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Dog baits alert town: Officials confirm lethal pesticide found within Jackson limitsBill Curran -- Jackson Hole News & Guide, 06/09/2004
Officials on Thursday found a suspected poisoned meat bait in Jackson, possibly the third appearance in the densely populated town of a lethal pesticide that has sickened or killed 25 dogs.
Darren Rudd, an animal control officer with the Teton County Sheriff's Office, said the meat bait a steak found near a dumpster on Clark Street contained what appears to be the same pesticide that first killed dogs in Buffalo Valley in March.
The Wyoming Veterinary Laboratory recently confirmed that two hot dogs found in mid-April in east Jackson contained the pesticide commonly sold as Temik, Rudd said.
While some officials believe the poison baits are an attempt to kill wolves, Rudd said finding them in town could mean whoever is spreading them is less discriminatory.
"It's not so much targeted at domestic or wild, kind of just dogs in general," Rudd said.
While discovering the poison, which can be fatal to people as well as dogs, in town is particularly alarming, the poisonings also continue to occur in outlying areas of the county.
A German shepherd mix named Griz became ill June 2 after eating Temik in an unidentified meat bait on the Triangle X Ranch near Buffalo Valley. Griz, who belongs to the Turner family, survived after treatment from a veterinarian.
On June 1, the poison sickened a dog on the Pinto Ranch near Buffalo Valley. Before that instance, no poisonings had been reported since mid-May.
Those two poisonings bring the total to 25, seven of which were fatal. Temik also may have killed several foxes, coyotes and possibly two moose and an eagle.
University of Wyoming Professor Merl Raisbeck identified the poison, known generically as aldicarb, and warned of its toxicity in a release Tuesday. "A few grains of the commercial product are certainly enough to kill an average-sized dog, and a few ounces are theoretically enough to render a town the size of Jackson dog free," Raisbeck said.
Symptoms occur quickly and include slobbering, vomiting and loss of muscle control. "It has some pretty nasty effects, but there's a pretty good shot at treatment if you get the stomach emptied fairly quickly," Raisbeck said.
The poison is gray or black and granular with the consistency of table salt. Residents shouldn't touch any suspicious meat as Temik can be harmful if absorbed through the skin.
Despite the recent discovery of meat baits in town, a federal agent still believes at least some of the poison was meant for wolves.
"I think at least the initial placement of these poisons was targeted at wolves," said Dominic Domenici, special agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Casper.
The poison may have killed a wolf.
Domenici said officials retrieved a wolf carcass from near the Greys River Road in the Bridger-Teton National Forest about a month ago. No other cause of death was apparent, and Domenici is still waiting for lab test results to confirm the presence of the pesticide. Several dogs became ill after eating poison meat in the same area.
Baiting meat with Temik is recommended as a way to kill wolves on a Web site maintained by an Idaho man. The man's home was searched by authorities in March in connection with similar poisonings in the Salmon-Challis National Forest.
Rudd said he's not certain if one person or several people are behind the poisonings. "At least if it was just one person, we wouldn't have to worry about a copy cat type of instance," he said.
But the poisoned meat found in town appears to have been placed more recently than the hot dogs discovered elsewhere.
"The ones up north are the older ones," Rudd said. "The ones in town were new."
The poison hot dogs may have been left in Buffalo Valley in the fall and buried by snow. The poisonings began occurring with a spring thaw.
Though a special license is required to get Temik, the source of the poison still may be hard to determine.
Statewide, more than 3,000 companies or people have the applicators l
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