USDA’s Wildlife Services Kills People’s Dogs With Cyanide Bombs

Why allow farmers and ranchers to shoot wild predators that threaten their stock? Big Government can handle everything for them:

As was their routine, 14-year-old Canyon Mansfield and his dog raced through the backyard of his Idaho home and up the top of a nearby hill to play. Minutes later, Canyon was knocked to the ground after a cyanide bomb set by the U.S. government detonated some 350 yards from the family’s doorstep. …

“We are devastated,” the boy’s mother, Theresa Mansfield, of Pocatello, Idaho, told Fox News on Tuesday. “My dog died in less than 2 minutes. My son was rushed to the hospital covered in cyanide.” …

Upon further inspection, authorities found a second device within yards of the Mansfield home. Both devices were planted in the ground on Feb. 25 without the family’s knowledge or consent.

It wasn’t a one-off.

The dog’s death on Thursday follows a string of other recent incidents in which family pets were accidentally killed by M-44s, a controversial device used by Wildlife Services, a little-known branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture tasked with destroying animals seen as threats to people, agriculture and the environment.

The devices are perfectly designed to kill people’s dogs.

The M-44s, also known as “coyote-getters,” are designed to lure animals with a smelly bait. When an animal tugs on the device, a spring-loaded metal cylinder fires sodium cyanide powder into its mouth.

Over the years, thousands of non-target animals — wild and domestic — have been mistakenly killed by the lethal devices.

Since the EPA poisons rivers, why shouldn’t Wildlife Services kill animals?

Where predators are an issue, a property owner with a rifle will be far more selective than planting the equivalent of landmines. But individuals exercising their right to defend their property are anathema to bureaucrats, so a more elaborate solution had to be found.

On a tip from TheChaoticStorm.