mean, you know, I, of course I want it to pass, but there's already been a huge benefit to doing it as far as education and 'cause, you know, letting the state know that. We are taking action in this way. So we're pursuing not just a legislative approach, but also a legal approach. So to me, all that is a huge value. I mean, I am so thankful that Harvard Law took this case. You know, I'm so thankful.

Yeah. And it looks like they put a lot of heart and effort into it. Again, writing the petition and getting all the information and getting everybody together and giving each of each of the advocates their own voice. And then, together voice, right?

Yeah. I mean, you know, they, I have no idea how many hours, you know, they spent on this because it was two semesters of students and then all the staff. And this, it's a huge effort to put something like this together. But I'm so thankful that they did.

I'm

glad that they're there and I'm glad that there are clinics like this that are going to help with advocacy efforts, especially, you know, in times where, you know, It's a big issue, but there's not a lot of money and a lot of finances backing it up that there are these pro bono clinics that, um, that are there to help to help these cases. Yeah, I mean, because I mean, at least in Massachusetts, it's just a collection. It's just a grassroots collection of people and organizations, right? There's no overriding state body that's doing this, you know, it's not like funds somewhere. Um, it's just individual groups and people. And so the fact that, you know, that the Harvard Law Animal Policy Clinic exists and took this case. I mean, you know, I just can't express how thankful I am that they did that.

Well, thank you for being here. Thank you for joining us and for sharing your information and thank you for everything that you're doing.

Thank you.

Our final guest is James Joyce II, founder of Friends of Horn Pond. Thank you for being here and welcome to The Junction.

Thank you, Michelle. Great to be here.

Excellent. Can you first begin by letting us know about your background and kind of what brought you to create Friends of Horn Pond?

Yeah, sure. So, uh, so my background is, my background is actually in engineering. I'm retired now. I retired at the end of 2020. And I was in the microelectronics and semiconductor, uh, industry. So it's a big difference for between what I'm doing now and what I was doing as a profession. But I've always been an outdoorsman, uh, my whole life, and, um, specifically, I've been, uh, monitoring and following, uh, birds of prey for the better part of 40 or 50 years. And that includes bald eagles and peregrine falcons, which are, you know, state listed in Massachusetts. Um, so what got me to this point was, um, Around 2015, I had been, my wife and I had been photographing, uh, bald eagles in, uh, along the Charles River in Massachusetts. But we also were noticing quite a bit of an uptick in bait stations that were around. And, you know, at the time we didn't really pay much attention to it, although it was something new and I didn't really realize that. Um, and then in 2021, uh, when I was, had retired and I, now I made a, a real study out of this bald eagle, nesting bald eagles along the Mystic River Watershed in, uh, in Massachusetts, eastern Massachusetts, I, um, you know, we had a, a bald eagle that, uh, two bald eagles, MK and KZ, that, uh, hatched two chicks, eaglets. 25 C and 26 C. And of course, three weeks after the fledge, 25 C came down with, um, a significant case of rodenticide poisoning and, and subsequently died. And, and so, so that got us to the point of now we're really paying attention and looking into what exactly is, is going on in the state, as far as legislation is concerned, what are the things that we could do? So, uh, Patty Sears, Joyce, Jeannie Bowen, and I founded the Friends of Horn Pond in 2022 as a local conservation group in Woburn, Massachusetts. We decided to take action when in 2015, we began seeing a significant increase of rodent bait stations throughout Eastern Massachusetts watershed areas where we follow bald eagles. And then in 2021, When two of our bald eagles died of anticoagulant rodenticide poisoning in the Charles River Watershed and the Mystic River Watershed, respectively. So we're a 501c3 nonprofit organization dedicated to conserve and preserve the Horn Pond Conservation and Recreation Area for current and future generations through community awareness and action, collaborative partnerships, and citizen science efforts. for the Advancement of Environmental and Wildlife Habitats. Our three key focus areas are poison free rodent prevention, control and monitoring, protection of the Horn Pond public drinking watershed, and the Monofilament Reel and Recycle Program. So we have a, we had a monofilament program that we have active throughout the pond area. Um, but we also have a very significant, um, push on rodenticide legislation which led us to the fact that this legislation in Massachusetts doesn't seem to go very well and it seems to stall out and, and therefore it drove us down this path of. Uh, working with Harvard Law, as you know, um, on this Harvard Law petition. So, that in a nutshell got us to where, um, got us to where we are, um, you know. So, for the last few years, this is what we've been doing. And, and I will mention one thing. There was a bald eagle, that bald eagle nest that we had been following in Waltham. That was the bald eagle nest. That M. K., the Mystic Lake Bald Eagle, that's where she hatched. And that was our, that was our introduction to that, to M. K. and, and, and the two adults. And we also followed them very closely and monitored them very closely. And the adult female eagle, also died of rodenticide poisoning about three months before the mystic lake bald eagle died. So, you know, now we, we really had this, we really had this tie into what's going on with, what's going on with materials in the environment that are taking out these bald eagles that we've been following for quite some time. So that's, that's how we started.

So this issue with MK, you actually were involved with the, with the attempt to rescue her, is that correct?

That is correct. You know, once you start down this, once you start down this path, you start to make a lot of different connections and we certainly made some real connections in with, um, the wildlife community, um, and in with the rehab community as well. So, you know, one of the things that, one of the things that my wife and I did early on was we really wanted to know what kind of data is actually out there to support what we were trying to accomplish. And, and we found that, you know, there's a lot of studies. I mean, Dr. Maureen Murray at Tufts Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine, she's did a significant amount of studies over a 15 year period. We read them all. But what were the, what was the rehab community actually seeing, um, in the, you know, in the field? Well, what got us to MK was that now we were connected to the rehab community and I had friends of mine that, that called me up one Saturday morning and asked, geez, can you come over here and take a look at MK? She's up in a tree with her head slumped down, and she's not behaving like she normally does. So if you follow this eagle, you'd know exactly what that, what that means. I mean, that was not typical behavior for, for her. Although it was nesting season, and so she could have been, she could have had eggs. So that was a distinct possibility, but it was, you know, what we said was, we're not going to go up there. We can't climb the tree and, and, and get MK out of the tree. So if she comes to the ground, then we can, we can work with the rehab community, the veterinary community, mass wildlife. We can work with that and we can, we can attempt to rescue, which we, which we did. And on that Monday morning, you know, she was on the ground and again, we did the, uh, we did the rescue of MK. And, of course, that didn't, um, that didn't work out very well as far as, uh, MK was concerned because she passed about, um, I don't know, 36 hours later, I believe.

So you don't do rehabilitation yourself, right, but you're, you work with transport, capture and transport of injured birds to different rehabilitation places?

Yeah, that's exactly right. So we're, um, we're associates of, um, we're associates of Cape Ann wildlife in, uh, Essex. So, uh, there's three rehabbers that are federally permitted rehabbers that, are associated with Cape Ann wildlife. And, um, one of them, uh, Aaron Hutchings up in Gloucester is the raptor, um, is the raptor expert. Um, so, so no, I don't, I don't, I don't rehab anything. I, I don't want to be a rehabber. I'm fine being a rescuer and, and, and a data, you know, a rescuer transporter, but I do quite a bit of data analysis and that's really where the power of, of what we, what we started doing with, with Cape Ann wildlife was that every case that came into, you know, to their rehab and it looked to be a rodenticide case would actually investigate that case. We'd go out in the field where the bird was found. And would actually compile all of the bait stations, active ingredients if we could get them, product types. Any kind of label information we would we had been doing that and we've been doing that now for close to two years Which got us to all the data that is in the petitions that that entire data set is um is all that work

Are you seeing most baits in public or private land or is it a combination?

Combination I think the places where we see Most of the um, the second generation rodenticides, anticoagulants, I'd say are in public spaces, not necessarily town owned, but certainly around um, restaurants, any dumpsters, um, you know, food, waste, any of that, uh, apartment buildings, we see quite a bit of it around, and um, as far as residential is concerned, it's a little tricky because you You know, you really can't, you know, I mean, you don't want to go on to somebody's private land, private property and start poking around. And, but you can do it from the sidewalk, which was what I do. And I've suggested this to many that, um, you know, if you see in a residential area, if you see a bait station, you might, you know, Want to take a photo of it from the sidewalk or the street. You can log it into an application that we've started here, uh, which is the, uh, EWA SGARs brigade. And, and Hey, if the residents of the homeowner are there, you might strike up a conversation with them, which is what I do quite a bit. And then it becomes a real educational opportunity, which in the, in the long run, though, Michelle, I think that, you know, education outside of petitions and legislation. But education is really going to, is really going to carry the day on this, on this issue. Uh, you know, I've, I've said many times and I, I didn't make up this line, but an informed consumer is a powerful consumer. And so you want to, you want to arm the folks, whether they be residents or business owners with what exactly do you know what you, do you know what you have and what it's doing? And, and we do have alternate solutions for you.

Yeah, no, I completely agree with the education bit, because I think that a lot of people make bad decisions because they don't know what the right thing to do is, and they look for a solution, and unfortunately, these are the simple solutions, right? And if people understood that these, these rodenticides are not just harmful to the wildlife, but even to themselves, to their family, to their, to their children, to their pets, you know, it would be, It would be impactful and also the fact that these, these birds that are being killed, they are pest control, right? Like that's their, that's nature's pest control. So by killing the birds secondarily after using the rodenticide, we're eliminating this ability of Mother Nature to eliminate the mice.

Yeah, it's, it's an interesting, it's, it's an interesting, um, you know, dynamic that, and when I do these, when I, when I talk to folks, you know, I'll say, uh, a single raptor, hawk, owl, coyote, fox, any of these rodent eaters are gonna consume you know, upwards of a couple of thousand rats a year, and, you know, maybe six thousand mice a year, and, you know, I'll put up these, I'll put up these, these photos in my presentations, and I'll say, you know, I have one that's got six, and I say, just these six individual, um, you know, creatures, animals, and, and birds, are, you know, could account for 12, 000 rats and mice. I mean, that's what we're taking out, and they outbreed us. They outbreed the raptors, and they outbreed everything, because all these species breed once a year, but the rats breed 12 times a year, and, you know, they're having 15 pups, and, you know, you can do the math and figure it all out, but it's, um, you know, it's quite a bit of, uh, you know, it's, it's quite a disconnect between what you're trying to accomplish and what you are accomplishing, and you're taking out nature's, you know, the natural predators. So, I don't know how to sum it up. Any, uh, you know, any, any easier than that, because that's exactly what we're doing.

No, and it's, you know, it sounds like common sense, but again, like common sense comes with having some level of education or knowledge on what's happening. And that's where we need to educate people better so that we can, we can explain this common sense to individuals.

Yeah, that's correct. I always say, you don't know what you don't know. And when you, when you talk with folks, or you stand up in front of an audience and you, you get into, you know, the background on this issue, but then what can we do to, lower the risk, what's available to them, what can we do as homeowners and business owners? I mean, that's when it really starts to set in. And, um, the other thing is, You know, nobody sees it firsthand. So this is where, you know, the wildlife rescuers that are out there, the people who find things in their backyards and they don't know what they've got. And, you know, once they know or they see something, then it kind of, it really sets in. But how many people see that actually? You know, I mean, we see it all the time, but most people don't see that. They don't, they don't see the, they don't see the real ugly side of the whole problem. What they usually see is they usually see hawks and owls and eagles and coyotes and foxes and they see them in the wild and they look great and you know, they, and they don't think anything different than that, right? And they don't connect the dots and what's going on when they see them, if they, if they happen to see them and they're, they're sick or injured or they're dead, then it's, um, it can make a little bit more sense.

About how many calls do you get? Like how frequently do you get calls about injured wildlife?

I'm not going to say daily, but um, we're probably out rescuing at least four to five times a week. Now, they're not all rodenticide cases. It's probably somewhere around a 50 50 split, which is not good because that's a significant uptick into what we were seeing a couple of years ago. You know, up until a couple of years ago, it was head trauma, you know, vehicle strikes, window strikes, you know, that sort of thing. And it was probably 70%, maybe 75 percent of the cases with that. Now it's now it's almost an even split. It's almost 50, 50. And we had one yesterday. That's just absolutely horrific. We had a fledgling red tail hawk down in one of the city areas, about 15 miles from where we live, and we got a call from, we got a call from Cape and wildlife and can we get on there and take a peek at this and, you know, it was found in the road and. And it was bleeding and it bled out. And by the time we had rescued it and got it up to, up to, you know, to care, it had, um, it had passed. So it was dead on arrival. And it's, uh, it's just an absolutely horrific, uh, bleed out condition that, um, that we had. I mean, again, this is where, if you, if you saw the images, people saw the images, they would just be, they'd be horrified.

I'm assuming that the majority of them are going to be either dead or barely alive by the time that you guys are able to capture them. Would that be an accurate assessment?

That's a fairly accurate assessment. Um, I would say again, a survival rate, maybe around 50%. Um, And, and I'll say this, timing is everything. So for your, for your, your listeners, what's really important, it's, it's all about timing. The quicker you can identify a problem or a bird that's in, or an animal that's in distress, the quicker you can make that phone call, the quicker you can get a photograph or a video of it. And you get it over to the right people in the, in the, in the rehab community, then we can take action on it quickly. And it, and it really does come down to a matter of, it can be a matter of hours. And in yesterday's case, It was literally a five hour window, and that was, that was it. Five hours wasn't enough and sometimes it's even less than that. But the quicker you can identify that there's a problem and contact somebody, and you can get help, the quicker it can get into care, and the better the chance of survival.

So about this app, what is this app about, and what led you to create it?

The application it's from EarthWiseAware. It's on the Anecdata platform. It's, um, if you, to look this up, it's the EWA, EarthWiseAware, SGARs Brigade, and it's a, a platform that will allow us to log in bait stations that we find in the field, any animals, birds that are either sick, injured, or dead in the field, and also any trash or waste concerns that we see in the field as well What we do with the data is and right now we've got about 120 members that are out there doing this Um, it's in the greater boston eastern massachusetts area But I do know that we've got some folks that are working outside of massachusetts on this because it uses anywhere in the world. And what we're doing is we actually take the information and then we do a two level data analysis on the information to correlate where we find bait stations in relative proximity to where we found the dead or injured or sick animals in proximity to where do we have the waste management problems. And you can use the data. It's open source. So you can use this. It's open to the public. Anyone can join. Um, and you can use the data for any local, uh, legislation, policymaking, education, um, any of that. Uh, it's, it's, it's all available for use. And I'm, Claire O'Neill is the, is the president and founder of EarthWise Aware. Uh, I'm the co founder and president of the Friends of Horn Pond. We worked collaboratively and jointly on this project. So, You know, we each have a piece, we each have a piece of it. We actually just took it to the, um, to the recent annual conference for participatory sciences, which it, um, it got some real rave reviews, but really the whole, the whole thing is, is that it's a very, very easy to use application. It's, uh, it's available on your mobile device or Androids or, or, um, or iPhones. Uh, it's a desktop application as well. So if you, if you want to input information from your desktop, you most certainly can do that. And like I said, all the data Including all the maps and, and, and everything that's in there is all available for anyone.

I think this is extremely useful because we need data to, not just to understand the problem, but to evaluate how the solutions are working, right? That is correct. It's the beginning and the end of it. Just saying, you know, this is what we're proposing. Well is what we're proposing working. So I think that this app is really beneficial on both ends.

Absolutely it is. It's um, it can, I feel as though it can help out, it can help everyone. It's um, it's something that we can use as, as rescuers and rehabilitators. We can use that as, as people who are, you know, working in the cities and towns. Pest professionals could use it. Um, our state government, so our, our Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources and the Department of Energy and Environment, I mean, they can use that information. I think it's a win win for everyone. I really do. And, and, and again, I don't think that there's, there is no one, There's no smoking gun, there's no one, you know, one thing that can solve this, solve this problem. In the end, no one wants rats. That's how I always say it. No, nobody wants rats, but you want to be smart about how you either eliminate them from your homes, your businesses, and how you keep them out. I mean, that's where I think the power really begins. So when, you know, when you start researching this out, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of, um, there's a lot of myths that are associated with, with the laws. And until we sent down this path with Harvard Law, and they did all of the research on the, on the laws in, in the state of Massachusetts, um, we found out things that intuitively, you would think that an outside bait station would require a label. It, it does not. There is no law in the book in Massachusetts that requires that, and there's nothing on the federal level either. The law in Massachusetts requires that if you're going to use bait inside, or if you're going to have a bait station inside of a building, That has to be labeled. It has to be labeled with the ingredients and, and that. So, so that was an important piece of information. And so there's a misconception out there about what is required to be labeled and what's not required to be labeled. Um, we did create a couple of documents that are available for the public. One of them is, I call it, it's called the, um, Rodent Bait Station Overview. We created it back several months ago and rolled it out to Mass Audubon. They've, they've, um, they're now published it on their website in their Rescue Raptors program. It's out with a variety of different groups. And we also created another document that is, it's called Safe Rodent Prevention. It's a safe rodent IPM options and resource document. We created that too, which gives you a menu driven, um, approach to how you can implement safe prevention and rodent control without having to use anticoagulant rodenticides and mostly any other rodenticides. Um, and people can use that document and they can see they can, you know, it's a menu driven so they can. They can, they can pick a, pick a solution or pick something and there could be a multiple, multiple factors that they want to try. Yeah. Like I say, it's not one size fits all, but, um, but yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's funny how the, how the laws work and what people know, again what people know and what they don't know. Um, one thing in Massachusetts is that, uh, we do have a, a law that's been on the books since November 22 of 2000. It's the Child and Families Protection Act. And in that, in that, in that law calls for a, every school daycare after school program, whatever the facilities are, it requires them by law to have an IPM plan for indoor and outdoor use. And those IPM plans have to have a coordinator. They have to list what the target species are, what materials by active ingredient and what product types are being used. So it's a required law. And if anyone was going to look at how to start, you might consider, if you're in Massachusetts, you might consider looking at, or in any state that has this, you might consider looking at those school plans. So um, it's, it's eye opening when you start to see it because right in our schools we're seeing um, quite a bit of anticoagulant rodenticides that are listed for use as a, uh, as a, as a means of control for, for rats and mice.

Yeah, and you know, even the, uh, with speaking with Lla Anderson, the Massachusetts Pesticide Control Act says that it can not cause unreasonable adverse effect to the environment, right? And the environment is going to involve not just the wildlife, but the individuals and everything else. Everybody. That's correct. So in essence, it's violating that.

Yeah, that's correct. It absolutely is. And so I look at you know, I'm so I look at it also from the perspective of wildlife habitat. So we don't want to adversely affect the wildlife, but there are, so they all live in wildlife habitats and some of these wildlife habitats are all priority habitats, especially in Massachusetts. And you can look at this state by state and it all runs pretty much the same way. So you want to make sure that, yeah, you're not harming the wildlife, but you want to make sure that you're not allowing this material to get into wildlife habitats. So streams, rivers. Bordering vegetated wetland, uh, you know, any of that, uh, any of that, any of those resource areas, you don't want to allow that material to have an opportunity to migrate into those areas. Because as you know the half life on this on this material and second generation materials fairly long So it will last in the environment for for for quite a while. we have a study So Michelle, there's one thing that on this IPM document. There's quite a bit of research documentation that's in that IPM document, including a study that was done over in Europe on anticoagulant rodenticides in water and how long it lasts and the implications of that. It was provided to me, actually provided to me by some marine biologists up at, uh, one of the wildlife refuges up here in eastern Massachusetts. So Parker Riven National Wildlife Refuge. And, uh, again, that's pretty, it's pretty interesting reading about what happens with this material that people think that. It just dissipates in water, but that's not really the case. And it does show up in fish and, and, and these different microorganisms. So yeah, definitely does.

On the legal aspect as well, something that, that is not common sense is why they are allowed when they are killing endangered species that are protected by the endangered species act.

You know, that's always the big, the big argument is that. We have, the United States Fish and Wildlife has a list, all the listed species in the country. They have them by state, and they also classify them. In Massachusetts, we have our own. We have our own Massachusetts Endangered Species Act, and we have the, and we have a Department of Mass in the Mass Fishing Game, which is the Natural History and Endangered Species Program. And we have state listed birds and, you know, birds, plants, reptiles, animals, we have them in this, in this act. And if you look at bald eagles, for instance. Bald eagles and peregrine falcons, but I'll use bald eagles specifically because we've had rodenticide deaths in bald eagles That's listed as a spurt of special concern It falls under the massachusetts endangered species act and we actually have people who are part of the pest control industry Who say that we have no listed species in massachusetts, which is just absolutely incorrect and so again it's let's Let's all work with the facts instead of working by What fits our agendas? Let's work with the facts, you know, um, so yeah

a lot of misinformation happening.

Yeah, I've got nesting peregrine falcons that are right over here in my in my town and they they nest in an area That's it's a priority habitat of rare species and not, A couple of hundred feet away We've got bait boxes bait stations around that now not that peregrine falcons are typically rodent eaters But they're opportunists and we have photographs of them eating rats and that kind of thing So but that just the fact that you know if you're If you, if you want to make an argument, base it on the facts, and, and I don't think that you should be able, I don't think you should be trying to move your, move your argument based upon misinformation. I just don't think so, I don't think it's right, and I think there's a lot of it going on on my opinion.

No, absolutely, I, I completely agree. So I guess, in, in closing, I want to know, what was your experience with the Animal Law Clinic?

Well, so that is an interesting, that's an interesting how that came about. So back in the beginning of 2023, I was asked if I would be interested in talking with, uh, Lisa Owens Vianney out at Raptors are the Solution about perhaps putting a statewide initiative into Massachusetts. What would that coalition look like if we were going to do it? And In an April of 2023, I assembled a, a cross functional group. There were 19 of us that were on the zoom call with, with Lisa, and she went through. Her entire, um, presentation on how California approached this problem that they had. What worked? What did they try to do legislatively? And then, what did they ultimately do with litigation? And how did that work? And if we were going to try that in the state of Massachusetts, what would that look like for us? And one of the comments that came out on that was to, to talk with, to reach out to and talk with various law clinics. Harvard Law, the Animal Law Clinic at Harvard Law, was one of the clinics that was suggested As by the group, and so when I compiled all the information into an outbrief, I had that down as one of the action items, and it was Marci Cemenska, who reached out to Harvard Law. But that, that's how it happened, um, and it, it, it really came out of, it's funny, because the wildlife veterinarians that were on that call, um, they had some experience with that and they actually were the ones that, that suggested it. And then, you know, Marcy got that into the law clinic and then she, you know, then she reached out to myself and, and my wife Patty and, and then we got on board and then we got. Of course, then we got our wildlife rehabbers on board too, which that's where all the power is.

Yeah. And in reading the petition, they did a really good job at explaining the problem and, you know, laying out who the, the individuals involved were, um, you know, all the petitioners and then kind of not just saying this is a problem, but there are solutions out there.

Correct. Correct. There's a, there's a multitude of solutions out there and, um, we just have to find a way to get our towns and cities and residents and kind of, you know, driving towards that, that common, common goal or common solution, which, you know, I always say try something. There's something, there are things out there that are effective. So why not give them a try and do it in combination with different, different materials, different, different methods. Um, we could try it all and you can, you know, You can pilot programs and you can implement them, but I mean at least give it a try instead of Just you know business as usual and you know, we'll just uh, we'll just continue to get on the path that we're going

Right and with the app we can keep track if the solutions are working or not so that we can make changes as we go along

we definitely can so if If uh with that app if if we go back and somebody makes a change and and now we log that in Uh into the app that they went to they went to this change Then then we'll know what it is and we can keep track of it and we can see how effective it is

so if any of our listeners want to get more information about the organization, are you on social media? Is there a website? How can, how can they reach you?

We are on social media. We have a, um, a Facebook group and, uh, it's, um, you can just search Friends of Horn Pond and, and you'll find us. Uh, we could add one thing. So we, we do have a motto. What we started off with and it's making, so we call it making a difference together. And it really sums up exactly what we're all about. Um, And it really is collaboration and, uh, you know, collaboration and action.

I love that because you know, everything that we do, like with my organization, my practice, everything's about collaboration, right? No one group can do everything by themselves and all different types bring different things to the table.

It, it's exactly right. And you know, in my, in my past life, that was, that was the way in my entire career, how, how things worked. Um, and it had to be a collaborative effort, cross functional, which is exactly what this is. Our, our non profit is exactly that. But this coalition that we've built, Um, is is exactly based on that foundation, collaboration, action, partnerships, science. It's it's it all rolls together.

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for spending this time and sharing your knowledge And thank you for everything that you're doing for the birds and for your voice in this rodenticide issue

Thank you, Michelle, been a pleasure,