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 episode is actually divided into two parts, parts one and part two. The title of this episode is Stop Poisoning Our Birds. Massachusetts advocates fighting against anticoagulant rodenticides. So I was scrolling through LinkedIn and I saw this article on this petition that was created by Harvard Law School asking the state of Massachusetts to basically stop placing rodenticides. And the main reason for it was the damage to the environment, but in particular the damage to the birds, how these rodenticides are actually causing damage to, to the birds. And some of these birds are birds that are on the endangered species list. Speak about this issue, I have four amazing guests. For part one, our guests are going to be Lla Anderson, who is a student at the Harvard law school and Laura Kiesel from Save Arlington Wildlife. On part two of this episode is going to be Marci Cemenska from Save Lexington Wildlife and James Joyce II from Friends of Horn Pond. Our first guest is going to be Lla Anderson, who is a candidate at Harvard Law School and Harvard Divinity School. Welcome to the show, Lla.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Can you give us a little bit of information on your background, kind of where you started and what led you to law school?

Yeah, so I'm from Florida. Grew up in Florida. We just have very unique nature, wildlife, animals, you know, alligators and, and the like. And so growing up in Florida, I was able to just be around wildlife and that really played a role in cultivating this love for nature for me. I wanted to be a veterinarian when I was a kid. Um, I truly was convinced that I would be Dr. Doolittle. And, um, I also loved Eliza Thornberry from The Wild Thornberries. So, definitely had a strong connection with animals. I was vegetarian the first five years of my life. Um, fast forward, I started getting into, uh, learning more about factory farming and slaughterhouses when I was in middle school. So, I would watch all kinds of videos and documentaries on it. And that was definitely something that, I was interested in, but it sort of kind of stayed in the background and I ended up, you know, being, looking into other things in terms of career paths, um, like theater and music and stuff like that, entertainment. And then that all changed, uh, sophomore year of undergrad. I interned in D. C. and I saw just, How and before this had no interest in being a lawyer. It was kind of in the back of my head, but I just I didn't know too much about it and I felt like lawyers seem to be just very, you know, self serious and and type a. And that, that, that, that's true, but there's also way more to it than that in so many different personalities. Um, but yeah, I interned in DC, saw how much lawyers knew, and I wanted to, to be one of them. And so, um, started studying, and I, um, um, found my way to law school, so applied to Harvard, um, ended up matriculating into Harvard, um, in 2022. I was a vegan at that point. I became vegan in undergrad, um, and yeah. Initially, uh, I was vegan for sustainability reasons. Animals was a reason, but it wasn't my number one. I was interested in sustainability in undergrad, and that was my whole life in undergrad. So, um, it all changed, though, when I joined the Animal Law Society. at Harvard and just learned more and more about just our food systems and how animals are treated and speciesism and how we regard ourselves and how we regard other animals. And that basically just sort of led me back to who I was as a kid and how much I loved animals and just My, my core. And so after that, it just changed everything. Um, and I just got into animal law and I took the animal law course. Um, I started getting more involved in the animal law society, uh, and I got involved in the animal law clinic, which is how we got the rodenticide case. Um, but yeah, that's the long story, but I've always loved animals. Took a little break from deciding what I wanted to do, which in whether it involved animals and then found it again in law school.

That's great that you are able to merge your loves, your love for animals and then your newfound love for law.

Yeah, for law, which is surprising,

but yeah. Well, and congratulations on being at Harvard Law School because, you know, whenever we think about the top law schools in the country, Harvard is always one of the things that, you know, the colleges that most everybody will know. So congratulations on, on doing that. Thank you. So tell us about this law clinic. What is, what is a law clinic? How does that work?

So basically a law clinic is very similar to a non profit, pretty much is a non profit. So what we do is we have clients and um, law students are able, they're given the opportunity to basically do real world work. Um, it's, it's sort of like an experiential learning credit in college and in other, in other opportunities, very much like a. A lab, for instance, where you're able to learn apply what you learn in class in real life and act as a student attorney. And so basically, yeah, you, you get to be around and get to learn more about real cases. You get to help real people and clients. You do research writing. Your work could entail interviews in some clinics, you could go to court. Um, yeah, so it sort of runs the gamut, but basically each clinic has its own sort of focus. You can have an environmental law clinic, you can have a public defense clinic, and of course you can have an animal law clinic. So that's pretty much what a clinic is.

So I imagine, I mean, this is, this is great for the individuals that are seeking this kind of help, but then it's great for you guys as students. for being able to get experience prior to graduating and going into practice?

Definitely. You don't have to pay out of the wazoo for, in terms of the clients, for help. And, um, the students are able to get really as much experience as they would like. And, you know, there is a difference in law. Um, you know, when you, when you're taking your 1L law courses, pretty much that sort of dynamic where you're not doing clinic work is, it leans more towards academia. It's different. theory. Um, but then in your second and third years, um, at law school, when you're able to take clinics, then now you're looking at law from the standpoint of an actual practicing attorney and what exactly the day to day looks like, as opposed to being in the classroom and studying and having the whole graduate school, um, environment, um, being the, the main point of your law school experience.

So this case that we're going to be talking about is basically about the use of rodenticides and how they are damaging to the environment, not only to the animals. Yeah. So. can you give us a little bit of background on this case?

Yeah. Um, so this case, so there are a few things to note in the case. Um, pretty much you had, we have, uh, our clients were rehabilitators and, um, advocates, um, in different Massachusetts areas, but specifically, um, we're dealing with a few from Arlington. And so basically the issue is bald eagles are dying. Okay. Bald eagles, which are protected species in this country, um, protected also, well, first of all, our national symbol in the United States, um, and, you know, protected also, of course, in Massachusetts under the Endangered Species Act, and they were dying. And, um, so you had a lot of advocates and rehabilitators who were concerned about these animals just one day just getting sick and, you know, very rapidly, um, developing very anemic like conditions, um, bruising, bleeding, um, animals that they've observed for years who are now acting very differently and who are very clearly ill. Um, dying. And so the rehabilitators also, more than just the bald eagles, they've seen red tailed hawks, owls dying. So you have, you had individuals seeing this and wanting to do something about it and trying and wanting to know, you know, what was going on and all of the. The necropsy reports came back that all of these animals, um, most, if not all, um, I will get there in terms of there was a study that, um, a recent study where 100 percent of the birds that were sick that were tested did have rodenticides, anticoagulant rodenticides in their systems. But, um, In terms of the animals that were dying, as I'm talking about, most of them were poisoned with anticoagulant rodenticides when the necropsy or autopsy came back. And the anticoagulant rodenticides off the charts in terms of the amount of poisons that were in their bodies. So these groups of people, they, they, you know, very much on the ground, um, whether they're photographers, rehabilitators. Um, conservationists, and they were trying to push for, um, the state of Massachusetts to do something about this. And so that is basically how we got the case. So they ended up, you know, um, find, you know, uh, looking up the Harvard Animal Law Clinic, saw the work that we did, and brought this case to us.

So the, the main thing about it is about the fact how it's, uh, killing the, the birds. And I did see that study about the, I think it was the red tailed hawks, all of the ones that they found, every single one had evidence of rodenticide poisoning. So the, the issue is really from the Massachusetts department of natural resources, right? That they are, uh, in charge. of determining the, the types of pest controls that are, that are used?

Yeah, the Massachusetts, it's the department, you're close, the Department of Agricultural Resources. And they are in charge of, determining whether this pesticide is a threat to the environment.

So from what I was hearing, it says that they have, they do not meet the standards because they cause unreasonable adverse effects to the environment.

They do. What

does that mean? What is the meaning of that?

so in the law, this, this term reasonability, it's everywhere. Um, yeah, it dictates, you know, what is permissible and what isn't. Um, and so reasonability just means, is, the effects of this rodenticide is it so harmful or are its effects such that it's no longer reasonable to, you know, keep, uh, considering this rodenticide, um, or this poison or this chemical, this substance, whatever, uh, whatever have you as something that should be the standard or something that should be, um, that should proliferate in our society as much as it has been. So basically, the reasonable standard is just sort of like within means. And so, reasonability, if we're talking about the environment, one could say a reasonable standard, an example of something being reasonable, though this is questionable, is, um, basically, you know, pollution from cars. Is it reasonable, um, the amount of pollution that can come from a car? Um, And I think that people, for the most part, would agree, okay, if a, you know, car that's putting down the street doesn't pollute an insane amount, basically, if a car didn't pollute as much as an 18 wheeler, then, you know, It's reasonable, whatever it's polluting. Um, but then, of course, if a cat, if a car was polluting as much as an 18 wheeler, then I think one would say that that is an unreasonable amount of pollution. And so the same thing sort of applies to the reasonability of, whether the adverse effects are reasonable or unreasonable. And when you see the ecological devastation and the just detrimental. impact that rodenticides or anticoagulant rodenticides are having in our environment. It is very clear that, um, it is unreasonable and it's having an unreasonable adverse effect on our environment.

As a veterinarian, uh, I worked in emergency for many years and we would see dogs and cats that would come in, you know, poisoned from this because unfortunately it is something that a lot of people purchase for use in their homes and a lot of individuals don't even know the dangers of it, right? They think, well, it's just, mouse killer or, you know, rat poison, and they don't understand that it's going to hurt their animals. And not only from the animals ingesting it directly, but also from ingesting the, the mice or the rats that, that have gotten in it. And it's such a horrible and prolonged, cruel death, right? It

is. It is. And you have, you have the primary consumers and the secondary consumers. The primary consumers are the rodents. The secondary consumers are the coyotes, the raccoons, the bald eagles, the red tailed hawks, the owls, so on and so forth. And so people don't, people don't, I mean, the thing is, it's intentional that people are not told how detrimental these rodenticides are and how they're much worse than your typical rodenticide. Because the anticoagulant nature of the rodenticide means that basically any animal that consumes it, their blood clots. And so for the purpose of giving it to rodents, it's a very cruel way to die. So these anticoagulant rodenticides are sort of placed in these black boxes around, these rodents eat them. Well, rodents are so intelligent that with normal poisons, if the rodent eats it and then immediately dies, other rodents Will steer clear. They will not go. They will know exactly what it looks like. Um, and so they will not go near whatever they presume or rightfully assumed to be poison. Well, anticoagulant rodenticides are different. They're way more, um, uh, nefarious, I would say, in terms of the effect on the animal, um, in the sense that these rodenticides take a week, up to a week, to set in and for them to die. So they'll eat an anticoagulant rodenticide, a secondary anticoagulant rodenticide. Uh, and they won't know. You know, a couple of days later, they're still eating their fine. They don't, they don't know that that is what poisoned them. So they're slowly being poisoned and they could end up eating more and more and more of it. And then one day they're ways away from where they consume that poison and they die and they don't know how, or, or they don't know, you know, when they were poisoned, so yeah, that's how they work in the system.

So in the petition, basically, what is it that you're asking for them to do?

Well, we're asking for two things. So one of the petitions that were worked on by a couple of other classmates was the MDAR petition. So this was a petition to the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources. And it was for the immediate Suspension of registrations of anti coagulant rodenticides. Um, so anti coagulant rodenticides can still be purchased, though. There are a couple a few restrictions. They don't make. They haven't made much of a difference in terms of the pernicious effect on our environment in Massachusetts. So it's calling for the immediate suspension of those rodenticides and it's calling on MDAR to enact that. So that's the first one. The second one is a petition to the Secretary of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. And it is a call for her to investigate the impact of rodenticides on species. That are protected by the Massachusetts Endangered Species Act, such as the bald eagle. Um, and so we also had another ask, which was for the secretary to ensure that the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources, um, was basically using all practicable means to, um, Avoid damaging, uh, the protected species again, such as the bald eagle. We're so far since 2021, four bald eagles have died in Massachusetts.

I think this is interesting because I know that as a veterinarian, they tell us that we have to be very careful with how we dispose of cadavers after they're euthanized with euthanasia solution. Because if, for instance, we. You know, we discard of, uh, of an animal inappropriately and an endangered species feeds off that animal and dies, we can be responsible, we can be held liable for the termination of a life of an endangered species. And it, it almost sounds like that's the same issue that's happening here. However, the, the individuals that are doing this are not being held responsible for it.

Right. Exactly right.

What do you expect will come about from this?

Hopefully. So, there are hopes, and then there are, um, you know, a certain uncertain, well, there's an uncertainty. So far we haven't heard, we haven't gotten a response yet. I would hope that, um, Uh, anti coagulant rodenticides are reviewed by, um, the Secretary of the, uh, Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, and that the Secretary does look at the new report that the EPA released stating that anti coagulant rodenticides actually show, um, a negative impact on the environment. So I would hope that. You know, that would occur. Um, I think, you know, honestly, it's, it's, it's sort of a wait and see. I think that ultimately there are people, you know, we have advocates, as you know, rehabilitators who, who aren't comfortable with the wait and see approach. And so the good news is we did have a state representative in Massachusetts who presented a bill to ban, um, anticoagulant rodenticides so that's something, so I think that, you know, we're, we're waiting and seeing, uh, we're waiting on the response, uh, but I am hopeful because there are a lot of people, whether they're senior citizens, whether they're middle aged, um, teenagers, um, college age, what have you who are interested in making sure that this problem, this problem is addressed.

At least having, knowing that you have the support or at least one state representative is really important, right? Because at least you know that you have somebody up there that's looking out and that, um, is, is interested in being a voice for these animals. Right, right.

I also think it's important to mention that these anticoagulant rogenticides are pernicious and they Destroy our environment. Um, we mentioned it. I touched on it. But to get more specific, coyotes are being poisoned by anti coagulant rodenticides. And the reason why coyotes are important is because coyotes determine the health of the ecosystem. They're right in the middle of the food chain. So if you're noticing that coyotes have mange, they're bruising, they're emaciated, hemorrhaging, bleeding from the insides, because that is how, that is the effect of these secondary anticoagulant rodenticides on these animals bodies. So these animals often choke on their own blood. Um, there was one owl in, in Boston, in the Faneuil Hall, and he was found by some, um, some citizens, and luckily he was because if not, he would have soon died. He was showing signs of hemorrhaging. He was blind. He still is blind now as a result of the poisons, but he is healthy now. And so basically I'm saying that to say, this is destroying our environment. It's destroying the food chain. Um, and that affects everything, so we really do have to make sure that we see this for what it is, which is, you know, an emergency. Um, I, I also want to add that this has an effect on the rehabilitators as well, who are dealing with, you know, The bleeding, the blood, um, the loss of motivation sometimes, um, day in and day out because they continue to see these animals poisoned and bleeding and there's nothing they can do there. Well, they're trying to do their best, but right now they're very limited as to what they can do. And so, you know, we have to make sure that this is addressed because it's. It's really detrimental and it affects our environment physically. It also affects the mental health of individuals, um, who work hands on with this. And it's just unnecessary. There are so many other options to, to addressing the, uh, any sort of rodent issue that may occur. And the one last thing I'll say is, um, uh, Flacco the Owl and the Central Park Owl just passed away. He passed away because of a window strike. So if you don't know about Flacco the Owl, Flacco the Owl, um, is, was a, was a captive owl. who escaped captivity and basically would fly around Central Park, and he was just a spectacle in New York City. People loved him. People got out of bed every day to see him. Birdwatchers were excited to see him, and he represented so much to people in New York City. Um, he was sort of like a, the mascot of Central Park. That's how he was described. Oflaco was, you know, free for about a year and a year and a half until he died suddenly and he died by a window strike in New York City. He died from a window strike. Well, after a necropsy was conducted, you can guess what happened. There were anticoagulant rodenticides in Flacco's body. And so rodenticides also affect the vision. Of an animal, the vision of a bird, and they affect the way that they perceive objects, whether they're close, not close, etc. And so that was the, that, that is the reason why Flaco died, you know, anticoagulant or denticides and their proliferation. And so, um, Yeah, it's just that what I'll say is this is an issue that's so important, and I would even go so far as to say that anticoagulant rodenticides are our generation's DDT. And we saw how DDT decimated bald eagle populations before it was banned. And before we could start conserving and making sure that these populations were able to flourish again. And we just got to the point now where these populations are coming back and now, with anticoagulant or denticides, they are threatened again.

We talk about, you know, saying devil's advocate. Well, how are we supposed to get rid of the mice and the, and the rats and stuff. But then also we don't think about the fact that if we're killing the raptors, if we're killing the animals that are supposed to eliminate these to eliminate,

exactly

like we are just shooting ourselves in the foot, like what do you think is going to happen if we eliminate all these eagles and the coyotes and stuff like we, we take them out of the, out of the cycle. And then all we're going to do is cause the. A shift. In the, in the balance, we're going to have an imbalance,

right? Well, we'll have, right. We'll have an even greater rat problem, you know, and there are so many ways to, there are so many ways to alternatives, making sure that your trash is away, making sure that you plug up holes, you know, it's the integrated pest management approach. So there are so many other ways to. To, you know, solve that problem as opposed to just putting these really horrible poisons that are killing these beautiful animals that are affecting the entire food chain, um, decimating the entire food chain that are affecting also kids and pets. So, yeah, yeah. And then also, of course, as you said, again, if we keep doing this, we're just going to continue exacerbating the problem that's already happening right now.

Yeah, sometimes we cause our own problems and then we blame. The environment for it. Yeah, the environment,

exactly.

But we're the one, we're the ones doing it, so we need to take some responsibility and take some proactive action instead of, you know, trying to, to find the, the easy way out. Because the easy way out is just never it. It is not always a band aid solution, is not, is not

a solvent. Yeah.

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for spending this time with us, for sharing this information. Best of luck in your studies.

Thank you. Same to you.

Yeah, thank you for being here.

Thank you so much for having me.

Our next guest is going to be Laura Kiesel, who is the founder of Save Arlington Wildlife. Welcome to the junction, Laura.

Thank you for having me today.

So can you start by letting our listeners know about your background?

Sure. Um, so my first degree is in, in literature and journalism, but then I went back to school to study wildlife biology. Um, and I eventually completed my master's degree in natural resources management, um, and sciences. And so. I had worked a number of environmental non profit jobs and also for some municipal government agencies for their like natural resources commission. So I, I kind of come from a wildlife biology and environmental policy background.

The topic that we are discussing here is the use of the rodenticides, and then how they are affecting wildlife. So how did you become involved with this?

Sure. So this, this issue literally landed on my doorstep. One day in 2015, I walked out of my apartment into my parking lot and there was a pest control professional putting, um, 20 bait stations around the property. And I was. Somewhat familiar with these poisons. I, again, at the time I was working for, uh, or I just completed working. I was, had recently been laid off, but for several years I had been working for a municipal agency, um, in Massachusetts where they had an integrated pest management plan where they had basically all registered pesticides were not allowed to be used on their public lands, including these rodenticides. So I had some familiarity through my, my last, uh, job position. And I also had been. keeping track of the news. Um, you know, I'm also an environmental journalist and I had also seen that California was doing some more regulations of these poisons. So I was very alarmed that one day someone was just putting 20 bait stations down and I was became increasingly concerned because when I started to ask him questions, he was evasive and even told me things that weren't true. First, he indicated that they were traps. And I looked at the labels and I, I clarified, but those are not traps, right? These, this, that's poison bait and the rodent can exit. And, um, he begrudgingly, you know, conceded my point. And I, I said, so anything, any wild animals that live in the area, we had red tailed hawknest, uh, down the block. I mentioned them. I said, or even my pet cat could. If a mouse gets in the unit that's eaten this bait could get sick if he catches and eats that mouse and he flat out denied it, but I knew that that was true. I even wound up calling the company later and getting the EPA registration code for that particular product that they were using and looking up. It's called like the material data safety sheet to see the risks to make sure I wasn't like overstating it in my mind and I was not. And then I started to lobby my landlords to get rid of these poisons, which. Basically, it was the beginning of a multi year battle that I didn't get them to give those poisons up until after I moved out, and by that time I had saved Arlington Wildlife going, but, uh, for years we just had those poisons, and I watched in a short amount of time, you know, less than a year as these bait stations, uh, basically went from, like, a relative rarity in my town to, like, proliferating to the point where I would see them On every single block, sometimes several to a dozen, especially in the more dense parts of town. So I started, I started to really worry. I started to go to board of health meetings to talk about it with them. I started talking to my state representative. I went to all these kinds of friends of this or that park meeting. And I have to say for the first several years, I was treated with, um. A lot of cynicism and even a little bit of disdain by some places. Um, my state representative was very supportive, but yeah, a lot of the town officials, a lot of these, uh, friends groups, they, I was yelled at, I was told I was being a chicken little, um, and I knew seeing the amount of poison that was being used that at some point, like the bill was going to come due. Um, I knew that there must've been deaths happening, but. But that we weren't seeing them, but they started to become more apparent as more high profile wildlife cases, um, started happening in my community.

So then, you know, we're, we're now looking at the damage that these rodenticides are doing to, to wildlife, especially to endangered species. Um, and then I saw the, the research about the red tailed hawks that 100 percent of the ones that had been seen that year, all of them had been exposed to rodenticide poisoning. How, how did all this, um, I say, drive you to reach out to the law clinic?

So, um, as I mentioned, I've been doing this for nearly a decade and, um, we're getting increasing amounts of wildlife losses, especially in the past several years. Here in Arlington, uh, we had a bald eagle nest They were our first bald eagles to nest in Arlington's borders in 60 years since DDT had wiped the species out of the state and most of the country. And then, that was in 2021 when they established the nest and within six months, uh, one of the chicks, uh, when it was a fledgling, died of rodenticide poisoning. And then last year, in March 2023, MK, who was the matriarch eagle, uh, the female breeding bald eagle, who was much beloved in, Not just like the Boston metro area, but she was known throughout the state in the New England region, like people would travel from miles and miles away to see her and photograph her. She was very acclimated to people, so she was comfortable being in close proximity to them. She died last year, uh, in end of February 2023 of this rodenticide poisoning. Um, and I think that was sort of like the last straw for a lot of us, you know, I held a vigil and a demonstration the day after she died. Um, or was pronounced dead. And I thought maybe a dozen or two dozen people might show up and over 300 people showed up, um, even though there was like less than 24 hours notice, um, for this, it was a week night. It was still pretty cold cause it was very early March. Um, but yeah, hundreds of people showed up, um, at this time, you know, like state legislation, even very tepid bills that were proposed were kind of stalling here in Arlington. We were the first municipality to pass a public lands ban on the second generation anticoagulant rodenticides. And we also had submitted what's called a home rule petition to the state to ban on private lands because the state will not allow. Um, municipalities to ban any pesticide on private property without special permission. And most states in the country have that kind of law on the books. Actually, the pest control lobby a couple of decades ago, fought really hard for what's called preemption for states to refuse municipalities the right to restrict pesticides on private property. So Arlington had already submitted a homerule petition. The city of Newton then followed in our footsteps. But it still was just not enough. And so, after MK died, A concerned group of citizens who have been very active in this issue. Several wildlife rehabbers and other, um, people that you saw listed on the petition. We had a Zoom meeting, uh, with the executive director of Raptors are the solution, or rats, and they're based in California and they have a, they were successful in getting a, getting a moratorium on SGARs in most sectors in the states. So we asked her for some ideas or or like what some of the things that she did. And she basically had some pro bono legal help. And so she really urged us to look into like legal avenues. And she did mention you might want to check out some of the student law clinics because she had gotten help, I think, from Stanford Law Clinic for their from their environmental clinic. So and looking around. Uh, Harvard has some law clinics, uh, there's an environmental clinic and the animal law clinic. And so we did some queries, uh, the environmental clinic did not respond, but the animal law clinic did. And then, um, basically, they spent the year researching this issue in depth before making a decision of what legal avenues were available to us, um, to take action on this issue.

Yeah, I mean, as I mentioned, it just kind of hits both sides, right? Because we're concerned about the effect on the environment in general, but then we're also concerned about the damage that it's causing on these animals and just the torturous death that they undergo, right? It's not like they get into this poison and they just die. Right. They get into this poison and they bleed to death and it is a very prolonged and painful death.

Yes, it basically stops their blood from being able to clot and even something as small as like a sneeze or a cough or one poor owl recently, uh, bled to death after just plucking, you know, when, when female owls or birds of prey are about to lay eggs or have babies, they'll pluck their belly feathers out to make what's called a brood patch so they can insulate their chicks. And just from plucking out her feathers, her brood patch, it's called just, uh, Like hemorrhaged. So just these small little incidents can cause like these massive, um, internal and external hemorrhaging where they can't stop bleeding. And yes, very painful, very torturous. It can take days or weeks for them to die. So it's also a welfare concern, in addition to being a conservation concern. And it's not just wildlife that are vulnerable, um, pets like pet cats and dogs. are also vulnerable and there have been a number of deaths. Um, and even Children are vulnerable. These, uh, the second generation anti coagulants used to be available on store shelves and brick and mortar stores, but they, uh, were banned from store shelves because young Children by the thousands were getting into these poisons. Um, they weren't at that time, kept in bait stations and they were getting very sick in a couple of them. I think even died, and so it also is public health concerns for people, especially Children.

How bad is the rodent problem in Massachusetts that they're, they're going through these, um, steps of, you know, laying so much poison around.

So, you know, as with all the major metro areas like New York city and Philadelphia, I know that we're getting increasing rates of rodent sightings. So I'm a little skeptical because I know to some degree that, you know, we're, we've been in a construction boom since 2015. And I know that a lot of construction can, you know, interfere with rat burrows and make them more active. So I wonder how much of it is that we have more rats and mice. I'm sure we do have some because climate change is also a problem and warming weather. They're having they're having babies year round. They're having larger litters. So I'm sure there have been some population increases from climate change, but also with the construction boom. I do think some of it just might be. We're seeing more of them because they're their burrows are getting inter, uh, Interrupted and they're on the move more. And the same thing with COVID when the COVID pandemic happened and a lot of the restaurants shut down, uh, some of them might've migrated into more residential areas or because more people were working from home telecommuting. There's a theory that it's just when people started noticing, I mean, people started noticing a lot more of their outdoor and, you know, nature experiences, including, oh, wow, there's a rat. Like I never noticed that before. So that's. That's part of it. I actually do think that the rat poison makes the, the problems worse for rodent populations. Uh, as I mentioned, I'm an environmental journalist. I've been researching this and I've reported a number of articles on this. And I remember when I did my 2021 feature investigative feature, I searched for weeks high and low for like a peer review article that could, uh, You know, talk about the efficacy of these poisons in reducing rodent populations. And I couldn't find a single study. Um, it was really interesting. I would find studies that would call them very effective. And then in the footnote, I would look up the study they referred to, and it would just say the same thing. But it wouldn't actually have any kind of research behind it. So I do think a lot of it is scant. And in my experience, we have just continued to have more rodent problems, despite having these poisons be ubiquitous. Which indicates to me that either these poisons are not effective or they're a contributing factor, which would make sense because if we're killing off their predators, like the predators are effective at usually like suppressing these populations. And so we're actually might be inflating these populations by killing off their natural predators in the area.

Yeah, that's one of the things that I was thinking about is that, as you mentioned, just, That is, that is nature's way of maintaining a balance, right? We have this, this whole chain, uh, this whole food chain. And if we are doing things that are going to affect those animals higher in the food chain that are tasked with eliminating these animals that we consider pests, then all we're doing is worsening our own problem.

Yeah, that was actually what I studied in school, like was predator prey population dynamics. And I looked more at mammals, like wolves and stuff on deer, but I can't help but think it's sort of like a trophic cascade that we're, we're inciting when we get rid of these apex predators like hawks and owls that were of course going to be ironically making the rodent population worse. And they can't rebound like the rodents can. Rodents, you know, they breed so prolifically, they have such like so many, they can have thousands, a single pair of rats can have like thousands of babies a year. They can outbreed the poisons and they can build biological immunity to these poisons in a relatively quick amount of time because they breed so rapidly and they have such short lifespans. But a bird of prey, which can live for decades and they have short, they only have a couple of babies a year. If you like, kill off those animals, they can't rebound. So now there's like this mismatch where the rodents outbreed the poison, but now you've annihilated the predators in the area because they cannot overcome the impacts of these poisons like the rodents can.

So what is it that your group is hoping that happens from these petitions?

I mean, I, ideally, I am hoping that, um, the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources and the Department of Energy will, uh, seriously review the science and the case studies that are offered in them and, um, Make a decision that is, um, that corresponds with that, because right now we're not, you know, MDAR, the M. A. Department of Agricultural Resources, they're supposed to consider the environmental impacts of any pesticides they allow to be used, um, the pest companies to use in the state of Massachusetts. And that doesn't really seem to be happening. Um, and it, it, it seems like they're rubber stamping this without looking at it because if they would work to look very closely, they would see these impacts. Now we already have the bald eagle case studies of several bald eagles necropsy by the state, and there's still a MESA listed species. They're still on under the state endangered species act, but we had to do a lot of our own science too, because the state is not other than those MESA listed species. The state is not testing animals. So a lot of the wildlife rehabbers on their own dime and or with help from groups like Save Arlington Wildlife, crowdfunding from like just rape, you know, lay citizens who want to help. We've been funding these necropsies and basically every animal that has been necropsied has shown SGARs exposure and almost all but one that I know of, the, the rates of SGARs exposure are extremely high, um, and usually considered lethal. So, you know, Cape and wildlife in particular, they've done an enormous amount of testing and data keeping to show that this is a real problem. Aaron Hutchings. told me that at this point, rodenticide poisoning, I think is their number one reason for intake for the birds of prey. They get, um, surpassing vehicle strikes and a lot of their vehicle strikes. They probably do have lower levels of poisoning that make them susceptible to those, those collisions. But, um, yeah, and she's seen a real uptick in the past seven years or so, which have Like that's around the time that the construction boom started and it's also around the time the EPA pulled these from store shelves and has companies had more of a monopoly and I, in my experience, at least here in Boston. That's when it really became something that started to on every street like you started noticing them popping up.

One of the things that that I discussed with Ella Anderson from Harvard Law School was about an owl and. An owl in New York that died after a window strike and then on the necropsy, they did find out that there were anticoagulant rodenticides and these, these poisons can cause difficulty in vision. So it can be, you know, with the vehicle strikes, as you mentioned, they, yeah, the, the car may be the cause of death, but the mechanism of death may be the anticoagulant rodenticide that caused it to be blind and not be able to evade the vehicle.

Yeah, and, um, I think you're talking about Flacco, the, the owl, the, like, the celebrity owl that everyone, you know, like, the New York Times loved him, he was an escapee from the Central Park Zoo, he was a Eurasian eagle owl, so not native to New York City, and I think that sort of enthralled people about him. Um, and what the media hasn't really talked about, though, is the poison, the main anticoagulant found in his system, bromodiolone, the Parks Division of New York City uses that at Central Park and their other part parks in in the New York City network, Um, and I had a conversation with them at the end of last fall, like November ish, asking them why they were using bromodylone. And they told me that it was a low toxic poison. And that's not true. I said, where did you get that information? Because the EPA and I even shared with them the EPA classification. I was like, it's considered moderately toxic to birds and highly toxic to mammals. And they told they eventually after weeks told me it was their pest control contractor that told them that and it's concerning to me that so many agencies are taking the word of the very industry that has a conflict, you know, a vested conflict of interest in keeping the profits running by using this product. So I don't understand why they're being listened to at their word other than the science that exists about these poisons.

Well, and to say that it's low toxicity, I mean, toxicity is in the dosing, right? Like, a lot of poisons are not toxic until you get to a certain level. So let's say that, yeah, it's In low doses is not toxic, but what is it to say that these animals are not going to ingest high quantities given the amount that is being spread?

Yes. And I interviewed, um, uh, her name was Cynthia Hopp Dennis. She's a veterinarian with Cornell and she's done studies on SGARs exposure rates in New York, more like in the Ithaca region near Cornell. But she, she said the same thing you did. And she mentioned, you know, like, it doesn't even really matter what some of the studies like lab studies are showing because Those are very controlled and much smaller doses than what these animals are getting in the wild, but also synergistically because they're not just getting the bromodilone. They're getting the other anticoagulants and other poisons in their systems too. So those are all compounding on, you know, having a compounding impact on the animal. And I know it, uh, New England Wildlife Center mentioned that one of the reasons they think that they're another rehab clinic that they are having a harder time rehabbing their animals is because usually those animals have several of the anticoagulants. In their system, and it's they're synergistically working together to suppress the clotting at such an increased rate than they used to see when it was maybe just one poison being used.

The reading at the Massachusetts pesticide control act. It says that it cannot cause unreasonable adverse effects on the environment and is very clear that these rodenticides are damaging the environment. Yes. And then the other concern as far, like you mentioned, I mean, it's just these are, these are endangered species, right?

Yeah, it's, you know, a lot of people ask, like, doesn't the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Acts, they all have some language in there about not poisoning the animals. Um, but it's just, unfortunately, there's not a lot of, um, options for citizens to bring suits under those acts. And also, they They define the poisoning in a way where it's usually direct, and if it's an incidental poisoning, there's like a lot more red tape to prove it, but as you mentioned, there's all these rules about, you know, rehabbers mentioned how they can't even release the wildlife that they've treated with antibiotics till a certain amount of time goes by, so that the antibiotics don't enter like the food web, you know, you can't, under the MBTA, You can't own like eagle feathers or bird feathers, even if you just find them in nature because of like concerns of conservation. So I just find it, you know, kind of a contradiction that that those are so heavily regulated, but then these poisons are just being put out. Just without almost pretty much indiscriminately by the pest control companies and, you know, even though they're supposed to, were supposed to be used as a last ditch, um, effort to control rodents when other things failed, or like, they're just being put down as preventatives. They're being put down whether or not there are rodents present and they just leave them down, um, indefinitely, which is against the EPA's own recommendations for how they should be applied.

I think that, you know, like, like with most things related to animals, the environment, everything, it's about education, and I don't think that the public is truly, you know, aware of the damage that these things are causing, you know, they see the rat problem, so they're, of course, going to take to the turn to the government and turn to officials and say, you got to take care of these, of these rats, these rodents, and, um, They're, you know, this is the answer that they're giving and they're going to be okay with it, but I think that, you know, through you guys, so these advocacy efforts, if we can get the public in general to understand the damage that it's happening and not only how it's affecting wildlife, but how it can affect themselves, their family, their animals, then perhaps there's going to be a bigger outcry for these, for these rodenticides to be taken off the, be taken off use.

I, yeah, I agree. And I, I started a new nonprofit just like a couple of months ago called like, it's a mouthful, Save Massachusetts Wildlife Education Fund, and I'm just wanting to, that whole nonprofit is existing for me to try to come up with like video tutorials and other like education campaigns to really like. Get them marketed out to the mainstream because I feel like so much of it is people just still don't understand some of the basics. Like what those black boxes are, you know a surprising amount of people still sometimes don't get what secondary poisoning is They're like, how did the wildlife get into the boxes? And you know, sometimes you have to you know Explain to them how like no, it's the rodents themselves that are poisoning that that are the poison product now

Yeah, they're, they're used quite frequently and people don't, it's like people don't realize what they do. Right. Like it's like a magic act, they think that the mouse is going to go in it and just disappear. Yeah. I understand that they're going in there, they're getting poison and then they're walking out of it. They, you know, some people think that they just get trapped in there, that they eat it and they're trapped and they die in there and that's not even it.

Yeah, I've spoken to a lot of people who are confused, and again, some of the pest companies seem to encourage that kind of ignorance, like, like I mentioned my very first, you know, conversation, he tried to kind of, he called them traps, and I said, but the animal, like, they leave, they leave. Right. Um, something I also wanted to mention because I think that this is a countrywide problem, but I do think Massachusetts, when I speak to rehabbers, to researchers on this issue, and I tell them I'm in Massachusetts, they do say things usually like Massachusetts has an especially bad problem with the poisoning, um, You probably have read the Tufts Wildlife Clinic studies. You already referred to the one about the red tailed hawks, and when they looked at other birds of prey, it was 96 percent, but recently I spoke to Project Snowstorm, and they look at snowy owls, and they, they've been, they released a blog post a couple of weeks ago, um, or at this point, it might be almost a month ago, Uh, where they noted like 10 years ago, when they, because they necropsy dead snowy owls, they find they didn't have find hardly any anticoagulant like cases in the necropsies, but in just like the past decade, it's become like a ubiquitous problem with the samples. And when I interviewed, um, one of their representatives, he said that Massachusetts overall had the highest poisoning rates for snowy owls, both, I think, in the ratio of snowy owls and in the poisoning numbers, the toxicity levels themselves found in the liver of these AR poisons. Um, and snowy owls, they're not like a They're not listed in Massachusetts, um, as an endangered species or a threatened species. I don't know why, maybe because they're a migratory species here, but they're, they're in trouble. Like they're red listed under the IUCN, um, red list as threatened. And I know for the U S fish and wildlife service does have them a species of conservation concern. They're under serious threats with climate change because they're from Arctic ecosystems. So when they migrate to like the continental North, you know, us. usually like the Northeast or Midwest region. And if they're getting poisoned by these rat poisons, you know, that could be a tipping point for them.

What can the public do to be better advocates in this field?

Sure. Well, in addition to, you know, talking to your landlords, if you feel like you can do that safely, because I know sometimes they can be retaliatory, but, you know, advocating if you do have it at your place of residence to see if you can get them removed. Or again, if you're a business owner, not using them or talking to businesses about not using these poisons and trying to use other alternatives. Here in Massachusetts specific to our petition. We're still waiting for a response before I think we decide what our next steps are. And you know, there probably will be a call, um, some kind of call to action depending on what the next steps are, if they respond in the negative. But we do have the Arlington and the city of Newton has home rule petitions pending in the state legislature right now to ban these poisons on private property. So even though those homerule petitions are specific to those communities if, if by some chance they passed, it would establish a firm legal precedent for the prohibition of these chemicals. And a lot of people don't realize because these home rule petitions are for Arlington and Newton, they think, oh, I don't have to call or talk to my state rep. But I just, You know, I've been telling people in Massachusetts, if you, you know, please call and write your Senator and your state rep and tell them, um, that you want to see the, the home rule petitions for Arlington and Newton past the state, um, the state legislature and make it into law for our communities, because that will make it a lot easier for other communities to do this, but also if those passed, it would lend a lot of leverage and momentum to the legal petition we have with Harvard because those would resonate with like, um, the politicians on the state level, and they would see that there's a lot of public demand for further regulation of these poisons. I mean, if you're not in Massachusetts, you could look at what we're doing here and what states like California have done. And you can explore legal avenues, find a coalition of people to work with here in Massachusetts. We had to go community by community because our state legislature is a bit gridlocked. So the reason we did a lot of like, after I started save Arlington wildlife, a lot of other communities started their own respective save wildlife groups. And right now they're about, I think between a dozen and 20 across the Commonwealth, um, and each one is trying to do similar things that we did here in Arlington, that is past public lands bans, get a home rule petition submitted to the state because the more of that will increase pressure. So maybe in, if someone's in a state similar to us, you could look at local level things like that, getting a public lands ban, um, getting, um, a home rule petition, or if it's called something else in your state, but similar to that passed, um, looking at legal avenues, um, working on things like that. I do have on the Save Arlington wildlife website. I do have like an activist tool kit that I authored that kind of just has like a bullet by bullet instruction of what we did here in Arlington when we were getting started to eventually culminate in the achievements we did that other people are glad to borrow from and. I think that's a good springboard even even if you're not going to try to pass municipal laws. It just also has other ideas for raising awareness and getting businesses or residential properties to stop using the poisons and there's also an alternatives to road and decide page. So I have a lot of resources on the save Arlington wildlife dot org page.

Excellent. Yeah, because that was going to be my next question is, you know, we, we can't just say, well, we have a problem with this solution, but we're not going to help with providing another solution. So I wanted to know what were the, what were the other recommendations as far as solving the the rodent problem.

Yeah, so I do have an alternatives to rodenticide. Raptors are the solution has a lot of a lot of one pagers and good graphic, you know, kind of infographic or illustrations that I think is more palatable sometimes for people to look at. I mean, at the end of the day, the best thing and it's hard, right? Because human behavior is hard to change. I think the number one way is to really reduce rodent populations is better waste management and sanitation, uh, coupled with better exclusion, you know, like, so making sure homes are less porous so they can't get inside the home because I think that's when people really get upset is when they're finding their way inside people's homes, um, Those are the two big ones. And I know, again, that's kind of difficult for people because people don't necessarily want to take down their bird feeders, but bird feeders can be a big attractant to rats, right? Um, and if you do want to keep your bird feeders, there are a number of things you then really want to do and be vigilant about, because you will get rats, at least in my area, if you have a bird feeder eventually. And even if you don't use poison, because I get these queries all the time, where someone will say, like, my neighbor uses Uh, bird feeders. They don't use the poison. I've tried to talk to them about it, but they have rats and the rats are coming in my yard, but they will say, but there's two or three other neighbors, now they've begun to use poison. So even if the person with the bird feeder doesn't use the poison, I try to explain to them that probably if you get rats, Your neighbors will start using poison. So taking down bird feeders or doing, like I said, a number of mitigation options with that. Um, you know, not even small, low hanging fruit things like not taking your trash to outdoor barrels or dumpsters until basically it's almost time for pickup would be a big thing. When I lived in Alaska, it was actually illegal to take your trash out until the morning of pick up because of there was a grizzly, you know, the grizzly bears would come and you also couldn't have a bird feeders either because it would draw grizzly bears to the property and could result in someone getting injured. So, um, I almost wonder at one point if we're going to have to start thinking about this more at a mandated way, but at the very least, I try to educate people about those options. And, you know, hiring somebody to do exclusion or looking into do it yourself place, finding like the holes in your drywall and stuffing it with steel wool. And then just other things like, um, there's something called dry ice. I don't know if you've heard of that, like you can put those in outdoor burrows and like as it like dissipates, it's like carbon dioxide poisoning, so it kind of puts them to sleep. Um, so I, I, like lethal measures to me are usually a last like You know on the last option but I always tell people that's probably one of the least inhumane ways to get rid of them if like you've tried other options and and even old fashioned snap traps. Um, though you do have to be really like clever about what you bait them with and where you put them and and careful to have them either in a bait box or in places where another animal can't get caught in them.

Well, thank you so much for being with us and for sharing your knowledge. And thank you for everything that you're doing. Hopefully these petitions will, will get, you know, some response. And if not, I'm sure that you're going to continue to battle until, until something happens.

We will. Thank you very much.