Government 'Cyanide Bombs' (On Your Neighbor's Property?)

A "cyanide bomb" planted by U.S. predator-control agents targeting coyotes near homes and hiking trails in Idaho exploded when a boy handled the device, injuring him and killing his dog, authorities and relatives said on Friday.

Canyon Mansfield, 14, was playing with his yellow Labrador retriever, Casey, on Thursday afternoon near his home east of Pocatello when he saw what he thought was a sprinkler head on the ground and touched the device, causing it to detonate.

The explosion sprayed the boy and his 3-year-old, 90-pound (40 kg) pet with toxic cyanide gas, according to the boy's mother, Theresa Mansfield.

Idaho boy injured, family dog killed by government 'cyanide bomb'

Uhhh ... I don't know how this makes you feel, but there's something fundamentally wrong with this practice.

Bannock County Sheriff Lorin Nielsen, who described the devices as "cyanide bombs," said no notice was given to authorities about their placement.

“I’ve been a sheriff here for 20 years and worked for the office for 39 years, and I’ve never heard of leaving around a device that emits poisonous gas,” he said.

Nielsen said he intended to meet federal officials next week to “get to the bottom of this.”

You know ... if you booby-trap your vacation-in-the-woods cabin with a shotgun that blows away anyone busting in the backdoor ... you get to go to jail for this. How can the government be booby-trapping your neighbor's property with a deadly poison chemical weapon?

I think there's a vast array of people who need to sit in a 6X10 cell and contemplate their actions for the next 20-50 years.

This was plain stoopid.

Read this last night..how f'ing stupid, like what could go wrong.

Near hiking trails too! Geez. Some lone hiker is going to go off the trails to pee, and set one off. Then have no one nearby to help. What irresponsible idiot thought this one up?

I really just don't understand some people.

Brings a new narrative to old yeller...

That boy is lucky to be alive.

Why not pay local farmers to hunt them? Cyanide is airborne so it could affect the livestock and could have killed a young man.

This is like Agent Orange part two.

I'm perplexed as to how this can really be claimed to be used to control wildlife, as it seems to be a highly indiscriminate way of doing so. Literally anything comes near it and causes it to detonate and....that's it? Coyote, dog, cat, turtle, person, velociraptor, literally anything at all and it goes off?

What could possibly go wrong with that?

a reply to: Shamrock6

Yup, somebody..or a whole bunch of somebody's need to be fired after the lawsuit that is sure to come.

originally posted by: Shamrock6
Literally anything comes near it and causes it to detonate and....that's it?

I was wondering that too. You know somebody's going to be tasked with a 'clean-up' project after this incident. I wonder if these things can even be safely handled ... or if they have to be 'blown in place'.

Either way, it's coming out of our tax dollars ... same as that lawsuit vonclod alluded to.

a reply to: Snarl

From the USDA fact sheet about the devices:

The M-44 ejector device is an effective and environmentally sound wildlife damage management tool. The spring-activated device delivers a dose of cyanide powder to targeted animals. It uses a cyanide capsule that is registered as a restricted-use pesticide by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The device can be used only by trained certifi ed applicators.

"Targeted" animals?!? Seriously??

I laughed, but it was that scrunched up face, slightly sickened laugh.

Animals killed by M-44s show no overt signs of distress or pain. No secondary poisoning hazards are associated with M-44s.

Except for the dog in your story, I guess?

USDA fact sheet

There's the fact sheet if anybody is interested, but I'd suggest you only read it if you're willing to bang your head against your desk several times.

If I set up a device in the woods like this I would end up in Guantanamo...

The final statement in your post is spot on!
Cyanide!?!?! Really?!?!?
I think Cyanide is WAY extreme, but You would think they would at least have signs posted identifying these things and warning people to stay away from them! Perhaps a large yellow sign right near these things!
That poor kid! This is how Timothy McVeighs are made.

a reply to: Snarl

As usual, over the top complaint without a clear concept of what happened and why. I'm not going to explain all of the ramifications of killing coyotes with these devices to protect livestock. And I'm not going to excuse it outright either as it is not a practice that should be deployed near where humans and dogs frequent. As in war, driving a car, or cutting an onion wrongly with a sharp knife. # happens.

a reply to: Shamrock6

You hit the nail on the head-cyanide doesn't discriminate and you mentioned the damage it could do to flora and fauna which may be endangered and who knows what that could do to the local ecosystem.

A food chain is like a bicycle chain, break one link and the rest won't work.

This should result in someone losing their job and facing criminal charges. My 13 year old son is out in the woods all the time and I can't imaging this happening to him. I doubt that anyone will be punished though. The mantra of these overblown government agencies is, "the Buck doesn't stop here".

a reply to: Snarl

You know ... if you booby-trap your vacation-in-the-woods cabin with a shotgun that blows away anyone busting in the backdoor ... you get to go to jail for this. How can the government be booby-trapping your neighbor's property with a deadly poison chemical weapon?

I will go you one better.

I had trouble with kids driving by and baseball batting my mailbox and knocking it down. After replacing 2 posts and at least 4 mailboxes, I made me a concrete mailbox. I was informed by the mail service that if anyone was injured by striking my homemade mailbox that I could be charged and sued.

I went back to the drawing board and by built me a breakaway mailbox that just needed to be set back in place when knocked down.

So I truly don't know how they are getting away with this.

a reply to: Snarl

What the absolute snip? Besides the sheer and utter stupidity of this, isn't it also essentially like dropping a "care package" of chemical weapons for terrorists?

What's shocking to me is that this hasn't been debunked as a hoax yet. This is actually real! Maybe next we'll sprinkle playgrounds with loaded guns.

a reply to: Snarl

This was for "coyotes" ?

Sheriff unaware?

Near hiking trails?

I dont buy that story for a minute.

Something other than coyotes would be my hunch.

Thanks for the lead Snarl