Banned by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1972 because of its threat to non-target species, and its history of misuse and abuse, Compound 1080 returned for use in the collars in1985, after intense lobbying from the livestock industry and the US Department of Agriculture's Animal Damage Control (ADC) program. California is the sixth state in the nation to approve use of this poison, which has no antidote. It is highly toxic to warm-blooded animals, including humans, livestock and pets, especially dogs that scavenge the carcasses of collared livestock.
It is because of the threat these collars pose to state and federally listed threatened and endangered species that LPCs have been banned or restricted in sixteen counties in California.
Collars can fall off the sheep and the poison escape into a field or pasture enticing a child or domestic dog and containing enough poison to kill both. Compound 1080 is a highly toxic, slow-acting poison that causing painful death to its victims. It takes up to seven hours to kill wildlife, seven hours of convulsions, cellular breakdown, progressive depression of the central nervous system and, finally, cardiac arrest.
There are other effective, non-lethal ways to reduce predation, guard animals (including special guard dogs that are bred for this specific purpose, llamas, heifers and donkeys), noise aversion, improved fencing, shed-birthing and siren/strobe devices. Ranchers have these non-lethal methods available and a number of lethal alternatives as well. They can call the ADC for help with trapping, snaring, poisoning with sodium cyanide capsules, denning (the removal and killing of coyote pups from dens with barbed wire hooks, fumigants and incendiary devices), or shooting.
Livestock Protection Collars don't replace any of these methods. They are but one lethal weapon in a growing arsenal available for killing coyotes. Proposed mitigation measures won't reduce the risks. That's why dozens of local, state and national organizations oppose the use of Livestock Protection Collars in California.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 1998
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