APNewsBreak: Cyanide device on US land broke agency policy
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A cyanide device for killing coyotes that spewed the poison on a boy and killed his dog was set up on public land in Idaho in February despite a decision months earlier by federal officials to halt use of the devices on all U.S.-owned land in the state, officials said Tuesday.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management spokeswoman Erin Curtis told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that the device that went off and another one were put there by the U.S. Agriculture Department in late February.
An Agriculture Department document said the agency would stop using the devices last November on all federally owned Idaho land to reduce health risks to people and domestic animals.
Mark Mansfield, the boy's father and a physician, said an emergency room doctor and a toxicologist who examined his son told him they were surprised that the boy did not die after he was sprayed with the cyanide powder emitted by the device.
The event is an example of how some Agriculture Department efforts to protect livestock are outdated at a time when hikers, bikers and others increasingly explore public lands, said John Freemuth, a Boise State University environmental policy professor and public lands expert.