Investigators: Poison killed Colorado wolf

Toxicology tests show a gray wolf that strayed from Montana into Colorado where it was found dead in 2009 was killed by Compound 1080, a poison that is banned in Colorado, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Monday. The agency is seeking the public's help to pinpoint the source. Compound 1080, or sodium fluoroacetate, was commonly used to control coyotes, foxes and rodents until the U.S. banned it in 1972, but the rule has been modified. Today its only legal use is in collars used to protect sheep and goats from coyotes, and only in certain states. Colorado is not one of them. It's possible people who had the poison on hand before 1972 are still holding on to it, said Steve Oberholtzer, special agent in charge for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Mountain-Prairie Region. "That's what we're hoping to find: who has it and who's still using it," Oberholtzer said. Investigators suspect the wolf ingested the poison near where she was found, near Rio Blanco County Road 60 on April 6, 2009. Officers with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Colorado Division of Wildlife said they could not find any evidence of traps, poison baits or other potential causes of death in the area or other spots she visited before her death...more