It takes just one product to ignite the downfall of an entire ecological food chain, and perhaps even the death of a human if not treated in time. This product isn’t a chemical compound locked up in a vault, and it’s not uncommon in American households. It sits in cabinets and in backyards, ready to enact disaster. This over-the-counter distributed chemical is not arsenic or anthrax, but anti-coagulants—better known as rat poison.

Invented in the 1950s, rodenticides have gone by an array of names and have been made up of a variety of poison cocktails, some federally approved and others far from it. Throughout history, this poison has been a go-to method of controlling pests, only requiring a bit of bait and a whole lot of toxin. Pest control companies can distribute this poison in bait boxes secured along property lines, or the individual can purchase a bag on their own to spread wherever they desire.

Second generation anti-coagulants (SGARs) are a particularly dangerous form of rodenticides that inhibit Vitamin K, which creates clotting molecules in the bloodstream. Clotting molecules, also known as coagulants, stop our bodies from over-bleeding, so a lack of them in blood flow leads to internal bleeding, which proves fatal if not treated. As complex as that may or may not sound, anti-coagulants essentially boil down to the idea that without clotting molecules, you will bleed out of any wound, whether that be a paper cut or an internal nick.

Boxes containing this poison are placed by pest companies around homes and buildings, luring in rodents and anything else with a taste for peanut butter. The majority of these poisons are not mouse-specific, meaning other animals and humans will experience similar negative effects if ingested and in some cases inhaled. Because of the possible fatality from the loss of coagulants, it is imperative that measures are taken to control rat poison use.

Exposed to the hot weather, rodent pests can be a pressing problem in households, especially ones located near wooded areas. From mice to rats, these furry creatures infiltrate spaces and potentially spread disease, making them a real problem. That being said, the negative effects of rat poison immensely outweigh the good, which can be boiled down to three deadly reasons.

1) Humanity

Let’s face it, no one wants to deal with a dead mouse. Unless you’re a budding mouse serial killer, cleaning up a snap trap is not typically an ideal way to spend a morning, and it takes more effort to manually remove a problem. Rat poison’s drawn out effects wipe away this dreaded clean up process, but at what cost?

It’s hard to empathize or even sympathize for vermin that infest one’s house, but there’s a certain amount of torture that seems underserved. Mice are not malevolent creatures that target homeowners for fun. They need food and shelter like any other creature and are simply small enough to find it within the faults of human manufacturing. It’s a problem that certainly requires a solution, but not an unnecessarily cruel and prolonged one, and Volunteer Wayland Conservation Commissioner Shannon Fischer agrees.

“Animals shouldn’t die terrible deaths because they’re trying to live their life,” Fischer said.

The terrible death in question resembles that of medieval punishment. The body can take days to shut down upon ingesting anti-coagulants, drawing out the pain and suffering these animals experience. To put into more blunt terms, it’s an excruciating process filled with pain right up until the end when their body finally gives out.

However disgusting and troublesome you might find mice, this is not a fate that seems in any way fair to the mouse, and yet people still turn to rodenticides to avoid a mess. Is a minute of discomfort really worth the pain you’d be inflicting on a mouse over days? Is it necessary to cause this much suffering just to avoid looking at a problem head on?

“These are such gorgeous, majestic creatures, and I think a lot of the wildlife rehabilitators are heartbroken because they’re seeing so many unnecessary deaths,” Fischer said. “[Mice] should not be getting poisoned for eating their meals.”

Mice need to be contained, but there are ways to do it that don’t resemble medieval punishment. While it may not be the first point of concern for frustrated home owners who want these rodents out, there is a level of cruelty that should be considered before purchasing pest control.

2) Danger to unintended consumers

As someone with a jumpy dog, I’m almost always a little bit scratched up. I rarely pay it any mind though, because if I’m caught in the cross fire between her paws and a rope toy, I barely notice the surface level scratches I sustained. That being said, if somehow I had accidentally ingested anti-coagulants, this kind of cut would be fatal. It would be difficult for me to make this mistake as a young adult, but my dog could easily stumble upon a conveniently placed box of rat poison.

As tragic as that would be, it’s not uncommon, with upwards of 100 household pets dying of consumption every year. Toddlers and little kids are also at risk of accidental ingestion, with more than 10,000 annual calls to U.S. poison control centers concerning kids in possession of these poisons.

Some rodenticides use bait to lure mice into ingesting toxins, and as it turns out, mice have a particular taste for peanut butter, which is frequently used as flavoring. Dogs, cats and children can share this love, meaning the poison is constantly drawing in unattended consumers. This kind of bait can also bring mice that weren’t in your house directly to you, completely negating the point of the poison in the first place.

“You are literally attracting mice to come to you,” Fischer said. “Not only are you mirroring all these food sources for the hawks and stuff to go near, you’re literally poisoning them.”

Little kids and pets are exceptional at putting things in their mouth that they shouldn’t, and this tendency combined with flavored bait is a deadly combination. If you wouldn’t trust your kid or pet not to eat a flavored treat, even if you explicitly said not to, then you definitely shouldn’t be placing treats full of fatal poison around your yard. Regardless of whether or not you feel sympathy for the mice and animals, rodenticides can be extremely dangerous to family members and guests. By putting them anywhere, no matter private or public, you are introducing an unnecessary risk to the world.

3) Damage to ecosystems

Following the topic of unintended consumption, arguably the most important reason why rat poison should be banned is its degrading effects on the ecosystem. Rat poison is not rat-specific, meaning its toxins can rip through an entire food chain, harming and killing unintentionally exposed secondary consumers.

Upon ingesting rodenticide, a mouse or rat can leave the property and travel elsewhere before it succumbs to the poison. In this time, the rodent could easily be swept up by a hawk or fox, especially considering that the creature’s response time and survival instincts are degraded by the toxin. The predator consumes a bit of the poison along with the mouse. While this is not always immediately lethal, it can bioaccumulate in the creature, eventually killing it.

“Whether alive or dead, that mouse is now a carrier of poison,” Fischer said. “Since hawks, owls, foxes and coyotes have to eat rodents, they’re getting multiple doses of poison over time.”

The chain effects of secondary consumption are displayed in a 2020 study by Tufts Wildlife Clinic, which showed that rodenticides were present in the livers of 100% of the red tailed hawks that came to the clinic. All of these hawks were admitted into the clinic, but passed away due to injury or sickness.

As wildlife populations across the globe continue to stagger under the stress of climate change, the unnecessary use of rodenticides strains the health of wildlife ecosystems and inches more species towards extinction, highlighting how desperately we need change.

An evaluation by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2023 showed that rodenticides were impacting more than 130 endangered species, and pushing at least 73 toward extinction, emphasizing how harmful this pest control is to the environment.

As Wayland High School freshmen are taught in biology, the removal of one species affects an entire food web and ecosystem. By eliminating a player in ecological succession, the balance of an ecosystem is thrown off, leading to spikes in some populations and plunges in others. This disastrous domino effect emphasizes how important it is to preserve and protect non-invasive species, even if it means making changes to how we look at pest control.

“[The food web is] like a Jenga system, and it can start to collapse if you remove too many pieces,” Fischer said. “I think it behooves us to really do what we can to preserve the food chain.”

It’s easy to brush off these problems as not so serious, something that isn’t a risk to Wayland. With all the conservation land, eco-friendly initiatives and volunteers, it seems like our wildlife couldn’t be vulnerable to this, but that is simply not true. According to Fischer, Wayland is currently experiencing a predator shortage, and with little carnivores, we’ve experienced an influx of deer and rabbit populations. Uncontrolled prey populations can lead to the degradation of natural resources and primary producers, meaning we’re at risk of losing necessary plants in our conservation land.

“They’re [predators] keeping a lot of these prey populations in check,” Volunteer Wayland Conservation Commissioner Emily Cullen said. “Those populations will go out of control [without predators].”

We rely heavily on the few canines and birds of prey we have to control prey populations, and with rodenticides still being allowed in the state and town, we run the risk of losing our most pivotal defense against prey. What’s more, with a receding population of mice predators due to the use of poison, more rodents thrive in the wild, increasing the chance of infestations in houses.

The damage we’re causing to rodents’ natural predators creates a self destructive feedback loop that ends in a lose-lose scenario for everyone and everything involved. Every time someone lays out a black box brimming with rat poison, we as a whole are shooting ourselves in the foot.

“We should not be doing this to our allies,” Fischer said. “It’s self destructive, and it’s very short sighted.”

According to local bird rehabilitator Allison Webber, falcons, owls, hawks and other birds of prey frequently turn up dead or infected in Wayland due to rodenticides, and she receives affected raptors from surrounding towns on a daily basis.

The frequency at which these birds are dropping dead out of the skies is tragic enough, but paired with the devastating spiral this loss has on the environment, the effects of this poison are catastrophic.

What we can do?

The simplest way to stop this problem is to turn to rodenticide alternatives.

The easiest way to deal with pests is to not have them in the first place, so the most effective form of pest control is prevention. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the best ways to keep mice out is by sealing up gaps and holes between the houses foundation and the ground, keeping food and trash in a contained space and maintaining a clean backyard.

That being said, that’s no help after mice have already infested, which is why there are a variety of options when it comes to non-SGAR pest control, ranging from mouse-specific toxins to catch-and-release traps. The following map features a selection of the most effective methods, as well as some that should be avoided.

Despite this, not everyone will make this switch, and animals are not subject to property lines. If you don’t want to risk your children, pets and backyard wildlife ingesting this poison, rodenticides need to be banned state-wide. Neighboring towns have already taken significant steps in this process, a key example being Concord, which successfully passed Article 36. This is a citizen petition which asked the town to give the Select Council permission to request that the General Court ban SGARS.

This article was able to pass due to the diligent work of Save Concord Wildlife, an organization founded by Concord residents, Gwendolyn Shipley and Meaghan Sinclair. Shipley and Sinclair formed the program last year, with common goals of raising awareness of the dangers of rat poison and doing what they can to protect Concord’s ecosystem.

Unfortunately this kind of legislation can take years to pass, and sometimes remains stuck in the State House for so long that it expires. This is an unacceptable amount of time to wait while animals continue to die across the state. Education is the best way to combat this, and Wayland can learn from organizations, like Save Concord Wildlife, that have pushed to advocate for rat poison bans.

The goal of these educational interventions is to get people to start asking questions. It’s so easy to schedule a pest control company to handle your problems and assume that, because they’re professionals, they wouldn’t be doing anything harmful to the environment or endangering your family. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case, and companies can use rodenticides without asking the customer first, which is why it’s so important to use our voice as a town. This is the kind of active intervention that creates lasting change in communities, making it critical that we keep the public educated.

“Immediately arming the public with as much knowledge as possible so they can ask the right questions is a really big piece for us,” Sinclair said.

This kind of education can allow our town to petition for a rodenticide ban on a stronger platform. A 2024 proposal to ban SGARs in Wayland’s municipal property was heavily supported, with 219 votes in favor against 20, but was not able to pass due to conflict with a separate bylaw, so it remains a regulation. Thus, it’s time to push even harder from a legislative standpoint in our town and continue to fight.

This kind of change can take a long time to enact, emphasizing how important it is to raise awareness and persist. Our town can create our own advocation platform for our wildlife using a template that Save Concord Wildlife has set up for towns to model petitions, websites and arguments that promote the end of SGARs so that more people can get involved without having to do everything on their own.

“We would love for as many towns as possible to use those resources,” Shipley said. “We have set out a path for you, and we can make that process a little bit easier.”

It can be discouraging reading through statistics and seeing the direct effects of people’s negligence or simple lack of awareness that degrades the ecosystem, but that’s no reason to give up. In fact, it’s the opposite. By continuing to educate people and raise awareness about this issue, we advocate for the ecosystem that’s being destroyed, and bringing more people on board. At the end of the day, even if you convince only one person to get involved, you’ve done something to help the environment.

Rodenticides are like a forgotten subscription. While at one point useful, it has now become an unnecessary resource, doing significantly more harm than good. The only way to stop the cycle is to cancel the subscription for good, which is exactly what we have to do with rat poison. We continue to shoot ourselves in the foot every time a tin of rat poison is placed in a yard, emphasizing why it’s absolutely necessary to ban this poison state-wide. By reaching out to state legislators, forming programs and most importantly, keeping people educated, we can pull species back from the brink of extinction, and have a chance at restoring our ecosystem.

Podcast with Webber

Join WSPN’s Fiona Peltonen and local bird rehabilitator Allison Webber as they discuss the effects of rat poison on Wayland’s wildlife ecosystem.