Coyote stands in the frost in the Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge in Wyoming. (photo: Tom Koerner/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
09 August 19
The poison-filled, spring-loaded traps, called M-44s, are used by Wildlife Services for the benefit of farmers and ranchers
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Trump administration has reauthorized government officials to use
controversial poison devices – dubbed “cyanide bombs” by critics – to
kill coyotes, foxes and other animals across the US.
The spring-loaded traps, called M-44s, are filled with
sodium cyanide and are most frequently deployed by Wildlife Services, a
federal agency in the US Department of Agriculture that kills vast
numbers of wild animals each year, primarily for the benefit of private
farmers and ranchers.
In 2018, Wildlife Services reported that its agents
had dispatched more than 1.5 million native animals, from beavers to
black bears, wolves, ducks and owls. Roughly 6,500 of them were killed
by M-44s.
On Tuesday, after completing the first phase of a
routine review, the US Environmental Protection Agency announced that it
would allow sodium cyanide’s continued use in M-44s across the country
on an interim basis.
Yet the traps are facing increasing opposition, and
have, in the past, led to the inadvertent deaths of endangered species
and domestic pets and caused harm to humans.
In 2017, a teenage boy named Canyon Mansfield
was hiking with his dog in the woods behind his family’s home in
Pocatello, Idaho when Mansfield’s dog triggered a cyanide trap that
sprayed a plume of poison dust into the air. The dog died on the spot
and Mansfield was rushed to the hospital, where he ultimately recovered.
His parents are suing Wildlife Services over the poisoning.
Mansfield’s case made national headlines and has fueled opposition
to M-44s. In May, in response to advocacy by environmental groups,
Oregon’s governor Kate Brown signed a ban on the use of the traps in the
state. In 2017, Wildlife Services agreed to temporarily halt
the use of M-44s in Colorado after environmental groups sued. The
agency also stopped using them in Idaho after the Mansfield case came to
light.
In the months before the EPA announced the
reauthorization, conservation groups and members of the public flooded
the agency with comments calling for a complete national ban on the
predator-killing poison. According to an analysis provided by the Center
for Biological Diversity, which is a leading opponent of M-44s, 99.9%
of all comments received by the EPA opposed the reauthorization of
sodium cyanide for predator control purposes.
Although the agency took a different view, it did
impose new restrictions on the use of M-44s. Among other things, the
agency will now prohibit government officials from placing M-44s within
100 feet of public roads or trails. The agency’s reauthorization
decision is only an interim one and a final decision on the matter is
expected to come down after 2021.
Brooks Fahy, the executive director of the
environmental group Predator Defense and a leading opponent of M-44s,
denounced the EPA’s decision.
It is a “complete disaster”, he said. “[The EPA]
ignored the facts and they ignored cases that, without a doubt,
demonstrate that there is no way M-44s can be used safely.”
In response to the Guardian’s request for comment, the EPA referenced the documentation of the decision on its website.
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