If these cruel traps were judged by the agony they inflict, they would never be justified.
EPA investigates Utahn's poisoning -
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The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has begun an investigation into
the poisoning four years ago of a Vernal man who touched what he thought
was a survey stake, only to get a blast of sodium cyanide to his face
and chest.
The cyanide device, called an M-
kill predators. The poisoning has left Dennis Slaugh with severe health
problems, his wife, Dorothy Slaugh, said Thursday. And it has reignited
a campaign to ban all predator poisoning on federal lands.
EPA investigator Michael Burgin visited the Slaugh home Monday for a
two-
The special investigator was looking into why federal agencies did not
follow up on the Slaughs' original reports, she said. Democratic Rep.
Peter DeFazio of Oregon pushed for the investigation at the request of
Predator Defense, a national wildlife advocacy group based in Eugene, Ore.
"He has been a really good ally trying to get these weapons banned
permanently so no one will have to suffer the way my husband has
suffered," Slaugh said of DeFazio.
Dennis Slaugh and his brother were riding all-
Bureau of Land Management land in Cowboy Canyon near Bonanza in 2003
when Slaugh noticed what he thought was a survey stake. He reached to
brush it off and it fell over. When he picked it up, it exploded,
sending a cloud of granules into his nose, mouth and eyes.
The M-
mouth. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services Program is
the only agency allowed to use the M-
prevent livestock loss.
But when the Slaughs told the USDA and the BLM about their experience,
the agencies denied responsibility and eventually informed them the
statute of limitations on the family's claims had run out.
"We were just asking for compensation. We've got medical bills. They
just flat denied everything," Dorothy Slaugh said.
On Monday, she said, Burgin told her that time on the claim would run
out in May. Cyanide clings to iron in the blood system and slowly
depletes the heart and other muscles of oxygen. Dennis Slaugh, 65, has
extremely high blood pressure, difficulty breathing, vomits almost daily
and can no longer work as a Caterpillar D8 driver for Uintah County
because he is too weak to climb up into the machine's rungs.
The couple, avid ATV riders and campers, have owned Mountain High Power
Sports in Vernal for 35 years. "We're fine, we're OK. It's just taken a
lot out of him," Dorothy Slaugh said. Brooks Fahy, executive director
of Predator Defense, said his organization started the push to ban all
predator poisoning on federal lands in 1994, when a woman was poisoned
while trying to resuscitate her dog after the animal bit an M-
employee had set on her private property at the request of a tenant
farmer. DeFazio has been an ally since then, Fahy said.
In late November, DeFazio prodded the EPA with a letter that Fahy said
was "instrumental" in finally getting federal action on the Slaughs'
claim. The congressman is sponsoring a bill in the House to ban all
predator poisons
M-