prefer to listen?
A federal memorandum of understanding has quietly cleared the way for renewed use of the M-44 cyanide bomb on Bureau of Land Management lands. If you are unfamiliar with the M-44: it is a spring-loaded trap that shoots sodium cyanide into an animal’s mouth the moment it takes the bait. The animal dies in terror and pain. It is one of the cruelest killing devices ever deployed on American soil, and it is back.
This should matter to every business that profits from living wildlife—every ecotourism operator, every safari outfitter, every whale-watching company. You cannot build a revenue stream on the existence of wild animals and remain silent while they are being poisoned on publicland.
That is not neutrality.
That is complicity.
If wildlife is your product, their protection is your obligation.
It is time for the ecotourism industry to say so, loudly.
And when an administration abandons wildlife protections in pursuit of profit, the responsibility does not disappear. It shifts. It lands on you—in your condo, your suburban home, your RV, your porch. Reduce your carbon footprint.
Feed the birds in your backyard. Pick up trash. Donate to conservation organizations with a demonstrated record of courage. Vote for candidates who treat the safety of living things as a serious policy matter. Push back against HOA restrictions that ban pollinator gardens or bird feeders—or stop agreeing to live under them. Oppose the data centers being rubber-stamped into communities over local objection, consuming land and power that wildlife and people alike cannot spare.
The infrastructure of indifference is vast. So must be our response to it.
Links:
https://www.humaneworld.org/en/blog/trump-administration-lifts-ban-cyanide-bombs-killing-animals
https://www.honorearth.org/datacentertracker