By Ted Williams WRITERS ON THE RANGE
M-44s are spring-loaded devices stuck in the ground and scented with decomposed animal tissue. They blast cyanide into the mouth of any creature that bites and pulls them. They were introduced in 1967, to replace gunpowder-driven Coyote Getters.
M-44s are designed to kill coyotes, foxes and feral dogs that sometimes prey on sheep and newborn cattle. They also kill at least 150 nontarget species.
This April 15, the Trump administration lifted former President Biden’s M-44 ban on the Bureau of Land Management’s 245 million acres, and once again, M-44s will be deployed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services.
“I’ve worked since 1994 with countless people who have lost their dogs to M-44s or been poisoned themselves,” said Brooks Fahy, director of Predator Defense, a nonprofit based in Eugene, Oregon. “M-44s can never be used safely. They are indiscriminate killers, and no young child, dog or wild animal can read a warning sign. I firmly believe it is only a matter of time until an M-44 kills a child.”
During Trump’s first term, M-44s were in widespread use but hugely unpopular. The public wanted them banned. In 2019, when Trump’s EPA issued a proposal to keep them registered for use, there was such public outcry that the agency pulled the proposal.
Four months later, EPA reissued its proposal. During the public comment period, it received 22,390 written responses. All, save 10, opposed continued M-44 registration. The Administrative Procedure Act requires federal agencies to consider all “relevant matter presented” in public comments. Yet Trump’s EPA ignored the law, and M-44s remained registered until Biden’s ban.
This April 15, the Trump administration bypassed any public comment period, reauthorizing M-44 use on BLM land via a memorandum of understanding between BLM and USDA.
Wildlife advocates are furious. Predator Defense called the Trump administration’s resurrection of M-44s “insane.” Project Coyote called it “devastating.”
And this from Wayne Pacelle, president of Animal Wellness Action: “Reinstituting use of poison bombs sounds like war tactics from 1970s rebel guerrillas in Angola and not the actions of public lands agencies. Their statutory and moral responsibility is to steward native wildlife, not poison the animals.”
So, who’s pushing M-44s back on public land? Whoever it is, it’s not sheep producers, explained Carter Niemeyer, employed by Wildlife Services for 26 years and supervising field agents for much of that time. M-44s were created mostly for them, but they now use guard dogs. Littering public land with poison bombs scented to attract canids is the last thing sheep producers want, he said.
Still, Trump spokesmen claim that the M-44 ban was lifted to benefit the wool industry. There’s widespread speculation that Trump ended the ban simply because Biden imposed it.
“M-44s are unforgiving,” said Niemeyer. “Any animal that triggers one is dead. With traps and snares, you can usually release nontargets. Random coyote poisoning — ‘preventive control’ — is killing coyotes anywhere and everywhere because one might someday eat a sheep. When we had, say, two coyotes regularly killing sheep, we’d remove them. That’s ‘corrective control.’”
Robert Crabtree, America’s leading coyote researcher, found that random killing creates more coyotes. In natural populations, average litter size at birth is five or six. But competition in summer decreases pup survival to one or two. Random killing reduces competition, resulting in higher survival.
Niemeyer found that random killing also creates chaos by replacing older coyotes that have learned the dangers of depredating livestock with younger, inexperienced coyotes that do depredate.
But random killing is precisely what will now be happening on BLM land.
There has been legislation to permanently ban M-44s on federal lands, but it has been in limbo for years. Thanks to public outrage, there’s new life in a bill called “Canyon’s Law,” named for teenager Canyon Mansfield from Pocatello, Idaho. In March 2017, when he was 14, Canyon encountered an M-44 on BLM land behind his house. He thought it was a lost sprinkler head.
When he picked it up, his 3-year-old yellow Lab, Kasey, got hit in the muzzle and died. Some of the cyanide also sprayed Canyon’s face, damaging his eyes. Until his late teens, Canyon suffered from chronic cyanide poisoning. It’s unclear if he suffered permanent damage.
Americans who love public lands, their dogs and wildlife need to ask their legislators to support Canyon’s Law, H.R. 4180 and S. 2179, banning M-44s. Primary sponsors are Rep. Jared Huffman, D-California, and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon. At this writing, there are seven cosponsors.
Longtime wildlife writer and author Ted Williams is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West.
