What to know

Anticoagulant rodenticides, or ARs, are chemicals that kill rodents by preventing their blood from clotting. ARs build up inside the rodents, which often take about a week and a half to die. When predators, like bald eagles, red tailed hawks, and foxes, eat the poisoned rodents, the ARs then build up in their bodies. Eventually these poisons make the eagles, hawks, and foxes also bleed to death, or they become very weak and die from other diseases.

Watertown, MA, does not use ARs on its municipal properties. It does use a vitamin D overdose in black bait boxes.

What you can do

• Practice integrated pest management in your home or business

• Tell your pest control company that you do not want to use SGARs

• Work with local businesses and organizations to get SGARs off their properties

• Report bait boxes to the EwA Rat Poison Brigade map 

• Donate to wildlife rescue centers, like Cape Ann Wildlife

Learn more

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