During their Wednesday evening meeting, the Portland City Council heard public comment from several people calling on the city to stop poisoning the rats which have infested Harbor View Memorial Park.
Harbor View Park, which lies below the Portland side of the Casco Bay Bridge, was the site of the city’s largest homeless encampment until it was cleared out by the city on Jan. 2.
[RELATED: ‘Unhoused Lives Matter’: Sweep at Harbor View Park Encampment Blocked by Protestors, Line of Cars…]
In the months leading up to the sweep of the Harbor View encampment, Portland city officials expressed their concerns over the public health and safety risks posed by the encampment.
Portland Parks, Recreation and Facilities Management Director Ethan Hipple said at a November Health and Human Services and Public Safety Committee meeting that “There were a lot of rats at that site [Harbor View], I would see rats every time I’d go there — so definitely not good living conditions for anybody staying there or the neighborhood.”
Also in November, the Maine Center for Disease Control confirmed an outbreak of Hepatitis A which was spreading through Portland’s homeless encampments.
Elise Smorczewski, who identified herself as a “master naturalist” for the State of Maine, told the City Council during public comment that the type of poison being used against the rats, bromadiolone, poses serious dangers to the surrounding environment and wildlife.
“Bromadiolone is a long-acting anticoagulant poison that causes delayed onset catastrophic internal bleeding,” Smorczewski said. “This poison has demonstrated effects of secondary poisoning of wildlife, especially in important predators that help keep wild rat populations in check.”
Smorczewski said that the secondary poisoning of predators will lead to a “bigger rat problem in the future.”
The naturalist also stated that the rats in Harbor View Park are not wild rats, but are varieties of domesticated rats, such as Siamese and hairless rats, that “can only be occurring after many generations of selective breeding.”
“This is a very inhumane way to treat a domestic animal, and it is also bad for our ecosystem,” Smorczewski told the City Council.
Making a similar claim, an Arundel resident told the City Council that the designation of the rats in Harbor View Park as wild rats rather than domesticated rats had cut off resources to volunteers who are trying to get the rats veterinary care.
“I believe that the actions of the state veterinarian in declaring that these rats are wild has caused more harm than good, it has crippled efforts of volunteers to help these rats,” the Arundel resident said.
He added that the designation of the rats as wild has made it so that volunteers could not bring the rats “to [their] standard veterinarians to receive medical care and advice.”
Arundel is roughly 25 miles away from Portland City Hall.
Olivia Wilcox-Ames, a Portland resident who told the Council she is the owner of two domestic rats and is one of the volunteers who has been attempting to care for the Harbor View rats, also spoke to the environmental dangers of the rodenticide.
“These poisons are so effective to our environment,” Wilcox-Ames said. “We are right by the water, we have people’s homes in that neighborhood, indoor, outdoor cats, anybody that can get their hands on these rats – the animals don’t know how to deal with it.”
Wilcox-Ames told the City Council that she is “on [her] phone constantly trying to check the status of these rats.”
“We want to help these rats, these are not wild rats, the behaviors are drastically different, the markings are drastically different,” she said.
Wilcox-Ames concluded her public comment by urging the Council to “please, think of the rats.”
Following public comment, City Councilor Roberto Rodriguez asked Portland City Manager Danielle West if the Council could be provided with a memo on the city’s approach to the rats.
West told the Council that the city has been working with a licensed contractor who uses a variety of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-complaint methods to address the rat issue.
“We don’t specifically know if [the rats] are domesticated or wild,” West said. “We are under the understanding working with this person that these [rats] are mostly wild, but we’re trying to get more information on that.”
The City Manager added that she has asked the contractor to use other pest control methods that do not rely on poison, and that the city expects their work on the rat problem to be concluded within the next week or two.
A GoFundMe fundraiser to “save the domestic rats” in Harbor View Park has collected over $1,400 out of a $3,000 goal as of Thursday morning.
The GoFundMe organizer Maria Zanellato states that the money raised will go to “adequate care, transportation costs, supplies and media coverage, medical and legal counsel and more,” and that surplus funds will “go towards the care of future rats” or be donated to a rescue.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="24759 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=24759">10 Comments
42 ignorant morons donated &1,435. to date to save the rats…and, these people are allowed to vote?
Just when you think you have found the “ceiling” for “stupid” along comes this. Anyone who knows any basic information about rats knows that wherever humans go rats go along with them. They live off of the garbage humans discard. Our cities are totally overrun with them. If these total fools could ever read the history of the Black Plague in in Europe they would know what terrible danger overwhelming rat populations and poor human sanitation represent. Millions died from the plague back then. Often I think the riff raff, that live off the land in Portland, ought to be cleaned out but this is not a good way to do it. It is awful to think that true “morons” like these, get to vote in Maine elections. No wonder we got Mills in the Blaine House.
Maybe we are poisoning the wrong rats?
YOU GOT TO BE KIDDING
I suggest an “Adopt a Rat” program. I’m sure these “concerned” folks will adopt them by the hundreds.
There seem to be tons and tons of rats in that fair city, and the 2 legged ones always vote for the dems.
You can’t make this stuff up. God help us as these folks are right in sync with the democrat base.
Do you suppose that any of these morons know what Bubonic plague was, or what it’s horrific effect was on humans, over several centuries?
……”The bubonic plague is an infection of the lymphatic system, usually resulting from the bite of an infected flea…….The flea is parasitic on house and field rats and seeks out other prey when its rodent host dies. Rats were an amplifying factor to bubonic plague due to their common association with humans as well as the nature of their blood. The rat’s blood allows the rat to withstand a major concentration of the plague”……..
Rats have always been a scourge on humanity. Rats breed heavily and thrive well, in all situations where good sanitation practices are either very poor or non-existent. The homeless squatter camps that infest our cities, like Portland, are prime breeding places for rats and other associated filth and disease. These total fools have NO IDEA what they are encouraging. Do they want the black plague to strike in Portland, ME?
One wonders. And I can guarantee a face diaper used in the presence of Bubonic plague would be more worthless than it was on Covid. I don’t think I have ever seen human beings as stupid as these morons are.
https://www.history.com/news/rats-didnt-spread-the-black-death-it-was-humans
What is going to be their next “CAUSE DU JOUR”??? Here’s an idea right up their alley… Go to the East End Sewerage Treatment Plant, and have a “SAVE THE TURD” sit-in.
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