The secretive government agency planting 'cyanide bombs' across the US

[babylonsister]

The secretive government agency planting 'cyanide bombs' across the US
Wildlife Services kills thousands of animals at ranchers and farmers’ behest. But it operates with little oversight – and critics describe it as out of control
Jimmy Tobias in Pocatello, Idaho
Published on Fri 26 Jun 2020 05.00 EDT


The call came over Tony Manu’s police radio one March day in 2017: some sort of pipe had exploded in the hills outside Pocatello, Idaho and the son of a well-known local doctor was hurt, or worse.

Manu, a long-time detective with the county sheriff’s office, was shocked. A pipe bomb in Pocatello?

“We were like, ‘Holy shit,’” says Manu. He hit the gas and screeched up winding mountain roads outside of town. “I thought maybe [the victim] was missing a leg or something. That is what it sounded like.”

At the home of Dr Mansfield and his family, he found a frightening scene. On the driveway, just outside the sprawling timbered house, the family’s dog, Kasey, was dead. Inside the home, Canyon Mansfield, 14 years old, the youngest of three children, was sobbing. His head was pounding and his eyes were burning – he needed to go to the emergency room.

Manu soon pieced together the story. While playing in the woods behind the family home, Canyon and his dog had stumbled upon a strange device that sprayed them in the face with a dose of of sodium cyanide. The boy managed to quickly clean the poison out of his eyes, but the dog collapsed and started convulsing. As Kasey lay dying on the hillside, Dr Mansfield had wanted to give Kasey CPR, but Canyon told him that if he did, he’d ingest the deadly stuff himself.

It didn’t take detective Manu and his team of investigators long to uncover how it got there. The so-called cyanide bomb was not the work of some rogue actor or terrorist cell. It had been installed by a federal employee on official business.

snip//

***

If you haven’t heard of the US agency that placed the bomb, you’re not alone.

Its name is Wildlife Services, and for years it has operated in relative obscurity, with limited oversight from Congress or the American public. Housed in the Department of Agriculture, the agency primarily works on behalf of private ranchers and farmers, killing coyotes, wolves, bears, birds and other creatures that cause problems for agricultural interests. In 2018, it exterminated nearly 1.5 million native animals, and a huge number of invasive animals as well.

Sometimes its agents shoot wolves or coyotes from helicopters. Sometimes they employ leg traps and snares. And sometimes they place poison devices on public and private land. M-44s, also known as “cyanide bombs”, are baited and spring-loaded tubes that spray an orange plume of cyanide powder when triggered. Aimed at coyotes and other canids that predate livestock, they killed 6,500 animals in 2018 alone.

more...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/26/cyanide-bombs-wildfire-services-idaho

[2naSalit]

1. Some of us have been

fighting to get those banned for decades.

[pazzyanne]

9. Yes, we have!

Also have been fighting to ban traps and trapping for similar reasons: indiscriminate killing.

[2naSalit]

15. +1

[Alex4Martinez]

2. We need to kill off the cattle industry and their free use of public fucking lands. eom

[Maru Kitteh]

5. SO MUCH THIS.

Fuck those Bundy motherfuckers.

[SheltieLover]

3. K&R!

🤬

[yonder]

4. It is my understanding that M-44 use was banned

or severely restricted right after after this incident but subsequently, those restrictions had recently been lifted??? Maybe, I've got that wrong.

[Alex4Martinez]

6. Maybe it's like landmines, hundreds of them out there but nobody is sure where.

Not in the US, of course, we hope, but you know what I mean.

[Evolve Dammit]

7. Rachel Carson must be rolling over

[TeamPooka]

8. Your actions kill my dog, something will be happening to you

[RainCaster]

10. Why does it take a British newspaper to show us how fucked up our own gummint is?

Damn, this is messed up.

[mountain grammy]

12. Yes, totally agree

And without a paywall..

[Delmette2.0]

14. +1,000

[sarisataka]

11. I never understood

Why placing chemical landmines on public land was legal.

[2naSalit]

16. Special interests...

the kind that the government was willing to carry out to prop up industries that would fail if not for taxpayers paying to remove key components of the ecosystem for them.

[MagickMuffin]

13. I remember reading about this years ago

Perhaps with the current MalAdmin they lifted the sanctions of how strong the bombs can be.

Those bombs are like the coronavirus as they don't discriminate. They will attack whatever they damn will please.

[2naSalit]

17. That may be the case.

There have been so many offenses to environmental law and regulation that some have to fall out of my head to make room for the most recent atrocities.

[DSandra]

18. Why do so many Americans have rocks for brains?

[ProfessorGAC]

19. They're Using Cyanide?

There aren't safer, more specific compounds that improve survival with treatment?
The answer to that question is, yes.
There are things they could use, far safer with only modest loss of efficacy.
Not that I approve of it, because it seems a horrible idea.
But, using cyanide compounds makes it horrible & stupid.