BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Animal rights advocates gathered outside the State House ahead of a hearing Monday on legislation to ban a type of rodent poison called anticoagulant rodenticides.
According to the MSCPA-Angell, anticoagulant rodenticides work by causing internal bleeding in rodents that ingest them. The poison can take days or weeks to kill its targets, spreading to animals that prey on the rodents in the meantime.
The legislation at the center of Monday's hearing would ban the use of anticoagulant rodenticides unless deemed necessary by the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources.
"The wildlife rehabilitators are seeing hundreds of cases of all different kinds of wildlife," said Mass Audubon Community Organizer Heather Packard, who was among those outside the State House.
Packard said raptors, like hawks, are disproportionately affected by the poisons because their diets consist largely of rodents.
Demonstrators in bee costumes also gathered on Beacon Hill Monday ahead of a hearing on legislation to restrict the use of pesticides that kill bees.
WBZ NewsRadio's Carl Stevens (@carlwbz) reports.