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This article seems like a hell of a reach. I have a master's in Fisheries Science that was funded in part by FWS, though I no longer work in that field, so I m

This article seems like a hell of a reach. I have a master's in Fisheries Science that was funded in part by FWS, though I no longer work in that field, so I may not be entirely objective. That said, the simple reality is that managing native species and how they interact with society has to be done. Whether it's suburban coyotes killing off family pets (a big problem in my suburb at the moment) or rural clashes between ranchers and wolves, you cannot just let the situation unfurl without official intervention. Allowing civilians to handle it results in endangerment and extinction, and refusing to handle it results in ecological damage and risk to both people and livestock. Now, if the only point is that better training and communication protocols for these Federal employees is in order, sure I buy that for basically every Federal department. Making out like FWS is some pet-assassinating Kremlin is pretty low-effort clickbait. The reason nobody's heard of them is because nobody much cares about what does or doesn't happen to coyotes and deer until it impacts them.

captainredbeard 6y ago
Simple solution: let ranchers shoot problematic species.
- Icathian 6y ago
  It's been suggested a lot. It might even work. It boils down to whether you believe rancher's incentives are ever going to reconcile with responsibly pruning dangerous species. Historically that hasn't worked out well.
- logicchains 6y ago
  That's what Australia does for feral pigs, and it works pretty well.
  - DuskStar 6y ago
    Right, but the ideal number of feral hogs is zero. The ideal number of wild wolves is not zero.
    - captainredbeard 6y ago
      That isn’t a universally accepted opinion.
      - DuskStar 6y ago
        Feral hogs are an invasive species in the US that causes significant property and ecological damage while also not being a particularly good game animal. That ticks pretty much all the "we don't want this here" boxes that I'm aware of. Who wants feral hogs?
- centimeter 6y ago
  Depending on the state, and depending on how problematic the individual animal is, you can. In many states you can shoot hogs whenever you want. Remember that whole thing where a bunch of twitter people who’d never been on a farm made fun of that politician for saying he had to shoot like 50 feral hogs at once? That’s a real thing - more than once I’ve been on an acquaintance’s ranch, standing up in the back of a truck or Polaris with an AR-15 chasing down dozens and dozens of hogs. They breed quickly and are very destructive! Texas tried to poison them and it didn’t work well enough. Usually with other species like bears or wolves, you are only supposed to shoot them if they actually attack livestock (and sometimes not even then).
  - dreamcompiler 6y ago
    Family member in Texas goes hog hunting every year and always has sausage in the freezer. There are millions of them. Your story about the Polaris and AR-15 is spot on; this is possibly the only game animal for which an AR-15 is the perfect rifle.
    - snypher 6y ago
      Their story may be accurate but they misrepresented the politicians story, re seeking out vs being invaded by a wild pack.
      - dreamcompiler 6y ago
        They are definitely an invasive species, although the damage they do is mostly ecological and economic; they're not really dangerous to people directly. I've heard stories to that effect but I expect they're exaggerated.
- earthscienceman 6y ago
  In Colorado you can shoot anything you want if it is harassing your cattle, even family dogs. An example from my hometown: https://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/da-will-not-press-charges-after-kremmling-rancher-shoots-kills-neighbors-husky-puppy/ https://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/da-will-not-press-charge...
  - woeirua 6y ago
    Seems like an overreaction but some dogs behave very aggressively around cattle and other animals due to instinct. Its entirely possible that the dog was not responsive to commands, and was going after the cattle in a serious way. A 4 month old husky is not a tiny puppy. There's more to this story than meets the eye. I highly doubt the neighbor shot the dog without trying anything else first.
    - hombre_fatal 6y ago
      Where my parents live in the countryside, some people -- like kids visiting their parents for the month -- will bring their dogs and let them roam around. Dogs will form up in a pack of 2 or more and kill things on your property, like chickens. Or they'll instigate larger animals like the emus and end up biting/breaking the animal's ankle. You can scare them away easily (dogs are generally skittish) but they'll come back. I've also learned that some people are completely unreasonable when it comes to their pets, basically believing that "it's just a dog" and you're the asshole if you can't handle it being on your property.
- dr-detroit 6y ago
  Most of this country is owned by land baron families with multiple hundred thousands of acres
- ivanhoe 6y ago
  Thing is that those species like coyotes or raccoons or deers are problematic simply because their populations have grown too big. You want to put their populations under the control, but not exterminate them completely. And that second part is where ranchers are not very good at, and then you end up having to install external controls to regulate the hunting and the whole thing becomes a lot more complicated and expensive for tax payers.
- pvaldes 6y ago
  This idea is anti-economic. It has always ended in a very expensive mess by the unavoidable and huge collateral damages each time it was implemented
capableweb 6y ago
> you cannot just let the situation unfurl without official intervention I don't think anyone is arguing for wildlife control to completely stop. But people seem genuinely scared of these M44 ("cyanide bombs") devices that seemingly is placed both on public and private properties without any notifications to people around. The article uses the example of a family who had one of those devices planted near their house, eventually killing their dog and poisoning their kid. Seems absolutely bananas that someone can plant devices like that without any notifications, and sleep well at night. What a absolute clusterfuck of a blunder.
- Icathian 6y ago
  In my experience communicating these kinds of warnings out to the public, especially in a way they'll actually see and notice, is a weak spot. Statistically this kind of thing is incredibly rare, and it makes it too easy for Federal employees to feel like communication is just a chore or a checkbox. I agree that part needs fixed.
  - sjg007 6y ago
    In today's day and age, we can send amber alerts to phones. Do the same thing. We should also do the same for agricultural or commercial pesticide applications.
    - Icathian 6y ago
      That would be a great solution. You'll hear no apologies from me for government backwardness about modern technology.
    - capableweb 6y ago
      Or how about stop putting cyanide mines in your own country?
- mokus 6y ago
  You can get in serious legal trouble for a “booby-trap” inside your own home, if a criminal accidentally is injured by it. Placing one in a publicly accessible place without even notifying the people living in the nearest homes? Failing to notify occupants of permanent residences in the area shows there was no meaningful attempt at all to notify the public.
Ericson2314 6y ago
Department of Interior would be better. USDA will do anything the farmers want without regard to other interests with a thing like this.
PaulHoule 6y ago
It's been a long term issue -- I think the situation has been basically the same since the 1970s.
julianeon 6y ago
The whole thing just sounds like some overconfident bureaucrat’s bad idea to me. What makes you think this isn’t allowing civilians to handle it? The idea that this is helping rests on that. If it doesn’t, it falls apart. Civilians don’t even know this program exists! That’s part of the problem. If a non-law-abiding rancher gets mad he pulls out his gun and shoots a coyote - and there are lots of those. Maybe he doesn’t very much in 2020, because of education programs. But should this program get the credit? For what you said to be true, you have to prove that these cyanide bombs are effectively controlling populations that need to be controlled - a huge stretch and exactly the claim that should be demonstrated by any defense. It may not be controlling coyotes (vs something that doesn’t need to be controlled, like skunks). It may be controlling some coyotes, but not enough to make a difference. It may be controlling coyotes but actually worse than angry farmers would have - killing them without rhyme or reason, instead of after an offense. This doesn’t look like a smart program that weighed the pros and cons and then went ahead with deployment judiciously. It seems questionable and dumb, which is why it’s also kind of a secret (often a very reliable tell). Note that there are no university professors or believable experts saying, “this is a good program with a lot of data behind it.” If there is good science to be seen, it seems suspiciously hard to access. It’s okay to be skeptical, dismissive even, of bad decisions without good data behind them- and it looks like that’s what we are seeing here.
- csense 6y ago
  > If a non-law-abiding rancher gets mad he pulls out his gun and shoots a coyote Pretty sure it's legal to shoot a coyote on your own property, as long as you're not in a densely populated area.
  - boring_twenties 6y ago
    The state of Utah will even pay you $50 per coyote you kill, up to 10 times per year. All you have to do is register on this website in advance: https://wildlife.utah.gov/predator-control-program.html https://wildlife.utah.gov/predator-control-program.html
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ConcernedCoder 6y ago
I'd have to defer to your experience, but fire-and-forget cyanide bombs seem a bit radical and dangerous as "solutions" go... I'd rather pay someone that can handle a rifle to hunt whatever needs killing -- as opposed to the cyanide bomb method that could (as outlined in the article) do more harm than good.
- Icathian 6y ago
  Ideally you'd be completely right. A professional with a rifle is far safer with less chance for unintended consequences (even if the chances are low regardless). Also incredibly expensive compared to what amounts to a spring-loaded poison trap (someone else in this thread linked the actual manual for the thing). Given that nobody wants to pay what it'd cost to do invasive/native species control with a fleet of professionals shooting things one at a time (even for species where that's theoretically an option), worse alternatives are often used.
  - mlyle 6y ago
    You seem to intuit that the risk/benefit is rather low. I'm not sure I agree: it seems like a sure thing that this program will eventually kill someone. It's not exactly evident that the efficacy of the program is high. Even if the program is effective at control, it doesn't leap out at me that the attained benefit surpasses the risks and costs.
TheRealPomax 6y ago
And maybe, you know, oversight, accountability, and most importantly: informed consent, by actual local law-enforcement and communities because no one gets to set bombs and then just walk away, for the same reason land mines are a war crime. If you can't even vaguely guarantee it won't kill people (e.g. on private land at least an accidental baseball-over-the-fence distance away from the perimeter) your approach is most definitely illegal and you should be held accountable, and your agency's dealings revised.
someguydave 6y ago
There are 2.79 million federal employees in the US. What's the probability that the average voter knows what any of them do all day? Democracy has no chance, we live under the rule of unchecked bureaucracy.
firethief 6y ago
> Whether it's suburban coyotes killing off family pets (a big problem in my suburb at the moment) or rural clashes between ranchers and wolves, you cannot just let the situation unfurl without official intervention. This is completely backwards. The solution to cats not being at the top of the local food chain is not to kill anything that would eat them, but to end their participation in the food chain. That cats aren't an apex predator is a good thing, because the destruction of native species they accomplish isn't enough to motivate their owners to keep them inside.
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  There's still a problem of small dogs being taken from a fenced yard.
  - Icathian 6y ago
    Guy down the street from me had his 70lb pitbull killed. People don't think of coyotes as serious predators, but they truly are.
kjaftaedi 6y ago
You're creating a strawman argument. The primary discussion here isn't about managing species, it's whether or not it's acceptable to plant a bomb 300ft from someone's house without informing the residents.
dhosek 6y ago
Without suburban coyotes, the neighborhood Facebook groups would be stuck talking about fireworks and Taco Bell.

captainredbeard 6y ago

Simple solution: let ranchers shoot problematic species.

Icathian 6y ago
It's been suggested a lot. It might even work. It boils down to whether you believe rancher's incentives are ever going to reconcile with responsibly pruning dangerous species. Historically that hasn't worked out well.
logicchains 6y ago
That's what Australia does for feral pigs, and it works pretty well.
- DuskStar 6y ago
  Right, but the ideal number of feral hogs is zero. The ideal number of wild wolves is not zero.
  - captainredbeard 6y ago
    That isn’t a universally accepted opinion.
    - DuskStar 6y ago
      Feral hogs are an invasive species in the US that causes significant property and ecological damage while also not being a particularly good game animal. That ticks pretty much all the "we don't want this here" boxes that I'm aware of. Who wants feral hogs?
centimeter 6y ago
Depending on the state, and depending on how problematic the individual animal is, you can. In many states you can shoot hogs whenever you want. Remember that whole thing where a bunch of twitter people who’d never been on a farm made fun of that politician for saying he had to shoot like 50 feral hogs at once? That’s a real thing - more than once I’ve been on an acquaintance’s ranch, standing up in the back of a truck or Polaris with an AR-15 chasing down dozens and dozens of hogs. They breed quickly and are very destructive! Texas tried to poison them and it didn’t work well enough. Usually with other species like bears or wolves, you are only supposed to shoot them if they actually attack livestock (and sometimes not even then).
- dreamcompiler 6y ago
  Family member in Texas goes hog hunting every year and always has sausage in the freezer. There are millions of them. Your story about the Polaris and AR-15 is spot on; this is possibly the only game animal for which an AR-15 is the perfect rifle.
  - snypher 6y ago
    Their story may be accurate but they misrepresented the politicians story, re seeking out vs being invaded by a wild pack.
    - dreamcompiler 6y ago
      They are definitely an invasive species, although the damage they do is mostly ecological and economic; they're not really dangerous to people directly. I've heard stories to that effect but I expect they're exaggerated.
earthscienceman 6y ago
In Colorado you can shoot anything you want if it is harassing your cattle, even family dogs. An example from my hometown: https://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/da-will-not-press-charges-after-kremmling-rancher-shoots-kills-neighbors-husky-puppy/ https://www.steamboatpilot.com/news/da-will-not-press-charge...
- woeirua 6y ago
  Seems like an overreaction but some dogs behave very aggressively around cattle and other animals due to instinct. Its entirely possible that the dog was not responsive to commands, and was going after the cattle in a serious way. A 4 month old husky is not a tiny puppy. There's more to this story than meets the eye. I highly doubt the neighbor shot the dog without trying anything else first.
  - hombre_fatal 6y ago
    Where my parents live in the countryside, some people -- like kids visiting their parents for the month -- will bring their dogs and let them roam around. Dogs will form up in a pack of 2 or more and kill things on your property, like chickens. Or they'll instigate larger animals like the emus and end up biting/breaking the animal's ankle. You can scare them away easily (dogs are generally skittish) but they'll come back. I've also learned that some people are completely unreasonable when it comes to their pets, basically believing that "it's just a dog" and you're the asshole if you can't handle it being on your property.
dr-detroit 6y ago
Most of this country is owned by land baron families with multiple hundred thousands of acres
ivanhoe 6y ago
Thing is that those species like coyotes or raccoons or deers are problematic simply because their populations have grown too big. You want to put their populations under the control, but not exterminate them completely. And that second part is where ranchers are not very good at, and then you end up having to install external controls to regulate the hunting and the whole thing becomes a lot more complicated and expensive for tax payers.
pvaldes 6y ago
This idea is anti-economic. It has always ended in a very expensive mess by the unavoidable and huge collateral damages each time it was implemented

capableweb 6y ago

> you cannot just let the situation unfurl without official intervention I don't think anyone is arguing for wildlife control to completely stop. But people seem genuinely scared of these M44 ("cyanide bombs") devices that seemingly is placed both on public and private properties without any notifications to people around. The article uses the example of a family who had one of those devices planted near their house, eventually killing their dog and poisoning their kid. Seems absolutely bananas that someone can plant devices like that without any notifications, and sleep well at night. What a absolute clusterfuck of a blunder.

Icathian 6y ago
In my experience communicating these kinds of warnings out to the public, especially in a way they'll actually see and notice, is a weak spot. Statistically this kind of thing is incredibly rare, and it makes it too easy for Federal employees to feel like communication is just a chore or a checkbox. I agree that part needs fixed.
- sjg007 6y ago
  In today's day and age, we can send amber alerts to phones. Do the same thing. We should also do the same for agricultural or commercial pesticide applications.
  - Icathian 6y ago
    That would be a great solution. You'll hear no apologies from me for government backwardness about modern technology.
  - capableweb 6y ago
    Or how about stop putting cyanide mines in your own country?
mokus 6y ago
You can get in serious legal trouble for a “booby-trap” inside your own home, if a criminal accidentally is injured by it. Placing one in a publicly accessible place without even notifying the people living in the nearest homes? Failing to notify occupants of permanent residences in the area shows there was no meaningful attempt at all to notify the public.

Ericson2314 6y ago

Department of Interior would be better. USDA will do anything the farmers want without regard to other interests with a thing like this.

PaulHoule 6y ago

It's been a long term issue -- I think the situation has been basically the same since the 1970s.

julianeon 6y ago

The whole thing just sounds like some overconfident bureaucrat’s bad idea to me. What makes you think this isn’t allowing civilians to handle it? The idea that this is helping rests on that. If it doesn’t, it falls apart. Civilians don’t even know this program exists! That’s part of the problem. If a non-law-abiding rancher gets mad he pulls out his gun and shoots a coyote - and there are lots of those. Maybe he doesn’t very much in 2020, because of education programs. But should this program get the credit? For what you said to be true, you have to prove that these cyanide bombs are effectively controlling populations that need to be controlled - a huge stretch and exactly the claim that should be demonstrated by any defense. It may not be controlling coyotes (vs something that doesn’t need to be controlled, like skunks). It may be controlling some coyotes, but not enough to make a difference. It may be controlling coyotes but actually worse than angry farmers would have - killing them without rhyme or reason, instead of after an offense. This doesn’t look like a smart program that weighed the pros and cons and then went ahead with deployment judiciously. It seems questionable and dumb, which is why it’s also kind of a secret (often a very reliable tell). Note that there are no university professors or believable experts saying, “this is a good program with a lot of data behind it.” If there is good science to be seen, it seems suspiciously hard to access. It’s okay to be skeptical, dismissive even, of bad decisions without good data behind them- and it looks like that’s what we are seeing here.

csense 6y ago
> If a non-law-abiding rancher gets mad he pulls out his gun and shoots a coyote Pretty sure it's legal to shoot a coyote on your own property, as long as you're not in a densely populated area.
- boring_twenties 6y ago
  The state of Utah will even pay you $50 per coyote you kill, up to 10 times per year. All you have to do is register on this website in advance: https://wildlife.utah.gov/predator-control-program.html https://wildlife.utah.gov/predator-control-program.html

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ConcernedCoder 6y ago

I'd have to defer to your experience, but fire-and-forget cyanide bombs seem a bit radical and dangerous as "solutions" go... I'd rather pay someone that can handle a rifle to hunt whatever needs killing -- as opposed to the cyanide bomb method that could (as outlined in the article) do more harm than good.

Icathian 6y ago
Ideally you'd be completely right. A professional with a rifle is far safer with less chance for unintended consequences (even if the chances are low regardless). Also incredibly expensive compared to what amounts to a spring-loaded poison trap (someone else in this thread linked the actual manual for the thing). Given that nobody wants to pay what it'd cost to do invasive/native species control with a fleet of professionals shooting things one at a time (even for species where that's theoretically an option), worse alternatives are often used.
- mlyle 6y ago
  You seem to intuit that the risk/benefit is rather low. I'm not sure I agree: it seems like a sure thing that this program will eventually kill someone. It's not exactly evident that the efficacy of the program is high. Even if the program is effective at control, it doesn't leap out at me that the attained benefit surpasses the risks and costs.

TheRealPomax 6y ago

And maybe, you know, oversight, accountability, and most importantly: informed consent, by actual local law-enforcement and communities because no one gets to set bombs and then just walk away, for the same reason land mines are a war crime. If you can't even vaguely guarantee it won't kill people (e.g. on private land at least an accidental baseball-over-the-fence distance away from the perimeter) your approach is most definitely illegal and you should be held accountable, and your agency's dealings revised.

someguydave 6y ago

There are 2.79 million federal employees in the US. What's the probability that the average voter knows what any of them do all day? Democracy has no chance, we live under the rule of unchecked bureaucracy.

firethief 6y ago

> Whether it's suburban coyotes killing off family pets (a big problem in my suburb at the moment) or rural clashes between ranchers and wolves, you cannot just let the situation unfurl without official intervention. This is completely backwards. The solution to cats not being at the top of the local food chain is not to kill anything that would eat them, but to end their participation in the food chain. That cats aren't an apex predator is a good thing, because the destruction of native species they accomplish isn't enough to motivate their owners to keep them inside.

kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
There's still a problem of small dogs being taken from a fenced yard.
- Icathian 6y ago
  Guy down the street from me had his 70lb pitbull killed. People don't think of coyotes as serious predators, but they truly are.

kjaftaedi 6y ago

You're creating a strawman argument. The primary discussion here isn't about managing species, it's whether or not it's acceptable to plant a bomb 300ft from someone's house without informing the residents.

dhosek 6y ago

Without suburban coyotes, the neighborhood Facebook groups would be stuck talking about fireworks and Taco Bell.