{"id":1357250,"date":"2023-11-28T05:48:31","date_gmt":"2023-11-28T05:48:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/?p=306092"},"modified":"2023-11-28T05:48:31","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T05:48:31","slug":"the-feds-finally-banned-the-use-of-cyanide-bombs-on-blm-lands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/11\/28\/the-feds-finally-banned-the-use-of-cyanide-bombs-on-blm-lands\/","title":{"rendered":"The Feds Finally Banned the Use of Cyanide Bombs on BLM Lands"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Coyote. Photo George Wuerthner.\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n

The Biden Administration\u2019s Department of Interior has formally banned M-44 or what are known as cyanide bombs, from 245 million acres of Bureau of Land Management federal lands.<\/p>\n\"Predator\n

M-44 are spring-loaded ejectors that contain cyanide poison that has been used for decades to kill predators. The M-44 is indiscriminate killing or poisoning any animals or, in a few cases, humans that pull the triggers.<\/p>\n

Animals that are poisoned suffer a horrific death. Many pets, and non-target wildlife, not to mention native predators, which have as much right to be on federal lands as any private livestock have suffered from these deadly devices.<\/p>\n

According to the federal agency Wildlife Services\u2019 data, in 2022, the program poisoned approximately 6,000 animals with M-44s in 10 states: Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming. State agencies in South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Texas are also authorized to use M-44s.<\/p>\n

M-44s are banned on other Dept of Interior lands, such as the National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Reclamation. However, even with this ban of M-44s on Bureau of Land Management lands, they are still used on the 193,000,000-acre National Forest lands administered by the U.S. Forest Service.<\/p>\n

Pressure to ban M-44s has been applied by conservation organizations, e.g., the 2023 APA petition<\/a> jointly filed by Predator Defense and the Center for Biodiversity and signed by over 70 conservation groups.<\/p>\n

Congress has responded to public pressure. Legislation introduced into Congress, known as Canyon\u2019s Law<\/a>, would ban M-44s on all public lands The legislation was introduced into the House by Rep. Jared Hoffmann (CA) and Steve Cohen (TN). Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley introduced a companion bill into the Senate.<\/p>\n

It is worth noting that for years, Oregon Congressman Peter DeFazio was a staunch advocate for predators and led the charge to have M-44s banned. DeFazio recently retired, but in October of 2022, he, along with Rep. Jared Hoffmann sent this letter<\/a> to Sec of Interior, Deb Haaland apparently paving the way for today\u2019s ban. Here\u2019s a press release<\/a> from Rep. Hoffmann.<\/p>\n

Even with the elimination of M-44s, native predators like coyotes, wolves, bears, mountain lions, and other wildlife will continue to be killed by Wildlife Services to benefit the livestock industry.<\/p>\n

The question one must always ask in these situations is why public lands are degraded and ecologically compromised to support the livestock industry which exploits public lands for private profit.<\/p>\n

I would be remiss if I did not mention that this announcement has special significance to Brooks Fahy of Predator Defense<\/a>, who has pursued an M-44 ban for decades.<\/p>\n

The post The Feds Finally Banned the Use of Cyanide Bombs on BLM Lands<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Biden Administration\u2019s Department of Interior has formally banned M-44 or what are known as cyanide bombs, from 245 million acres of Bureau of Land Management federal lands. M-44 are spring-loaded ejectors that contain cyanide poison that has been used for decades to kill predators. The M-44 is indiscriminate killing or poisoning any animals or, More<\/a><\/p>\n

The post The Feds Finally Banned the Use of Cyanide Bombs on BLM Lands<\/a> appeared first on CounterPunch.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357250"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1357250"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1357380,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357250\/revisions\/1357380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1357250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1357250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1357250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}