Initiative targets rat poison threat to wildlife

By CYD ABNET
Waltham Times Contributing Writer

An initiative called Save Waltham Wildlife seeks to raise awareness about wildlife deaths due to ingested rat poison. Residents who want to learn more about Save Waltham Wildlife can register to attend a virtual public forum on Jan. 23 at 7 p.m.

The initiative, from the Waltham Land Trust (WLT), takes aim specifically at second-generation anticoagulants (SGARs). SGARs are the most common type of rodenticide. 

SGARs are highly toxic and work by preventing blood clotting which eventually causes internal bleeding. Their potency means the toxic compound can affect an animal that consumes the affected rat, according to the state Department of Fisheries and Wildlife. Wildlife besides rats may also consume the SGARs bait itself and become poisoned.

“SGARs are self-defeating – by harming these natural predators, they allow rats to keep proliferating. And, tragically, they kill off our local wildlife,” Alan Richardson, a WLT member heading the Save Waltham Wildlife initiative, wrote in an email responding to Waltham Times questions.

The public can help with the Save Waltham Wildlife initiative by documenting injured or lethargic wildlife and contacting a wildlife rehabilitator to collect the animal. Documentation of the affected wildlife serves two purposes: to help the rehabilitator locate the animal and to provide a visual record of the effects of SGARs.

Impact on rats, wildlife

Wildlife SGARs poisoning and the rising rat population go hand and hand, said Ashley Makridakis, a wildlife rehabilitator from Fresh Start Wildlife Rehabilitation in Sudbury.

“In heavily populated areas where people are building more houses, these rodents have nowhere to go except inside other people’s houses,” Makridakis says. “Who wants to dig a burrow when there’s a nice, heated house you can chew into?”

This presence of rats in houses, she explained, often prompts residents to hire exterminators who then use SGARs as a means of ridding the area of rats.

When asked whether the city uses SGARs, Waltham public health director Michelle Feeley said the city does not use rodenticide. 

“The city has adopted a position of not using rodenticide for concern of wildlife and secondary kills,” she said in an email.

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