Coyote Control: Ford Heeds Rancher's Howls

"Only Nixon loves a coyote" seems to be the message of recent political developments in Washington sanctioning increased use of sodium cyanide devices to kill these and other predators. To be specific, President Ford recently relaxed stringent limits imposed by his predecessor in a 1972 Executive Order¹ on the field use of toxic chemicals in federal programs against coyotes and other predators on federal lands, which form a large part of the habitat of the coyote in five southwestern states. Ford's new Executive Order² demotes the prior order's goal of sharply restricting the use of chemical toxicants for the purpose of killing predatory animals by balancing it against a new policy of managing "the public lands to protect all animal resources thereon in the manner most consistent with the public trust in which such lands are held."

Like its predecessor, the new order completely prohibits the field use of chemical toxicants to kill predatory mammals and birds, on federal lands and in federal programs, but cuts back on this broad ban by authorizing "emergency use" following consultation with the Interior and Agriculture Departments, and EPA.

The new order goes further, however; it also authorizes a one-year program of "experimental" use of "sodium cyanide to control coyotes…."

The latter expansion may not sound like much, but if EPA's prior experience with politically-motivated "experimental" predator control permits is replicated in its application, the stated restrictions in the new order will be so much window dressing.

In the same year Nixon acted to ban cyanide predator controls on federal lands, EPA moved to cut their use on private lands by banning interstate cyanide sales [5 ELR 10157] under FIFRA. Both actions were taken in response to the report³ of a federal advisory panel which was highly critical of traditional chemical approaches to predator controls. Almost immediately, however, western sheep and cattle interests began to exert unrelenting political pressures on the White House, EPA and Congress to undo the bans.

Late in 1973, EPA began to relax its ban by issuing a series of "experimental" use permits for a cyanide ejector device known as M-44 (a ground-mounted, spring-loaded device which attracts coyotes by means of a scented cloth, and delivers the lethal dose when the spring-loaded device is triggered). The first such permit was issued to the Interior Department for "experimental" public land use under Nixon's order, although it contains no explicit exception for experimental as opposed to emergency use. To be exact, EPA styled the permit as involving "experimental emergencies," thus colorably complying with the order. Then, in 1974, it began to issue private land permits under FIFRA, first to Texas (which has little public land), then in turn to California, Montana, Idaho, South Dakota, and Nebraska.⁴

Whether these involved bona fide experiments is open to serious question in terms of both need and character. As if to demonstrate the "need" for data on the M-44, EPA denied its manufacturer's petition for registration of the device at about the same time it was processing the Texas permit application, citing the absence of sufficient data to evaluate the device. In fact, however, the M-44 had been fully tested and indeed substantially used in the field prior to the 1972 bans, to the full knowledge of EPA. For example, in support of its unsuccessful registration application, the manufacturer's counsel had pointed out, in a July 9, 1973 letter to EPA, that the Interior Department had already conducted "extensive testing and field use of this device…." This is confirmed by a June 1969 letter from the New Mexico Regional Director of Interior's (then) Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, who said, in response to an inquiry from the Arizona Audubon Society, that "after several years of experimentation …" the M-44 had been developed to replace a predecessor which caused problems because it utilized an explosive rather than the spring-ejector. "This new tool …," he added, "has been successfully tested in Colorado, and is being produced to replace all explosive type devices in the near future. Arizona has already received an initial shipment for use during forthcoming control activities." In short, even allowing for a bit of adversarial hyperbole, there seems to have been little need to test the M-44 further in 1974.

Nor were the authorized programs true experiments in any reasonable sense of the word. First, their scale was vast, in terms both of cyanide dispensed and area covered. Interior, for example, was authorized to use 100,000 capsules; Texas, 39,000. Rather than being restricted to a few counties in one state, the program, as noted above, covered private lands and (through Interior) public lands in five of the nation's largest states, which, not incidentally, comprise substantially the entire habitat of the coyote. Not surprisingly, the number of reported coyote deaths has been large. Between June and October 1974, for example, Interior reported bagging 573 coyotes, along with 119 foxes, six feral dogs, ten raccoons, ten skunks, 14 opossums and one calf.⁵

A second index of the nonscientific character of the EPA experimental permit programs is the total lack of scientific rigor in their design and personnel. They merely involve handling the devices out to ranchers, the very persons who objected to the ban and were militating to a return to chemical extermination as usual. Observed Dr. A. Starker Leopold, author of the first federal predator committee, of the Texas program:

It strikes me as completely improbable that any useful data will come out of this so-called experiment and it will simply permit Texas ranchers to go back to their old habits of trying to control all the coyotes they can, using every method that is legally available.

Ranchers, moreover, were hardly the most unbiased personnel one could find to report honestly on devices in which they had a vested interest.

If the EPA's track record on "experimental permits" for the M-44 leaves much to be desired, there is one control device which really is new and does need testing. This is the toxic collar, a device designed to fit around a sheep's neck and contain cyanide pouches; these dispatch coyotes which attack sheep but will not kill other coyotes or other animals. This admirably selective device appears to be a far less intrusive alternative than the M-44, which will attract and kill any coyote, not just the relatively few which actually do prey on livestock.

Hopefully, EPA will restrict its experimental permits under both President Ford's order and FIFRA to this well-justified area. There is little ground for such sanguine expectations, however, for the intense political pressures which were responsible for the order and EPA's so-called experimental permits for the M-44 have apparently not let up. After all, Mr. Ford has little desire to alienate western ranchers, while EPA is particularly vulnerable as long as FIFRA is in the amendment process — in the hands of unsympathetic farm state congressmen.

As for the M-44, plenty of "evidence" has no doubt been accumulated in the experimental program discussed above. At press time, EPA was conducting three days of hearings to evaluate "substantial new evidence" with a view to registering cyanide for plenary use under § 3 of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act.⁶

1. E.O. 11643, ELR 45015 (Feb. 8, 1972).

2. E.O. 11870, ELR 45020 (July 18, 1975).

3. Predator Control — 1971, Report to the CEQ and the Department of the Interior by the Advisory Committee on Predator Control (Jan. 1972).

4. See Environmental Protection Agency — Recent Developments, 4 ELR 10202 (Dec. 1974).

5. 40 Fed. Reg. 4028 (Jan. 27, 1975).

6. 40 Fed. Reg. 29755 (July 15, 1975).