Pocatello’s City Council will gather Thursday at 6 p.m. at City Hall to consider a symbolic but significant resolution calling for an end to the manufacture and distribution of M-44 predator-control devices within city limits — a step that, if approved, would represent the city’s first formal institutional stance against a federal facility that operates in its own backyard.
The resolution is non-binding, meaning it carries no legal authority over the USDA Pocatello Supply Depot at 238 E. Dillon St. That depot holds a unique distinction: it is the only facility in the United States that manufactures M-44 devices and produces sodium cyanide capsules used in them. Despite the resolution’s advisory nature, supporters believe official action from Pocatello’s elected body could carry weight with federal decision-makers.
Mayor Mark Dahlquist confirmed that a local family’s personal request drove the agenda item. “I placed the M-44 resolution on the City Council agenda because members of the Mansfield family approached me and asked that it be considered,” Dahlquist told the Idaho State Journal.
A Decade of Advocacy Rooted in a Local Tragedy
M-44s are spring-loaded devices baited to attract coyotes, foxes, and other predators that threaten agricultural livestock. When an animal — or a person — pulls on the trigger, a charge fires sodium cyanide powder outward. The substance is capable of killing within moments of exposure.
For the Mansfield family, this is not an abstract policy debate. In March 2017, Canyon Mansfield was 14 years old when he came across one of the devices on Bureau of Land Management land close to his family’s Buckskin Road home. He mistook the M-44 for a sprinkler head. The device fired, delivering a near-lethal cyanide dose to Canyon and killing his Labrador retriever, Kasey. The incident drew widespread attention to the Pocatello depot and ignited a push to restrict or eliminate the devices altogether.
While then-Mayor Brian Blad expressed public opposition to M-44s in the aftermath of that 2017 incident, the city never took an official governing position. Thursday’s vote would change that, giving the Mansfield family’s campaign a formal civic endorsement after nearly nine years of advocacy.
Federal Policy Reversals Fuel Urgency
The timing of Thursday’s council vote is tied to a recent shift in federal land management policy. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management had moved to restrict M-44 usage in 2023, but reversed that position this past April by signing a memorandum of agreement permitting the devices on virtually all of the agency’s roughly 245 million acres of federally managed land nationwide.
That policy reversal prompted renewed action from the Mansfield family. In June, Canyon Mansfield and family members joined Brooks Fahy of the advocacy group Predator Defense in sending a letter directly to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and BLM Director Stevan Pearce, urging the administration to walk back the new agreement. More than six weeks later, that letter remains unanswered.
Fahy has made clear his view of the devices’ inherent risks. “There is no safe place or method for using these devices,” he told the Idaho State Journal. “No dog, small child or wild animal can read a warning sign.”
Beyond urging the USDA and its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service to voluntarily halt M-44 production at the Pocatello depot, the resolution also calls on Idaho’s congressional delegation to back a proposed federal measure informally called Canyon’s Law — legislation that would permanently prohibit both the production and deployment of M-44s on public lands and federal facilities. If the council approves the resolution, certified copies will be forwarded to the Secretary of Agriculture, the APHIS administrator, Gov. Brad Little, U.S. Senators Jim Risch and Mike Crapo, and Representatives Mike Simpson and Russ Fulcher.
What Comes Next
Because the resolution carries no enforcement power, the practical outcome of Thursday’s vote hinges entirely on whether it moves the needle in Washington. The city cannot compel a federal agency to shut down operations, relocate, or change its manufacturing practices. What Pocatello’s government can do is put its name behind the cause officially — something the Mansfield family has sought for years.
Proponents of the measure are counting on the political symbolism of a formal city-level stance, particularly with Idaho’s congressional delegation named as recipients of the resolution. The hope is that a message originating from Pocatello’s own elected officials — the city where the nation’s sole M-44 production facility sits — will carry more persuasive force on Capitol Hill than grassroots petitions alone. The council’s decision Thursday evening will determine whether that institutional voice joins the effort.