Protect wildlife: Arlington residents hold vigil in honor of bald eagle who died from rat poisoning

The death of a bald eagle that succumbed to what experts suspect is rat poisoning has led a push from wildlife advocates for state lawmakers to do more to protect the birds of prey and other creatures.

More than 100 people gathered Thursday at a vigil in Arlington to honor the bald eagle, named MK, who was found struggling in a town cemetery on Sunday before ultimately dying at Cape Wildlife Center late Tuesday.

Initial lab work and a physical exam conducted Monday led experts to believe that anticoagulant rodenticide poisoning caused MK’s deteriorating condition, according to the New England Wildlife Center.

Wildlife digesting rodenticide poisoning has been an ongoing problem in Arlington, said Laura Kiesel, a resident who organized Thursday’s vigil. It has been the cause of the deaths of multiple wildlife over the past couple of years, she said.

“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 said. “The state has not stepped up.”

A pair of state lawmakers from Attleboro, Sen. Paul Feeney and Rep. Jim Hawkins, are proposing legislation that would require commercial pest control companies to report electronically where they are applying rodenticides.

The legislation has received the support of more than 30 animal advocacy groups, and it just missed being fully enacted last session after the House and Senate approved it last year, Hawkins told the Herald.

Hawkins called rodenticide-caused deaths a statewide issue affecting not just birds but also dogs, foxes and other critters.

“We have agreed that this is at a crisis level,” the representative said. “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 only do so much, Kiesel said. Arlington Town Manager Sandy Pooler signed a policy in January that prohibits the use of second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides on all town-owned property, from buildings to parks.

Wildlife advocates are asking the state to allow municipalities to regulate pesticide use on private property, Kiesel said.

Following the vigil in front of Cyrus Dallin Art Museum in downtown Arlington, some residents walked to a nearby Whole Foods to ask the store to stop using rat poisons. The march followed a protest at the store in February.

“They are in the best financial position to set a precedent,” Kiesel said. “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 mother gray horned owl and two of her fledgling owlets died from rodenticide poisoning in an Arlington park last spring before another owl died in December, Kiesel said.

“Arlington is strangely the epicenter of rodenticide deaths for wildlife,” said Andrew Josslin, a professional tree climber who was called in by a wildlife rehabber to assist in capturing MK Sunday afternoon.

When Josslin first saw MK, he said the eagle couldn’t perch in a tree but was able to do 50- to 70-yard flights. She did exhibit signs of rodenticide poisoning before her condition went downhill overnight, he said.

Josslin’s advice: “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.”