This is from Wild Again, Livestock Lobby Pressures to Retain Wildlife Poisons.
I think people should add to their comments to the EPA (due by Jan. 15) that these poisons, especially 1080, would be a terrorist’s delight, an ideal weapon for not just poisoning a large number of people because it is so toxic and also, odorless, colorless, and tasteless, but it causes a horrible death.
How their marginal use in protecting sheep can justify this danger to the public should shame the EPA and politicians into banning them. . . . compound 1080 Al Qaeda’s friend!
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.
I’m old enough to remember the horse legs wired to posts though-out Idaho with signs warning in english and spanish about the 1080 in the meat. These bait stations killed everything from eagles to wolverines as well as domestic pets.
The 1080 was injected into live horses so that the 1080 would permeate the whole body before the horse died. The horse was then cut up and distributed as bait. Anyone in favor of its use should be locked up!
None of these poisons belong anywhere. Unlike skilled trappers using traps, these are truly non-selective and very dangerous.
This photo is from the not-too-distant past. I took this photo in May of 2002 on National Forest land near the Seven Devils. It didn’t seem to be an appropriate place for poisons and was likely placed to kill predators that might have been eating sheep.
Notice there is no information on who posted the sign.
http://buffaloed.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/img_1516.jpg
I’m guessing the sign was put up by Wildlife Services using M-44’s (A.k.a., coyote getters) in the area.