Family Fights To Ban USDA Wildlife Trap That Killed Their Dog, Injured Son

An Idaho family is calling for a federal ban on a cyanide-spewing predator-control device that killed their Labrador retriever and left their teenage son “inches from death.” Before last month, the Mansfields had never even heard of a cyanide bomb, the family told The Huffington Post. That’s why when 14-year-old Canyon Mansfield was walking his dog, Casey, near the border of his family’s property in Pocatello, Idaho, he simply thought he had stumbled upon the head of a sprinkler, and he reached down to touch it. When he did, the device popped in an explosion that knocked him to the ground and covered both boy and dog in an orange powder, the Idaho State Journal reported on March 17. Quick-thinking Canyon used snow to rub the orange powder off of himself, but when he went to find his dog, what he saw was horrific. “I sprinted toward him and landed on my knees and saw this red froth coming from his mouth and his eyes turning glassy and he was having a seizure,” he told the State Journal. Casey died within minutes, killed by what’s known as an M-44, a spring-activated cyanide trap that the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services sets to kill coyotes. The traps are scented to lure coyotes, and work by cyanide rendering cells unable to absorb oxygen, suffocating the animal to death. The devices have killed more than 3,400 “non-target” animals — including domestic dogs like Casey — between 2006 and 20...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news