Conservation groups urge US government to ban controversial ‘cyanide bombs’, which poisoned over 6,000 animals last year
The government's little-known Wildlife Services continues to use the ‘horrifying’ bombs in national forests to kill wildlife including coyotes and foxes.
Conservation groups in the US have come together to urge the government to ban the use of M-44 devices, commonly known as “cyanide bombs”.
The so-called cyanide bombs are spring-loaded ejectors that attract wildlife with a sweet, scented bait and then spray cyanide powder when triggered.
The devices have long been criticized by conservationists over welfare and safety concerns, as the devices can often cause unintentional injuries or even the death of non-target wildlife.
Now, more than 60 conservation groups including Predator Defense and the Center for Biological Diversity have officially petitioned the U.S. Forest Service to implement a ban on the use of the controversial devices in national forests.
According to the conservation groups, M-44’s are indiscriminate devices that can “never” be used safely and therefore must be banned.
“Working closely with M-44 cyanide bomb victims for 30 years, I have witnessed what these indiscriminate devices have done to families,” said Brooks Fahy, executive director of Predator Defense, a national wildlife advocacy group. “Countless people have lost beloved pets, and both children and adults have been poisoned,” added Fahy.
High-profile incidents of the dangers of M-44s include a case in 2017 which saw a young boy inadvertently trigger one of the devices. Canyon Mansfield, a 14-year-old, was walking his dog near his home in Pocatello, Idaho, when a M-44 device sprayed them both in the face with cyanide. The poisoning killed the dog, while Canyon was rushed to hospital and survived.
Despite their risk and public opposition, the Forest Service has continued to authorize the use of M-44s by Wildlife Services, a little-known animal-killing program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The bombs are typically used by Wildlife Services to kill wild animals and predators like coyotes to prevent them from affecting agricultural land and harming livestock.
Government records show that Wildlife Services poisoned a total of 6,543 animals with M-44 cyanide bombs in 2023 alone. That figure includes 156 deaths which were classed as unintentional.
Victims of cyanide bombs are mostly coyotes and foxes, but can also include non target animals including bears, opossums, raccoons and skunks. The number of total deaths could also be much higher, as many killed animals are likely never discovered.
Last year the Wildlife Services program deployed the devices in 10 states: Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia and Wyoming.
“The Forest Service needs to step up with a ban so that we all can step safely in our national forests,” said Collette Adkins, carnivore conservation program director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
Some states have already fully or partially banned the use of cyanide bombs, including a statewide ban on public lands in Idaho and a ban across more than 10 million acres of public land in Wyoming.
In 2023, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management banned the use of M-44s by Wildlife Services on all BLM-managed lands. This landmark decision protecting BLM’s 245 million acres of land follows similar bans from other landowners including the National Park Service, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
This week’s petition now calls on the Forest Service to follow suit and enforce a ban on the federal lands that it manages.
“I just can’t understand why the Forest Service won’t follow the lead of other land-management agencies that rightly recognized how dangerous cyanide bombs are to wildlife, people and their pets,” added Adkins. “Forest Service officials need to take a stand against these deadly devices.”
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