Sodium cyanide and sodium fluoroacetate — Compound 1080 — are both used to kill wild mammals. They frequently kill non-target species and they have been used to illegally kill wolves in Idaho. Both would be excellent weapons for terrorists to use. 1080 causes a painful, awful death. Please help get them banned.
I have a personal reason too. Much of the supply of this stuff for the Western United States is in a building in Pocatello only a mile from my house. It is near the center of the city and close to the Idaho State University campus. . . talk about a proposal that would improve homeland security! There has been a little comment about this in the local newspaper (the Idaho State Journal). In it local employees suggested the supply is not safely secured.
Read the rest of the story, and how to take action at Wild Again.
Update (11-22-2007): Story Casper Star Tribune. EPA looks at poison ban. By Brodie Farquhar.
Ralph Maughan
Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.
As a resident in the State of Wyoming and one who thinks the wildlife have more value to this state alive rather than dead, I object LOUDLY to the use of two poisons, sodium cyanide and sodium fluoroacetate and wholly support their removal from the predator control programs of the EPA. We, you and the human race have not been appointed god, in that you constantly violate your mandates to protect our environments from man made destruction. There are more people who want to view coyotes than there are ranchers who want them killed to protect their environmentally destructive cattle and sheep.
Both mammals are not natural to the western environment, whereas the coyote is. Stop using these poisons and aerial gunning of the wildlife too. I only wish we could use the same methods on the mass of ranchers who support killing wildlife for their own greed..
How do I get in touch with Mack Bray? I don’t have his e-mail and his website doesn’t have a way to contact him.
It is really offensive that ranchers are allowed possession of these poisons that have been banned by the Department of Homeland Security because of their possible use in terrorism. They release these deadly chemicals to anyone in a cowboy hat with only a pamplet on how they should be stored. Some of the suggestions like “Clear brush away from storage sheds so that terrorist will be less likely to hide there” or “Store in a locked and lighted shed”are almost comical, if they weren’t so offensive.
Who are they kidding. Those poisons will probably sit in the back of a pick up truck until the cannisters containing them rot out, releasing them to the world every time the rancher takes a drive.
I think we should all complain about the neglegent actions of the Department of Agriculture’s gestapo, Wildlife Services, to the Department of Homeland Security. Here is a link with which to make that complaint. http://contact.dhs.gov/
Cindy Knight – please ask Ralph to send me your email address. Thanks…!