Crazy days are back..I almost cried when I read this

[trudy1]

“EPA Reauthorizes Use of 'Dangerous' 'Cyanide Bombs' That Kill Thousands of Animals Every Year”

I just can’t bear to think about those thousands of animals, especially feral cats and dogs senselessly killed by these traps! Texas, New Mexico, western states. It’s just sad!

 

[EmersonandEvie]

I'm assuming you're talking about the M44 devices which are used to control coyote populations out west (they are banned east of the Mississippi). They are specifically made to kill coyotes and canids because of the trigger- it's a "bite and pull" method, which is how canines pick up their food. Without the bite, the cyanide capsule mechanism cannot detonate. A cat would have a hard time getting its mouth where it would need to be to detonate the cyanide. Dogs are a different story. The traps have several restrictions about where they can be placed, and can only be used by federal agencies specifically for predate control- laymen can't just go and purchase them at the local feed store. There will always be bycatch, for lack of a better word, but they are quite efficient in doing their job.

That being said...If it's of any consolation, these traps kill quickly. The cyanide is inhaled and the animal dies within a few minutes. They are much more humane than some other lethal traps on the market, in my opinion.

https://www.aphis.usda.gov/publications/wildlife_damage/fs-m44-device.pdf

 

[trudy1]

Oh, I didn’t realize that...must be ok then?

Sorry, worked in natural resources management for the Interior Department for 22 years and just can’t buy into the party line that cyanide trigger traps are “species specific” except for “bycatch” or “non target” kills and are THE method for predator control. It depends, IMO, on who’s statistics you’re willing to accept, cattlemen, EPA, or “tree huggers”.

Granted, cyanide is certainly more “humane” than struggling in a leg hold trap or other such device. But, and it’s a big BUT, I’ve seen animals die by cyanide...those “within a few minutes” are a loooong time.

 

[fionasmom]

Depending on where they have been placed, a few pet dogs have died as well.

 

[Jcatbird]

Hasn’t history taught us anything? Mass killing of rabbits in the past should have taught us not to do things like this. Slaughtering animals does not solve the problems. Killing to control populations leads to other problems. Besides the original animals killed and tortured , ( not a humane death) this will travel along the food chain. Scavengers will feed there, they will die, other scavengers will feed from them and die. The dead will pass away in various places and perhaps even in water supplies where the toxins continue to kill. Anyone remember the plague? I’m with trudy1 This is a horrible thing.

 

[Maria Bayote]

Just thinking of them (any animal) "bite and pull" and ultimately kill them makes my heart want to shout with anger and sadness.
I am sorry, but I do not buy this too. There has got to be a much better way if the reason is to control wildlife population.

 

[EmersonandEvie]

Cyanide (in its gaseous form, which is what the M44 uses) does not affect scavengers like a poisoned bait would. From the PDF (APHIS) above:

"The risk of secondary poisoning to scavengers is minimal. The M-44's cyanide powder causes chemical asphyxiation and blocks the use of oxygen in the target animal's blood. As a result, scavenger animals are not likely to be harmed because virtually no poison remains in the tissues of the animal killed by the M-44."

Predator control, especially for invasive species, is hard. Coyotes east of the Mississippi and feral hogs are the two best examples. They both have generalist diets (can live virtually anywhere), reproduce at extremely high rates, and have no "season" to breed. There are people whose sole job is to take a rifle and shoot coyotes and feral hogs. Their numbers are so great that, even with these measures being takes (sharpshooters, lethal traps, etc.), they are still so abundant that they are harming native wildlife and affecting food animal and pet populations around the US.

I'm not condoning the use of the M44, but I understand why they use them. I've taken several wildlife damage courses and found them to be very informative and fascinating. However, there isn't a magic answer. No matter what is done, some agency/interest group will disapprove. It always, always, always boils down to money and who can do what the cheapest.

Humans have always done a fine job of jacking up and manipulating the ecosystem.

 

[SpecterOhPossum]

I've never understood why the gov or whoever is doing this doesn't just set up some sort of sniper tower and specifically kill the problem animals? A few guys round the clock; camouflaged and on guard? I don't know. It sucks either way but at least this way wouldn't cause so much destruction and kill so many non-problem animals. These things are always so complicated morally.

A more humane choice may be trapping them and then euthanizing properly but I doubt anyone is going to try that.

 

[EmersonandEvie]

I've never understood why the gov or whoever is doing this doesn't just set up some sort of sniper tower and specifically kill the problem animals? A few guys round the clock; camouflaged and on guard? I don't know. It sucks either way but at least this way wouldn't cause so much destruction and kill so many non-problem animals. These things are always so complicated morally.

They do. I knew a guy whose job was to sit on a beach in Florida at night and shoot feral hogs as they came on the beach to eat endangered sea turtle eggs. He said they killed about 30 a night. It didn't touch the feral hog population's numbers.

 

[SpecterOhPossum]

They do. I knew a guy whose job was to sit on a beach in Florida at night and shoot feral hogs as they came on the beach to eat endangered sea turtle eggs. He said they killed about 30 a night. It didn't touch the feral hog population's numbers.

Sorry I... HOGS EAT SEA TURTLE EGGS???

 

[EmersonandEvie]

Hogs eat literally anything they can. They will eat eggs, fawns, birds....you name it. They are unforgiving and do not discriminate.

This is an article about a Georgia Department of Natural Resource tech whose job is hog control. It was posted in 2018. He has killed, on average, 1,117 hogs since his hire date in 2010. Let that sink in...one man (there are others who do this work too) has single-handedly killed almost 9,000 individual hogs, and he is just a blip on the radar. It's wild stuff.

Ga. protects sea-turtle nests with full-time wild-hog hunter

 

[trudy1]

Hogs? Reminds we of when we hired “shooters “ at Golden Gate NRA to stem the hog populations and the damage they cause. What we found was they were hunting on one side of the park but catching and releasing them on the other side! Ha! Love to hunt I guess. Same way when I worked at Big Thicket in deep east Texas. The locals were bringing them in by trailers to hunt and releasing them on us and timber company land. They are one of those animals that when the pressures applied have larger litters and more of them! So the dilemma in many states is do you declare them a “hunt-able species” In which case it’s open season to stock them or a “feral animal”? But overall coyotes are definitely not in the same league as hogs. In Missouri the hogs predate quail and turkey nests, endangered prairie chickens, etc.