15. STOP THE CRUEL POISONING OF WILDLIFE &

REMOVING TOOLS OF CRUELTY

M-44 cyanide bombs, aerial gunning, traps, and snares – we must remove Wildlife Services’ tools of cruelty

Every year, thousands of wild animals to die a painful, prolonged, and torturous death by poisoning. Wildlife Services employs deadly poisons, aerial gunning, cruel traps and snares, and more to destroy native wildlife.

Aerial gunning involves shooting animals from low-flying aircraft on private and public lands. Aerial gunning has other disadvantages, too. Wildlife Services and others have suffered dozens of aircraft crashes, resulting in terrible injuries and death. Flying close to the ground while chasing coyotes or wolves leads to unwanted contact with wind shears, power lines, trees, or land formations. Gunners frequently shoot their own crafts.

Indiscriminate poisons deployed by Wildlife Services kill thousands of animals each year and are also lethal to humans and their companion animals. Ostensibly deployed to “protect livestock”, dangerous poisons are simply unnecessary.

Denning is the practice of killing animals in their burrows or dens—usually with poisons, or removing them from the den and dispatching them aboveground. Target species include rodents (moles, ground squirrels, woodchucks, prairie dogs, and pocket gophers), skunks, coyotes, red foxes, and ground-nesting wasps.

Bird poisons attack birds’ nervous systems, causing them to suffer seizures, erratic flight, and tremors for hours before dying.

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