We are applauding the Newtown Conservation Commission for voting to restrict the use of anticoagulant rodenticides on town-owned properties at their meeting on Jan. 27. The policy will next be forwarded to the Board of Selectmen and Legislative Council for consideration. We are cautiously optimistic that this effort will make it across the finish line, protecting wildlife under siege from these poisons across the state.

Friends of Animals, A Place Called Hope Raptor Rehabilitation Center, and CT Votes for Animals brought our “Think Outside the Bait Box” presentation, which reveals the dangers of rodenticides to wildlife, pets and children, to the Newtown Conservation Commission on Oct. 15. 

Since then, we’ve been helping the commissioners explore alternatives to second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides, such as rodent birth control and sanitation and exclusion. We’ve also connected them with municipalities in Massachusetts that have adopted some sort of public lands ban on SGARs.

Anticoagulants work by preventing blood from clotting. So animals are dying a slow agonizing death from internal bleeding after consuming poisoned rodents who’ve taken the bait from those ubiquitous black boxes you see outside buildings. What’s happening is the definition of animal cruelty.

Newtown Conservation Commission Chair Holly Kocet said the commission unanimously approved the policy prohibiting the use of first- and second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides on town-owned properties because recent state legislation restricting second-generation rodenticides was limited in scope, as it applies primarily to homeowner purchases. The local policy is intended to further protect wildlife, particularly birds of prey, from secondary poisoning.