Government Planted “Cyanide Bomb” Accidentally Injures Idaho Teenager and Kills His Dog

If there was a problem with predatory animals in your community, such as coyotes, foxes, and cougars; what do you think would be the best solution? Hiring hunters to exterminate them? Setting traps to catch the animals and release them elsewhere?

Well apparently in Idaho, the Wildlife Service has been planting spring activated “cyanide bombs” in rural areas. Recently, one of these devices detonated and accidentally injured a teenage boy.

14-year-old Canyon Mansfield was playing with his dog in Bannock County, Idaho, when he noticed what he thought was a sprinkler head in the ground. When he touched it, it burst into an orange cloud of cyanide, which injured him and killed his dog. His father tried to revive the animal but to no avail. The boy and his father, as well as several first responders, had to be decontaminated after the incident.

The Wildlife Service says that they only plant these devices (which are called M44s) with the permission of property owners and land managers, and that they are always accompanied by warning signs. Bannock County Sheriff Lorin Nielsen stated that he wasn’t told about the placement of these devices. “I’ve been a sheriff here for 20 years and worked for the office for 39 years, and I’ve never heard of leaving around a device that emits poisonous gas.”

This isn’t the first time that this sort of thing has happened. In 2003, a man from Utah was poisoned by an M44 when he mistook it for a survey marker, and it killed another Utah man’s dog in 2006. Environmentalists have long criticized the M44, because it’s indiscriminate, and routinely kills the wrong animals.