Poison baits still linger
By WHITNEY ROYSTER
Star-Tribune environmental reporter Wednesday, May 26, 2004
JACKSON — On Sunday, Roxie Cote went for her first walk since April 25.
The border collie-Australian shepherd mix loves walking with her owners, Paul and Dori Cote, near their home on the Buffalo Valley Road west of Togwotee Pass in northwest Wyoming.
“I was super vigilant,” Paul Cote said of his Sunday walk. “Every time she stopped to look at something I stopped. There was nothing.”
Roxie has been virtually house-bound since that Sunday in April when she became one of 21 dogs known to have been poisoned with a sugar-beet pesticide stuffed into meat products and strewn near Moran and Alpine.
Officials fear with Memorial Day weekend, more dogs or even people could be poisoned by the highly toxic substance known as Temik, which can be lethal even to the touch.
Roxie the border collie was lucky.
The family had gone for a walk east of their home, which is about 7.5 miles down the Buffalo Valley Road. They were on the road and in parts of the forest.
About two hours after they returned home, Dori saw that Roxie had begun walking unsteadily and salivating heavily.
“My wife thought, ‘Something is wrong with that dog,'” Cote remembered. “She took it to the neighbors and on the way the dog threw up and she saw two little mini-hotdogs with the poison in them. You could see the poison. They were just packed and she said it was really obvious. We knew what was happening.”
Dori Cote took Roxie to a Jackson veterinarian, about an hour away and the vet was able to save the dog.
“We were very fortunate,” Paul Cote said. “She was not nearly as sick as some of the other dogs.”
Some of the other dogs belonged to Cote’s neighbor, Bob Eckhardt.
Bob and his father, John, run the Turpin Meadows Ranch at the end of the Buffalo Valley Road.
“We knew nothing about it,” John Eckhardt said, describing when the family’s first dog, Sugar, a Catahoula, died in early March.
Almost exactly a month later, the family’s Labrador retriever, Shadow, died a similar death.
“She became violent,” Eckhardt said. “There’s a screen door that has a glass storm panel and she crashed trying to get through that. … She would just have these violent contortions, spasm, then she would be still for a bit. I took the dog and she spasmed for about another 20 or 25 minutes, and then she died. It’s a horrible thing to witness. Somebody has a whole bunch of hate in themselves to wish that kind of death on any living thing — wolves or anything.”
Highly toxic poison
The poison Temik has aldicarb as its toxic ingredient (see side bar). Less than a half-teaspoon can kill a dog.
According to law enforcement officials, up to two thimbles full have been placed in baits — hotdogs hollowed out and plugged with cheese and lard. (Similar baits have been found near Salmon, Idaho, with meatballs.)
The sickened animals near Moran resemble animals sickened along the Greys River Road in Alpine. A spokesman for the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office thinks the same person is responsible.
“We are understanding it’s the same poison in the bait that was found,” Lieutenant Tim Malik said. “We can only assume that it may be the same person or persons.”
Malik is among those who think the intended targets are wolves.
“There is no particularly place where they were placed,” Malik said of the baits. “It’s very sporadic. They could be anywhere. A snowmachine has the ability to go cross country, they don’t have to stay on the roads or trails.”
Malik said the baits appear to have been spread out this winter, and are possibly being unearthed by melting snow.
At least five dogs were poisoned along a 10-mile stretch of the Greys River Road. Other dogs in the area died and they were cremated before being examined for the poison. One dog died on the way to the clinic.
The first case came to veterinarian Tina Gertsch on March 10, and the last dog came in April 25. She was able to save all five dogs she treated.
Potent poison is fast acting
“The first one that came in were some hikers,” Gertsch said. “Our clinic is on the Greys River Road and people were doing a ski hike. They didn’t see (the dog) eat anything and didn’t notice anything. About three miles up she started vomiting and having severe mucous diarrhea.”
Gertsch said the symptoms of the poison are heavy salivation and diarrhea, pinpoint pupils, slow heart rate, paralysis and/or severe muscle twitching.
Treatment for poisoned animals involves atropine and charcoal, to bind any stomach contents to prevent lingering effects, Gertsch said. Unlike other poisons, Temik works quickly and animals can be very sick in 20 minutes, so prompt medical attention is critical, she said.
“It’s a bad deal,” Gertsch said. “All these were right along the road, close to campgrounds. It’s not up in the hills or anything like that. That’s what so concerning.”
She said children playing around campgrounds might touch the hotdog or lard baits and be poisoned.
Gertsch is among those skeptical that the intended targets are wolves.
“In my personal opinion if you target wolves, you target where wolves are,” Gertsch said. “We are two to three miles out of town and it’s right on the road. Either they are very stupid or not sure who their target is.”
Dominic Domenici, a special agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Casper, said the baits could have been put out for either dogs or wolves.
Coyotes, ravens and foxes have also died from coming into contact with the poison, which can linger in carcasses.
Reward offered in search for culprit
Officials say they have a few leads, but are looking to the public to provide missing information.
“If you did see something that was strange or someone suspicious may be going out late in the evening,” the sheriff’s office wants to hear about it, Lieutenant Malik said.
Some suspicions have centered around Tim Sundles, a Salmon, Idaho, man who maintains a Web site with an article titled “How to Successfully Poison Wolves.” The article details using meat baits and filling them with Temik.
The recipe was also published in March in the “The Advertiser,” a Riverton-based circular.
Nearly $20,000 is being offered for information leading to an arrest in the case. The offenses are punishable by up to a $5,000 fine and six months in jail, per offense.
The lucky border collie’s owner, Paul Cote, thinks dogs may be the target and thinks the perpetrator is not local.
“Nobody is thinking it’s somebody who lives here,” he said. “Unless we have several copy-cat things here. Everybody knows everybody. We talk about it a lot.”
Cote said, too, that the baits have been found on ranches, inlcuding the Turpin Meadows Ranch and the Moosehead Ranch, where another dog died.
“The dogs at Turpin, they never left the yard,” he said. “Somebody must have driven up in there. …Early implications show that someone maybe came through in early winter and threw it out from a car. We’re hoping whatever is out there has been found.”