SAUGUS — In the wake of the death of a bald eagle that ingested a poisoned rat in Arlington, Saugus town officials are considering alternate ways of pest control in the hopes of protecting bald eagles and other flying predators.
Board of Selectmen Vice Chair Debra Panetta expressed concern that Saugus’ “beautiful” bald eagles could suffer the same fate as Arlington’s eagle, named MK. She asked town health officials to look into alternatives to dealing with rodents. She acknowledged that the town had to strike a “delicate balance,” ensuring that areas remained rat-free, but also suggesting that the town would be “up in arms” if an eagle died.
“It’s a very delicate balance,” she said. “But perhaps there’s something that we can do, an alternative, a different option, as opposed to those poison boxes.”
“Nobody wants to be at any place that’s rat-infested,” she added.
And it’s not just Panetta.
State lawmakers are once again considering a bill looking to crack down on rodenticide use in Massachusetts. The proposal nearly made it to the finish line last legislative session. The Environment, Natural Resources and Agriculture Committee, the House Ways and Means Committee, and the Senate Ways and Means Committee all took turns redrafting the language before both branches agreed on a text on Jan. 3, the final day of the last General Court.
Engrossed in both chambers, all that was missing was a pair of enactment votes, which never came.
Panetta suggested the town look into a program recently installed in Malden. Board of Health Vice Chair Maria Tamagna, who also serves as a public health nurse in Saugus, said the program was working “really well.”
The program, Tamagna explained, eliminated poison as a means of rodent control, opting for electrocution instead. Rats are lured into boxes, where they are counted and electrocuted, killing them. Officials moved boxes “from area to area” after conducting an assessment of where rats were most concentrated, Tamagna said.
But, Tamagna acknowledged, the program is expensive and Malden did not secure a grant to fund it.
Director of Public Health John Fralick said he would reach out to his Malden counterpart, Christopher Webb, to get a sense of the costs and viability of bringing the program to Saugus.
But, he said a review of how effective holistic strategies are would be necessary.
“The question of whether or not we would switch to something completely holistic, I feel like I’d have to be against something like that, just based off the fact that it’s kind of been proven that homeopathic and trapping and holistic methods of pest control, they’re not effective, especially given the fact that obviously it’s a regional issue that we’re all dealing with,” Fralick said.
Change “starts with a discussion,” Panetta said. “That’s what we’re having.”
Material from the State House News Service was used in this report.
