Date: 10/9/24 5:27 am From: Toshia McCabe <toshia...> Subject: [Arlington Birds] Dead owl on Mass ave not tested
This is facebook post from Save Arlington Wildlife (10/8/24). Bottom line:
Some or many dead raptors are not being tested for SGARs, which leaves the
situation a mystery to the MA department of Agriculture, which has some say
on rodentice use in the state. If you care about this issue, let your
elected officials know that this is unacceptable.
—— from Save Arlington Wildlife —-
Today the news came into my feed first in an email and then I saw it on The
Arlington List: DEAD OWL ON MASS AVE. The owl was in Lexington only a few
blocks from the Arlington border in the shopping plaza where Nick's and
Wicked Bagel is located. Someone from Save Lexington Wildlife went there
right away to retrieve the body. But the body was gone. The Lexington
Animal Control Officer had been called in. He threw out the body after the
state's Environmental Police told him to....Here's the problem: the MA Dept
of Agricultural Resource has told us they don't see enough evidence of
wildlife harmed by rodenticides (as they are currently deliberating whether
to continue to allow anticoagulant rodenticides to be registered in MA as
per our petition to the state to stop it). Yet, the state will not set
aside resources to test wild animals while they shrug their shoulders and
wave their hands that they just "don't know" that rat poisons are wreaking
that much havoc. I and others in the coalition have repeatedly appealed to
MDAR to please ask Environmental Police and municipal ACOs to collect dead
bodies and record incidents. MDAR has so far refused. But if the
Environmental Police are not only not collecting these bodies for testing
or recording these incidents but actively advising people to throw them
out, it obstructs the ability of SAW and others to independently collect
these carcasses and work with wildlife rehabbers to test these animals.
Currently, SAW has an agreement with the Town of Arlington that they will
not dispose bodies of certain wild animals such as hawks, owls, and foxes
until SAW has been consulted first and collected the body if we deem
involvement of rodenticides are likely. Please consider working with your
town or city to have a similar arrangement. SAW has arranged for collection
of bodies in other towns and cities nearby. If you run a Save/Rescue
Wildlife group I am glad to discuss ways to potentially work on this issue
in your community. We need to start collectively pressuring MDAR to DO MORE
on this issue. This may very well have been an Arlington owl that crossed
the border. Now it is lost and gone and we won't even have answers.
