The demise of a bald eagle that succumbed to what consultants suspect is rat poisoning has led a push from wildlife advocates for state lawmakers to do extra to guard the birds of prey and different creatures.
More than 100 individuals gathered Thursday at a vigil in Arlington to honor the bald eagle, named MK, who was discovered struggling in a city cemetery on Sunday earlier than in the end dying at Cape Wildlife Center late Tuesday.
Initial lab work and a bodily examination performed Monday led consultants to imagine that anticoagulant rodenticide poisoning prompted MK’s deteriorating situation, based on the New England Wildlife Center.
Wildlife digesting rodenticide poisoning has been an ongoing drawback in Arlington, mentioned Laura Kiesel, a resident who organized Thursday’s vigil. It has been the reason for the deaths of a number of wildlife over the previous couple of years, she mentioned.
“The thing I’m really frustrated with is Arlington, to its credit, is trying to get the state to do something about this and allow us to regulate these poisons since we have a disproportionate amount of wildlife deaths,” Kiesel mentioned. “The state has not stepped up.”
A pair of state lawmakers from Attleboro, Sen. Paul Feeney and Rep. Jim Hawkins, are proposing laws that will require business pest management corporations to report electronically the place they’re making use of rodenticides.
The laws has acquired the help of greater than 30 animal advocacy teams, and it simply missed being absolutely enacted final session after the House and Senate accredited it final yr, Hawkins instructed the Herald.
Hawkins known as rodenticide-caused deaths a statewide problem affecting not simply birds but in addition canine, foxes and different critters.
“We have agreed that this is at a crisis level,” the consultant mentioned. “If we try to do a ban, which is what everybody wants, we are never going to get it. By doing it this way, we can get it passed in one session.”
Municipalities can solely accomplish that a lot, Kiesel mentioned. Arlington Town Manager Sandy Pooler signed a coverage in January that prohibits the usage of second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides on all town-owned property, from buildings to parks.
Wildlife advocates are asking the state to permit municipalities to control pesticide use on personal property, Kiesel mentioned.
Following the vigil in entrance of Cyrus Dallin Art Museum in downtown Arlington, some residents walked to a close-by Whole Foods to ask the shop to cease utilizing rat poisons. The march adopted a protest on the retailer in February.
“They are in the best financial position to set a precedent,” Kiesel mentioned. “Some of the smaller mom-and-pop businesses are hamstrung because they’ll tell me that they don’t want to use the poisons but the landlords who own the properties are using them.”
A mom grey horned owl and two of her fledgling owlets died from rodenticide poisoning in an Arlington park final spring earlier than one other owl died in December, Kiesel mentioned.
“Arlington is strangely the epicenter of rodenticide deaths for wildlife,” mentioned Andrew Josslin, knowledgeable tree climber who was known as in by a wildlife rehabber to help in capturing MK Sunday afternoon.
When Josslin first noticed MK, he mentioned the eagle couldn’t perch in a tree however was in a position to do 50- to 70-yard flights. She did exhibit indicators of rodenticide poisoning earlier than her situation went downhill in a single day, he mentioned.
Josslin’s recommendation: “People should request that their pest control services use what is called integrated pest management and use multiple methods to control rodents, and not use anticoagulants. That will go a long way in making this problem go away.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”