At MBTS Town Meeting, Support “SGARS” Regulation

To the Editor,

One of the pleasures of living in the decades I have is watching the return of raptors – bald eagles, osprey, hawks large and small – from the devastation of DDT. Now new poisons, Second Generation Anticoagulant Rodenticides (SGARS), threaten not only raptors, but also owls, foxes, racoons, and even pets.
SGARS poison rodents by shutting down their ability to produce vitamin K, which enables blood clotting. A rodent that ingests SGARS dies slowly over days, bleeding to death internally, getting weaker and weaker. Carnivores love weak rodents.
Unfortunately, the poisons are not specific to rodents – they poison every animal that ingests them, even secondarily. The poisons are cumulative – they build up in the body of the owl, hawk, or fox. Eventually the predator bleeds to death or weakens and succumbs to infection or predation. Most die out of sight.
Under state law, towns must get permission from the legislature to regulate the use of SGARS on private property. State law limits their use to professional pest controllers. Even with that precaution, the Massachusetts Audubon Society reports that every red-tailed hawk brought in, dead or alive, tests positive for SGARS.
Article 20 of the warrant for the Manchester Annual Town Meeting asks the meeting to instruct the Select Board to petition the Great and General Court for permission to regulate the use of SGARS in town. Eagles and hawks cross town borders.
We in Manchester cannot protect “our” raptors from poisons in other towns, but we can avoid poisoning them here. We can protect mammals like foxes, ermine, minks, and fisher cats, all of which eat hundreds of rodents. Please come to the Annual Town Meeting and vote to protect the animals that control our rodents naturally.
Ann Harrison
Manchester