Welcome To
SAVE WATERTOWN WILDLIFE
OUR MISSION:
Protect wildlife, pets, humans, and the environment by reducing the use of anticoagulant rodenticides –
rat poisons that work by preventing blood from clotting
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
Events
Eyes on Owls
Join us on Saturday, 21 Feb, for one of the Eyes on Owls presentations at Mt Auburn Cemetery! Teacher naturalist Marcia Wilson and wildlife photographer Mark Wilson will introduce visitors to the owls of New England and beyond. Learn the field marks, signs, and naturalist’s skills that you can use to find owls without disturbing them, then meet some live owls up close!
Save Watertown Wildlife will be providing information and handouts to interested attendees, so they can learn more about how to help preserve these magnificent creatures by avoiding rodenticides that make their way up the food chain.
Register here!
EcoFest 2026
Save Watertown Wildlife will have a table at Watertown’s second annual EcoFest this May. Join us and meet other local groups working on environmental issues, shop from ecologically minded vendors, play games, hear music, and eat good food! Save the date: Saturday, 09 May 2026, from 11am to 2pm. More details to be announced!
Monthly meeting
We meet on the fourth Thursday of each month at noon on Google Meet. Email savewatertownwildlife@gmail.com for meeting info.
Save Watertown Wildlife is a group of Watertown residents committed to helping wildlife. Our current focus is on reducing the use of rat poisons that harm pets, raptors and other wildlife, and even humans.
Projects
We’re still working on this part!
Info
© 2025, All rights reserved.
Recent posts….
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February look forward
Here we are in February, with the Superbowl and the Olympics and plenty of cold and snow! Several of us were able to meet in person on the last day of January for some coffee and talk at Revival on Coolidge Ave. As we talked, we were reminded that small groups foster real connections and…
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Rats in the rhubarb!
This piece was written by Dorothy Gilman for The Belmont Voice as part of the Garden Gems column. It was originally published on 20 Oct 2025 and is reprinted here with permission from the author. The original article can be accessed here. Catching sight of a scurrying rat when you are heading out to weed…
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A gardener’s roundtable
On 17 Sep 2025, Save Watertown Wildlife and Friends of Bees presented “A Gardener’s Roundtable,” hosted by Watertown Citizens for Peace, Justice and the Environment, at the Watertown Public Library. The roundtable addressed some of the challenges that can arise when gardening without chemicals, and how to maintain natural beauty in your yard while discouraging…
