Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced the final interim decision on the registered use of sodium cyanide for predator control.
The EPA worked in conjunction with the USDA’s Wildlife Services to put out a label for the predator control tool.
The label will include three additional use restrictions to promote public awareness and decrease non-target impacts. Benny Cox, President of the American Sheep Industry Association, says the nation’s sheep producers welcome the decision.
“We sincerely appreciate the USDA and EPA working together to ensure livestock producers will have access to effective predator control, while also increasing public awareness and transparency,” he says. “Livestock producers face heavy losses from predators, with those losses totaling more than $232 million every year.”
He says producers are especially vulnerable to losses during lambing and calving. Sodium cyanide is only used under the oversight of federal or state wildlife officials.
