The US announced slightly stricter rules Thursday on the use of devices called "cyanide bombs," which are meant to protect livestock from wild predators, after the government reinstated their use in August.
The devices, known as M-44s, are implanted in the ground, resembling lawn sprinklers. They use a spring-loaded ejector to release sodium cyanide when an animal tugs on a baited capsule holder.
They are meant to target foxes, coyotes and feral dogs but can ensnare other animals too, such as raccoons and skunks.
The government halted the use of the devices last year after one of them was responsible for injuring a boy and killing his dog in Idaho.
[...]The new rules announced Thursday require a 600-foot (180-meter) buffer around residences where no M-44s can be placed, and call for the equipment to be installed at least 300 feet away from roads and paths—an increase from the previous 100-foot rule.
And each M-44 must now be accompanied by two signs within 25 feet, warning of their placement.
[...]"This appalling decision leaves cyanide traps lurking in the wild to threaten people, pets and imperiled animals," Collette Adkins, carnivore conservation director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement in response to the EPA's decision.
According to government data, M-44s killed 6,579 animals in 2018—including more than 200 "nontarget" animals, such as opossums, raccoons, skunks and a bear.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06 2019, @08:19PM (13 children)
These are chemical landmines banned by the geneva convention that the federal government has been placing meters from where children and pets play.
You can watch a documentary about the rogue agency responsible here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSV8pRLkdKI [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Username on Friday December 06 2019, @09:31PM (3 children)
Yeah, I hear stories about people making traps for thieves, then getting life sentences when they work. Surprised this sort of thing is allowed.
Can't just have poisoned bait? I doubt some little boy would eat some dead roadkill.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday December 07 2019, @04:27AM
I was reading about it somewhere. They have been poisoning coyotes for so long that the coyotes have got extremely good at detecting and throwing up poisons. Basically they either have to use these bombs or something nasty like fluoro-acetates.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 3, Touché) by exaeta on Saturday December 07 2019, @07:01AM (1 child)
The Government is a Bird
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 07 2019, @07:55PM
Probably thinking of the Brineys or, more recently, Phillip Connaghan and William Wasmund. The middle one plead guilty of manslaughter and the last was convicted of first-degree murder for setting a spring guns trap at the entry door.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Friday December 06 2019, @10:50PM (3 children)
The Geneva Convention only applies to militaries, not civil use.
Also, the US has not ratified the Ottawa Treaty banning landmines anyway.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06 2019, @11:08PM (1 child)
"The Geneva Convention only applies to militaries, not civil use."
The difference being the militaries are told when to pull the trigger.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 07 2019, @12:25AM
Yes, civilians being free citizens instead of an arm of the government is an excellent reason to forbid them from doing things. Where would the world be if citizens could just go around doing what they wanted instead of what the government told them to do.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06 2019, @11:20PM
So you don't care if someone puts a landmine near your house. Wildlife services don't even put up a sign (they are supposed to but the agency has apparently gone rogue) because it may disturb the public to know about it?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hartree on Saturday December 07 2019, @12:28AM (1 child)
You're wrong.
It's not the Geneva Convention. That's from far earlier. It's the Chemical Weapons Convention and it came into effect in 1997. And as noted in another post, it doesn't apply here as it's a civilian use targeting animals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_Weapons_Convention [wikipedia.org]
Whether it should be banned or not is a different argument (and frankly one that I'm not much of a partisan in. There are few nice ways to kill something. I suspect that the base argument is over whether wild canids should be killed at all and my reaction is largely a shrug. Have at it, I'll get some popcorn and watch).
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Immerman on Saturday December 07 2019, @03:49AM
> There are few nice ways to kill something
True. However, automated killing machines have much greater chances of killing the wrong thing.
Land mines weren't banned because they were a horrific way to kill solders. They were banned because they kept killing civilians, even long after the conflict.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 07 2019, @03:30AM (2 children)
Tear gas that our police use against civilians, is also banned for military use.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tear_gas [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Pax on Saturday December 07 2019, @11:46AM (1 child)
British Army Veteran here.... you are incorrect. It is still used by the British Army for both drill and for riots control
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 07 2019, @03:05PM
Still used by the US military as well. On every single soldier as they go through boot camp even, so they'll appreciate their gas masks a bit more.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Hartree on Friday December 06 2019, @08:20PM (5 children)
(My comment isn't directly about this issue. I don't know the specifics, but rather the emotional response to a particular word)
Sodium cyanide isn't nearly as powerful a poison as people often think. It takes a fair bit of it to kill. The thing about cyanide is it's fast when it's in the hydrogen cyanide form. Many other poisons take a long time to have their effect (Warfarin for example which induces uncontrollable internal bleeding).
But, it is an extremely well known and feared toxin. If you can work the word cyanide into a public relations campaign, you've largely won the battle.
It's such a name recognition aversion that they call the anti-caking agent often found in salt is called "yellow prussiate of soda" just because the usual name "sodium ferrocyanide" sounds like the poison.
Cyanide in the technical sense refers to any nitrogen that is triple bonded to a carbon. Regardless of whether the compound is toxic or not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06 2019, @09:10PM (4 children)
You're wrong.
It is as poisonous as KCN, in fact wiki lists an LD50 rat of 10 mg/kg of KCN vs only 8 mg/kg for NaCN. If you read the wiki page on NaCN you'll see that it has a tendency to form HCN when moist.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by NickM on Friday December 06 2019, @09:54PM (2 children)
Where's the Fe in NaCN ? He said sodium ferrocyanide [Fe(CN)6]4−, frequently Na4Fe(CN)6 • 10H2O. From inchem.org :
* LD50 Reference*
Animal Route (mg/kg bw)
Rat Oral 1600-3200
...
A group of nine human subjects, which included patients with
liver and kidney damage were injected (i.v.) with 30 to 50 mg of
Fe59-labelled ferrocyanide. In the normal subject an average of 80%
(68 to 87%) of the administered radioactivity was recovered in 24 to
48 hours. There was no significant radioactivity detected in pooled
faeces, saliva or gastric juice. In normal subjects the half time
value (T 1/2) was 135 minutes. The rate of disappearance was slower in
patients with renal damage. There was some evidence of in vivo
binding of ferrocyanide to plasma albumin. In dogs the T 1/2 of
labelled ferrocyanide was 40 to 50 minutes. No significant
radioactivity was found in the pooled faeces, saliva or gastric juices
of dogs (Kleeman & Epstein, 1956).
I a master of typographic, grammatical and miscellaneous errors !
(Score: 2) by NickM on Friday December 06 2019, @10:05PM
I a master of typographic, grammatical and miscellaneous errors !
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06 2019, @11:02PM
Trying to move goalposts on a post like that? Quoting to help your reading comprehension:
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Saturday December 07 2019, @12:02AM
I'd say that I'm right on the money. It has a reputation that's far more than the reality.
Many people think that any form of cyanide is toxic in tiny quantities like, say, ricin which kills in microgram/kilogram amounts.
Sodium cyanide's LD50 is 7-15 mg/kg in rats. While highly toxic, it's not in the supertoxin category. That's 5 mg/kg or less.
There are many things that will kill with far less and have been used for nefarious purposes. Strychnine, for example, or the toxin from the death cap mushroom, Sarin for another (Aum Shinrikyo, for example).
Even the old standby of arsenic in the coffee is about half as toxic as NaCN.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 06 2019, @08:40PM (33 children)
6300 target kills, 200 "junk animal" kills, a bear, a domestic dog, and injury to a boy... the last three are a shame, but... what are hunting season injury vs intentional kill rates like? Seems unlikely to be much better than this.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06 2019, @08:55PM (20 children)
According to government data, or the real data?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 06 2019, @08:58PM (19 children)
If you have "real" data, by all means, share.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06 2019, @09:06PM (16 children)
Watch the documentary in the first post.
They are just arbitrarily killing animals and then calling them "targets" afterwards. When they kill cows they count it as a death due to a coyote, which conveniently creates the perception of the need for more funding.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 07 2019, @12:28AM (15 children)
You lost me at "watch". I don't do video unless the content can only be properly presented as such rather than as text that I can read 100x faster.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 07 2019, @02:25AM (14 children)
It is just interviews with the people who used to work there or have personally dealt with the agency. Sorry you are too dumb to handle that.
Here is an example:
https://www.sacbee.com/news/investigations/wildlife-investigation/article2574599.html [sacbee.com]
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Saturday December 07 2019, @05:46AM (13 children)
I am far from being a Mighty Buzzard fan, but he's 100% correct that it's much easier and much faster to skim text for the information you're looking for. Countering his argument by saying he is dumb is pretty dumb in of itself.
Sometimes, videos are more instructive, but I've been told to watch videos so often that I literally don't have time to watch everything I've been told. The 100x faster to read than seeing a video is no exaggeration. Don't get me wrong. I like videos, but only as an addition to the article. Interviews are much faster to absorb and faster to study if they are transcribed. I almost never watch videos of interviews.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 07 2019, @05:59AM (12 children)
Try out the video, here is another one from this year: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O8Md98jAS2Q [youtube.com]
It could be slow for you, or not... but refusing to click the link to check is dumb, sorry.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 07 2019, @11:36AM (11 children)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 07 2019, @12:17PM (1 child)
You can have compilations/edits of larger videos that highlight key moments. That is more work than quoting text from an article, but it can be done. Certain software could make it easier. Like if there is a feature that lets you clip out a section of video with a few clicks and upload it. Some people are doing that and publishing it to forums within minutes of something happening during a live stream. You could also link to a video and specify a start time in the URL. It may be possible to specify an end time as well so that the video just pauses at that point.
You can skim video pretty easily. Just jump to different parts of the video. Even if you haven't seen the video before, if it follows a certain structure you can probably skip what you don't want and find what you do want. Holding down the right arrow key should skip around 5 seconds. You can mash or hold that to skim.
Speed watching is also possible. I often watch YouTube videos at 1.75x or 2x speed, depending on the content. If there is fast talking or complex subject matter, I can scale it back to 1.5x or 1.25x.
I did not read the GP comment, I'm just being pedantic with yours.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 07 2019, @01:30PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 07 2019, @02:36PM (8 children)
No he doesn't have a point. This is no justification for avoiding spending seconds to see what the video is like. And most videos I "watch" are just on in the background, if I hear something interesting then I will watch it with more focus. There is no need to stare intently at the screen and stop your other work/activity like you all imply.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 07 2019, @03:08PM (6 children)
You think I sit at a computer all day with nothing better for my attention to be taken up by than one of the most inefficient means of information communication in existence? Sorry, no. Videos are a complete waste of my time unless they have cats or tits in them.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 07 2019, @03:57PM (5 children)
Youre sitting at one right now.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 07 2019, @06:52PM (4 children)
In fact, no, I was building a cabinet for under my bad motherfucker of a kitchen sink up at the church we're remodeling when you posted that. Lunch break now or I wouldn't be near one for several more hours.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 07 2019, @10:34PM (3 children)
It is actually easier to listen to something than read it while fixing a sink...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 07 2019, @10:59PM (2 children)
Yeah, no. I'm not ruining a couple hundred worth of lumber because I was paying attention to something besides measurements and cuts. Even if I didn't care about wasting time and money because I was distracted by trivial bullshit, are you going to pay for speakers loud enough to hear over a generator and power tools?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 08 2019, @09:31PM (1 child)
So you can post to SN easier than listen to something while fixing a sink?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 09 2019, @01:50PM
No, I can finish building the sink cabinet, come home, and post from my desktop.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday December 08 2019, @12:37AM
In your opinion. Perhaps you could tell what the videos are about (a little who/what/when/where/how) and thus, give us the opportunity to make an informed decision? Else it's just not important to us that you're pushing some video.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06 2019, @09:13PM (1 child)
According to a former agent, it was standard practice to cover it up when a dog got killed. They would remove the collar and bury the dog, then never report it.
Other times they gathered up local dogs who got loose and poisoned them with sodium cyanide to check the doses. When the dogs were almost dead, they would give them amyl nitrate as the antidote, then repeat with a stronger dose until they didn't recover then just kicked them into a ditch and left them whining.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 07 2019, @12:31AM
Hearsay's something but it's not really evidence. If it were Trump wouldn't be laughing his ass off at Pelosi.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 06 2019, @09:02PM (7 children)
They're probably a lot better than that. Cheney aside, hunters generally make a significant effort to not shoot things they don't want to kill; it scares off the things they do want to kill. They don't approach anything near a 30:1 intentional:oops rate anyway.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Funny) by driverless on Saturday December 07 2019, @01:25AM (4 children)
Are you sure about that? Friend of my dad's once bagged two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow. It was apparently the maximum the game laws would allow.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday December 07 2019, @01:32PM
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 07 2019, @03:09PM (2 children)
Right but was he looking to shoot something else in the first place?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday December 08 2019, @02:18PM (1 child)
Not sure, but he later switched to poisoning pidgeons in the park.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday December 09 2019, @01:51PM
Sky rats? Don't blame him.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday December 07 2019, @04:18AM (1 child)
I'm not talking about skunks, raccoons and possum (and, if you want to talk about those let's talk about out of season kills of restricted animals and other "fun shooting" of squirrel, possum, etc.) I'm talking about 2 accidental animal kills and 1 human injury vs 6000+ intentional kills of unwanted predators.
I agree: good hunters are very careful, but - 6000 dead deer without a single human injury, or 3000 deer without an "oh shit, that really looked like a deer"? Cheney isn't the only hunter that's not the greatest...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 07 2019, @05:26AM
New 2019 doc about this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O8Md98jAS2Q [youtube.com]
You will keep ignoring anything the state doesnt want you to think though. The numbers are made up, numerous whistleblowers have said so.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 07 2019, @02:38AM (3 children)
Junk kills.
I usually place these around the neighborhood with a bright red hat with the letters MAGA on it. They come up, try to pick the 'free' baseball cap, and another vermin is taken off the streets, and the voter rolls. Please do not take away our varmit control methods!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 07 2019, @04:21AM (1 child)
If only it were so easy...
Around here it seems the easy way get a MAGA off the voter rolls is to entrap them into shooting a poor minority kid by having him ride a bike through their neighborhood watch area... usually results in a long court case ending with a felony rap, but it's a lot of trouble, and really hard on the poor kid who has to get shot.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Saturday December 07 2019, @01:40PM
That is, ironically, about the level of respect minorities get from the Left: as cannon fodder for their power goals. White liberals would certainly never send their own kids biking through such a neighborhood wearing an "I'm With Her" t-shirt.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 07 2019, @03:12PM
Almost funny but your butthurt showing through ruins it.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06 2019, @10:34PM
If it bleeds, ve can keel it!
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06 2019, @10:55PM (1 child)
Could be cheaper than building a wall.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 06 2019, @11:45PM
Moron. Mexicans are useful and perform many jobs that cannot be automated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 07 2019, @10:52AM (5 children)
My brother's dog was killed by one of these. Illegal trapper, Quebecois, placement on private land, at that. Could have killed my brother (earlier model, with the .38 special round loaded with cyanide), but I assumed the guilty party was punished. In any case, his daughter never spoke to me after that. Some of us come from even smaller communities that TMB can imagine, him being a Chickasaw, where we had to deal with the Chippy-Cree, the Assiniboine, the Lakota, Gros Ventre, and the random out of place Kootenai or Shoshone. Tribes to the north,be more tribes, than those in the Nations. Blood more recent. Like my brother's dog.
Liked that dog, he was a good canoe dog. Once we were paddling up the river in the Spring, high water, and the dog felt sick. Puked his breakfast up on the bilge of my canoe. He looked rather embarrassed, for a while, and eventually ate all his "dog's breakfast" back down again. What a dog! Sorry he was killed by a Coyote Cyanide gun.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday December 07 2019, @01:42PM (4 children)
Where the heck is that? Medicine Hat?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 07 2019, @06:22PM (3 children)
You think a rational government like Canada would allow cyanide gun traps? But props for geography!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday December 07 2019, @06:54PM (2 children)
Rational? They legally require folks to speak as if people are whatever gender they feel like being addressed as that day. That is not rational.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday December 08 2019, @09:55AM (1 child)
TMB, methinks she doth protest too much!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday December 08 2019, @12:22PM
My preferred pronouns are "that asshole/that asshole there/that asshole's", thank you very much.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.