Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So if you would We're all set then. If you want to introduce yourself and tell us who you're with and where you are, that's always helpful information. And then we've got about a half hour.

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: Okay. I'll start with a brief introduction. And then before I received the invitation to testify with you guys yesterday, I actually wrote you a letter in the morning about this bill. So I think maybe what would be useful, I know you guys are busy, I don't know if everybody's had a chance to read it, but it's not that long. I was thinking I would read that and then you can I'll add some things and you can ask me any questions that you have and I'll do my best to answer. Unless everybody's read it and you don't wanna hear it again.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: I think that's a good plan because we are busy and we get lots of emails That's alright. I appreciate it. And just to keep the conversation well informed.

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: Good. I will start with that, and it gives you a brief introduction of who I am too. So I'll just start with this. I am a wildlife rehabilitator in Addison and licensed by both the state of Vermont and the federal government since 2012. My husband has been a Vermont state game warden for twenty nine years, just retiring this past fall. My daughter is also a Vermont licensed wildlife rehabilitator. So between the three of us, we have regularly faced cases of suffering and death caused by secondary rodenticide poisoning, impacting a wide range of species, both birds and mammals. I'll give a few examples in more detail, but here also is a partial list of species we have dealt with who showed the dramatic signs of rodenticide poisoning. Most were killed by it despite best efforts to save. And, you know, we save quite a few too, but boy, a lot of them die. And the list of species includes great horned owls, barred owls, Eastern screech owls, saw wet owls, long eared owls, barn owls. And there are others who were impacted, but these are the birds we have, birds and mammals, because there's some of them in the list. They're the ones that we've had direct contact with. Ravens and crows, black vultures and Turkey vultures, red foxes and gray foxes, ermine, which are the short tailed weasels and long tailed weasels and fishers, opossums, raccoons, coyotes, skunks, domestic dogs and cats. And squirrels, gray squirrels should also be on this list because I've seen quite a few of them. Generally not secondary rodenticide poison, but they eat the bait and then they get sick and die. Among the most heartbreaking situations we see almost every year is a nest of dead owls, sometimes with a single survivor still clinging to life, often already being eaten alive by maggots. The flies are drawn to the blood leaking from their ears, their pin feathers, etcetera. So they lay their eggs on the suffering bird and we get them, you know, with 50 maggots already chewing on them. It's really fun. Bird parents work so hard to raise a nest of babies. They overcome so many challenges, but a rodenticide poison rodent captured easily because it's sick and dying thus moving slowly and brought back to the nest to share among babies can kill an entire nest, including the parents who ingest parts of the rodent as they tear it up to feed their babies. And the other thing I'll add to that paragraph is just that when birds are feeding a nest of babies, they're working dawn till dark, like crazy to get enough food to keep their nest fed. And so they find a source of slow moving rodents and they keep going back for them. And, you know, as I'm sure you guys know at this point, rodenticides accumulate in the body, they don't clear. And so this toxic load gets bigger with every ingested poisoned rodent.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Do you mind if we interrupt with questions?

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: No. Of course not. If you want, I would say well, whatever you want. I would say, let me go all the way through and you can ask, but no. Interrupt.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I think that could be fine too.

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: I'm sure.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Let's do that. We'll we'll go ahead.

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: You sure? Because I can Yes. I know where I am in the letter.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Now why don't we go ahead and have you continue on?

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: Okay. Just in case I'm gonna answer them already. Yes. So that's that's what I was thinking. If a survivor is found in time, we have a small chance to save that bird or mammal, actually this is for birds, with days and weeks of vitamin K injections to support the blood coagulation and around the clock care. They take very intensive care when they come in rodenticide poisoned, but most times no one even finds the poison nest until all have suffered and died. So it's rare that we even get a single survivor and can pull them through. So many times we get calls from people, I don't understand, there's a whole nest of dead owls or dead hawks or dead crows or dead ravens. And then we ask for signs and put it together. We see the same sad situation among raven nests. One day, a thriving family of ravens. Days later, all the babies lying dead in the nest, at least one parent dead on the ground nearby. Both raptors and corvids provide great rodent control. They will eat thousands of rats and mice if left unharmed, but humans who used rodent icides are carelessly killing whole families of nature's best rodent control species. Species of mammals also provide great rodent control, which also makes them terribly vulnerable to secondary rodenticide poisoning. Another common call we receive is a fox or a possum or raccoon or barn cat acting strange. With further description, we hear about the unfortunate mammals circling and stumbling, barely able to function. People usually call with concerns about rabies more than concerns about the animal's welfare. We take that into consideration seriously, of course, and ask for details.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah,

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: okay, sorry, that was a weird one. These animals rarely display signs of aggression, just disability, and people always say they seem miserable. We ask whether the caller or a neighbor is using rodenticides. Sadly, the answer is almost yes, almost always yes. When we speak with the person responsible for bait boxes or other rodenticide display, many had no idea that secondary species would also be poisoned. They didn't even think about it. And if they had a pest control company, it was never mentioned. Other times people are fully aware, but they care far more about conveniently killing rodents than about the concentric circles of harm that they cause. This is my last paragraph. Brenna Galdensi and Powell created a short video about a great horned owlet who we were able to revive and raise and ultimately release after rodenticide poisoning killed his entire family. That he too was found covered in maggots and dead, you know, the dead parents and babies all around him. And he was hanging on by a thread. It took me, I think it was nine days before I had a clue that he was gonna survive that. I'll attach a link. What a magnificent creature. Sometimes oh, this is so sweet. Sometimes usually at the full moon, he will still hoot back and forth with me from the woods nearby two years after his release now. The last few times there has been a second owl hooting along with him, a slightly higher call. This sounds like a mated pair now. They will raise a family this year. And my deepest concern for them is rodenticide poisoning. Great horned owls, we have seen so many poisoned and killed by secondary rodenticide poisoning. And they are amazing birds and they're amazing rodent control. Last statement, one of Vermont's greatest natural resources is our diverse and abundant wildlife. This bill, H758, is one important step toward protecting both the individual birds and mammals and the species vulnerable to being harmed and killed by rodenticides. Thank you so much for advancing these protections. So that's what I had written you yesterday before I knew I had this opportunity to talk to you in person. So I'm happy to take any questions or address this in any way that's useful to you guys.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Okay. Well, let's let's see what we have for questions at this point. Representative Nelson, did you have Yes.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Thank you, chair. Angela, thank you for your work and the work ah, Angela. Juli Julianna.

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: Worry about it.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Julianna. Is that her

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: fault? Like I said, I get called all sorts

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: of things. No. No. It isn't. Julianna, thank you for your work and the work that your husband did as a warden in the Vermont Fish and Wildlife. I'm a I'm a sportsman and and relish all our Vermont animals. Two questions. Mhmm. Has the number decreased at all? We just started in in Vermont in 2024 with making escaras used by licensed people only. There's hardly any first first generation sold. Also now are gone to the non ARs. Have you seen a decline since 2024 at all?

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: So that would be the the c when in 2024? Are you talking, like, January? Are talking, like, November?

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: I I it was probably I I don't know, but I guess July 1. Mhmm.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. I'm not sure.

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: That would be it's 2024, the summer season, fall, and then this past year. I have not noticed a decline, but we see tiny tip of the iceberg of what's going on out there. Because so many times, these animals are just dying and nobody is even caring or noticing. I have not noticed a decline in our intakes, but again, that doesn't mean you're not making an impact.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Yeah. Appreciate that. And and I understand. The woods are a big space. Yeah. My second question was, when you take these animals in, you blood test them so you know that it's act actually anticoagulants are affecting them or

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: I would say two things. Yeah. Let me say one thing about your first question and then I'll or about your comment on the first question, then I'll come back to that. It's not only woods, a lot of times these, like when it's barred owls, they're living on the farm fields and they can live in a little ridge of woods right near suburban or, you know, farm country. I live in Addison, I'm surrounded by farms, know, we also have, we got Virgins and little town communities. There's owls of all sorts all around here interfacing with, the homeowners associations are a big place where we see a lot of rodenticides out there, businesses, and of course the farms. So some of these species are deep wood species, but a lot of them, like I don't see fishers poison, but I know that their livers when they're dead, you know, if they're trapped and you can do a liver test after postmortem, those are, there's rodenticide poisoning in most of them, but I don't see that, you know, and they are deep woods and they're still being impacted. So a lot of the species that we deal with and especially the ones who were found are living in the interface between humans and nature. So I just wanted to say that one piece, because it's not just the woods. I wish it was just the woods, but so many times it's our neighborhoods, our farms, businesses, the homeowner associations we deal with a lot. So that's there. Now, as far as blood work goes, according to Cornell who I use their information a lot, they have both one of the few wildlife vet programs in the country and they have a great school of ornithology. So there's a lot of good information on birds coming out of that. I went to school there, that's where I went to college and that's where I started rehabbing like forty years ago. So they're one of my favorite resources in part just because they're familiar, but they continue to say that there's no really good blood test yet to confirm rodenticide poisoning in a live animal. There are postmortem techniques, but if where my concern is, is always saving the individual who's suffering the rodenticide poisoning and they do not yet have a reliable test to prove rodenticide poisoning and vets as well. They do different matching things with blood. They don't either. So a lot of what I've learned over the years is a recognition of patterns. You know, there are symptoms that are very obvious. I'm better with birds than with mammals. A lot of the mammal interface that I'm familiar with, we definitely take in some, but I also, my daughter does more mammals and my husband as a game warden gets these calls all the time. With birds, you get a very pale mouth. You can have very pale in the talons, like right up until the nails there. You get bruising under the wings and there's blood coming from ears, mouth, pin feathers, and in the stools, we get very And bloody those are all, you know, quite consistently symptoms of rodenticide poisoning, as well as just the obvious inability of the animal to function. They can't stay upright, they're just a mess.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah, My comment about the woods being a big area, Giuliana, as I live up in Derby and Oh, yeah. Near near the woods, real close to the woods. Now I have a barred owl that comes and sits on our old clothesline because that's where we feed the birds and I throw out the bird seeds, spilled on the ground is. Okay. And he's a daytime hunter. He hasn't quite figured that out yet. But anyway, and, you know, I'm glad to hear you went to Cornell. My nephew went to Cornell and we have a saying, you can tell a Cornell grad. You just can't tell them much. It's a great school.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: That's so true. Thank you.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Thank you for your interaction. I appreciate you.

[Rep. Gregory "Greg" Burtt (Member)]: Representative Burtt. Thank you, Sheriff. So you mentioned that it's hard to tell with a live blood test. How do you tell, maybe I just missed it, but do you tell with a, I'm assuming, or the dead animal?

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: Postmortem, the most reliable way that I know are liver samples because the rodenticides accumulate in the liver and some species can endure like the fishers, you know, they've got a ton of rodenticides in their liver and they're still functioning. Whereas birds, they're gonna die much quicker, But you can still get liver samples and they do show up reliably yes or no for rodenticides. And people are working on this. Like I know there are people at the Cornell vet school in the wildlife program who are trying to develop blood tests that will be able to confirm rodenticide poisoning in a live animal. But these are not reliable yet and they're not widely available even to try. And again, you know, so much of my time and energy, because I only have, I have leukemia too. So my energy is really like, have to manage things very carefully, so I don't bottom out myself. And I have a lot of responsibility with the animals that we take in and I don't like to shortchange anybody. So my attention and energy is generally spent on trying to save the animal, get them through it, and get them back to a point where they can be released into a natural habitat that suits them. A lot of the owls, it's tricky because the best thing for them is to go back to their home territory. That's where their family groups are. That's where they're familiar with that territory. However, when there's a lot of rodenticide poisoning going on there, we try to intervene. I try to find out who's doing it, where it came from, whether they're open to alternatives, because it's, you know, kind of tragic to go through all of that and send an animal back to a situation where they're just gonna be poisoned again. So as of now, you know, the postmortem testing is very reliable, but not so much the live animals. And I could probably, you know, take a sample to a lab and see, they wouldn't really be able to give me reliable information. And it's sort of in my triaging of my own energy, it's less important to me. I've learned both from the symptoms being pretty reliable and given that the treatment works, it's a pretty good clue that the treatment is matching the problem. And the problem with the anticoagulants is, you know, the blood doesn't coagulate and the vitamin K injections, they make a big difference because these rodenticides, they interrupt that pathway. And that's part of why the rats and the birds, you know, whoever eats the rodents bleed bleed to death. Does that make sense? Is that helpful?

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yes. Thank you.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Yeah. Alright.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Julian, are you seeing wildlife that has fallen victim to the non anticoagulant rodenticides?

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: The one that I have seen with the non anticoagulant are the neurotoxins and there's a neurotoxic rodenticide. My most successful interface with that is from the Rutland area, we got a baby barred owl who was found in the road and somebody picked her up. She went through the police department and ended up with us. And she was blind. She couldn't see. They didn't know where her nest was. First thing I always ask if there's a baby out of a nest is, can you find the nest? Because our first priority is to return them to the nest if we can. And if there's a problem with the nest to fix that, you know, we do construction and we climb high trees and, you know, get them back to their family if we can. This bird was found in the middle of the road. They didn't know where she came from. You know, they got her out of the road so she wouldn't get run over. And so she ended up with me and the blindness at first I thought maybe it was impact but I don't think it was. Had no other signs of head injury. And over time with nutrition, rest, care, her sight came back in about three weeks and it was very interesting you know and she ended up she grew up great, ended up being successfully released. But I talked to other people who have had experience with birds and the neurotoxic rodenticides and they have had that same experience of the bird coming in blind as a result of the neurotoxins and then being able to essentially detox the bird from those neurotoxins over time and having the bird then continue on. Now, the problem with blindness in a bird is you end up prey, hit by a car, you starve. You know, there are a lot of out in nature, it doesn't work very well to be a blind bird. But as far as rehabbing them, you know, we're taking care of all that. So all she's gotta do is detox the poisons and then grow up.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: But I haven't

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: had a lot of experience with that, but that was a very profound one.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah. Thank you. Representative O'Brien. Juliana, can

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: you speak to the sub lethal effects of some of these things? Like I was just wondering if some of the owlets say you found, even if they survive because they have a certain amount of anticoagulants in their system, they can't fight off other things going forward in their future?

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: That's a really good question. And I mean, all these questions are great. And I'm so grateful that you guys are doing this. I have had, she's free now, but a little screech owl who came in baby poison, anticoagulant, maggots, you know, the whole deal, bleeding from her mouth and bloody, bloody stools. And we were able to pull her through, but it took her so much longer developmentally. Like there's a certain rhythm that they have that you get used to with various species. And she just developed so slow and she had a hard time passing her live prey tests. Her beak was a little bit deformed and we filed it and finally got to the point where it was right. She had an eye that was winky. She definitely had a bunch of problems that persisted even beyond the life threatening problems. And I attributed it to the rodenticide poisoning as a baby. It's the same with human babies. If poison, toxic insults are introduced at certain points developmentally, you get different outcomes. And for whatever reason, experience, she hit the rodenticides at a developmental point where it messed a lot of things up for her. Her physical coordination was, it took a lot of extra work to get it. And also her developmental, like her feathers weren't right initially. I had to up her nutrition hugely and she stayed with me longer because she had to, it just took her longer to get to a point where she was gonna thrive in the wild. So that's a really good question. And again, you know, I see such a tiny fragment of what's happening out there and so many times it's killing them. Because again, if a bird doesn't develop at the proper rhythm, the parents leave the nest, they expect the bird to follow, you know, they're teaching at the next level, and if a bird can't keep up, they die. You know, they just don't make it. They don't make it through that, even when the parents try.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: So you think even things like a lot, like half these raptors you're mentioning here migrate, right? And so would it even mess like migration?

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: Absolutely, absolutely. I overwintered her because I was afraid that she just wasn't capable, you know, and they don't, the birds that we take in have the disadvantage of, they don't have a bird parent, you know, they don't have a parent of their species. I can't fly around and teach them the best trees and the best place, you know, so they're already limited. So they've gotta be physically capable. And if a bird isn't, I will keep it longer and do everything in my power to help it gain that capacity. And she ultimately did great, you know, but wow, did it take her a while? And I think it was due to the rodenticide poisoning, toxic insult introduced at a key point in her development that just threw everything out of whack.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Any other questions? Juliana, thank you very much for making Yeah, time

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: thank you for doing this. I'm grateful to all of you. And if there's anything that I can do going forward, please feel free to reach out.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Appreciate it. Thank you. Have a good rest of your day.

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: Thank you. You too. Bye.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Alright.

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: Just wanna get out of here.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: You should

[Juliana (Wildlife rehabilitator, Addison)]: be a little nervous. Thank you, Bob. Person you'll ever meet. What do I do? Oh, leave. Okay. Bye. Leave would do it. Bye.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: So before we take a break, committee, just I asked John, this John, if he would take the lead on moving the conversation forward here. So if you have thoughts about this, we we, like all the other bills, we've got a looming deadline, so we we can't wait forever. I mean, wouldn't want to anyway. But Are committee bills also under that deadline? Yeah. Yeah. Everything is. If there's I know we took a lot of testimony last year, quite a lot of testimony last year. Was, A, it was a year ago, and we don't remember everything that we learned a year ago. B, we have new committee members. So if anybody feels like there's somebody who we haven't heard from or we should hear more of from, be thinking about that. I know we've had several people reach out and offer to testify various solutions, various alternative solutions have been floating around, and you can be hearing from those folks too.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: Only people that you know, we heard from the chamber. We haven't heard directly from the food manufacturer group this year. We heard from one licensed applicator last year. We haven't heard from a digital one this year. Are we gonna hear from Fish and Wildlife on this? Yeah. They

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: can't be here this week, but they will. They we scheduled them, I think, for the week after break. And

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: and would it be prudent to hear from the Vermont Department of Health that's concerning to, you know, food businesses and stuff, you know, how do they handle that when they find a rodent infestation, and how they handle it, and the different diseases and salmonella and coliform and whatnot that rodents can carry and fat food processing.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah, I think we reach out. That gives them plenty of notice too for coming in. Is not, so we won't have fish and wildlife until after the This is not a bill that we're gonna try and wrap up this week. Some of the others we might conceive a little bit, not this one. Okay, well good. If you have other thoughts, let John know or let me know and we can line up to testimony. I think what Richard was saying is important. We haven't heard from food manufacturers, which is the big deal. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not sure what we did here last year. Was it from the manufacturer directly or was it from

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: No. Pesticide applicator. They work work for cattle.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: You know, I'd like to hear from Butternut Farm. I've heard they've been on the set out letters. What do you mean unserved barrels? Yeah. So it barrels. So. Michelle?

[Rep. Michelle Bos-Lun (Member)]: So we did take a lot of testimony about this last year, and I actually had my intern make a list of the types of testimony and what they were addressing. So for people that wanna revisit or who weren't here last time, I'd be happy to share that list if I mean, you can also go back and search it, but she did make a list that, you know, particularly for those of you that weren't here last time, I'm happy to happy to share that.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: Very helpful. Yeah. Thank you.

[Rep. John O'Brien (Member)]: This was

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: short form last year? Yes, yeah. All the testimony should be pretty easy to find too on our webpage under the short form bill number. We can help you with that, Jack. I don't know whether are we easily able to go back and look at video from last year, or is that archived somewhere? No. It's easy to do. We can still okay.

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: No. You you YouTube, go to the year 2025 Yeah.

[Rep. David Durfee (Chair)]: And start going through the YouTube. Okay. Good. Alright. Let's take a break and we've got then Ledge Council will come in and we've got we had some questions this morning