The U.S. Forest Service is loosening rules to deal with
predators. The new rules would allow livestock owners and others to hunt down wolves, bears, coyotes and mountain lions using trucks, helicopters and cyanide-laced traps. The GLRC’s Lester Graham
reports:
Transcript
The U.S. Forest service is loosening rules to deal with predators. The new rules would
allow livestock owners and others to hunt down wolves, bears, coyotes and mountain
lions using trucks, helicopters and cyanide-laced traps. The GLRC’s Lester Graham
reports:
The Forest Service says the proposed new rules simply clear up a program that’s
designed to get rid of nuisance animals that prey on livestock. Erik Ryberg is with the
Center for Biological Diversity. He says the new rules permit killing any local predator
instead of just the animal that’s killing livestock. They would also allow off-road
vehicles and even helicopters to chase down the animals on federal land, and they would
allow baited traps that explode with poison gas:
“These are buried cyanide bombs that when triggered release an explosive cloud of
sodium cyanide crystals and kill whatever has triggered it. They’re very dangerous both
to domestic pets, to children and to people. They certainly don’t belong in federally-
protected wilderness areas.”
The current rules state that the agency is to “consider the benefits of predator species in
the ecosystem” before it starts killing any predators.
For the GLRC, this is Lester Graham.