The US Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services kills thousands of predators and other animals each year. The stated mission of Wildlife Services is as follows:
"Wildlife Services (WS) provides federal leadership in managing problems caused by wildlife. WS helps manage wildlife to reduce damage to agriculture and natural resources; to minimize potential threats to human health and safety; and help protect threatened and endangered species."
Nowhere in their mission statement does Wildlife Services mention their use of killing as a "wildlife management" tool. Yet the USDA’s Wildlife Services (formerly called Animal Damage Control) spends millions of dollars exterminating populations of coyotes, mountain lions, and other predators responsible for livestock death and crop destruction.
Wildlife Services seeks to diminish predator populations in order to protect livestock belonging to ranchers and farmers. This needless slaughter of animals, however, achieves only a modest reduction in the amount of lost livestock. In reality, livestock animals grazing in the habitat of natural predators will always face the threat of death. Non-lethal methods of predator control would protect livestock to the same degree, while sparing the lives of predators, which are necessary to their ecosystems. In fact, the extermination efforts of Wildlife Services sometimes backfire, resulting in increased predator populations.
Coyotes
People and agencies hired by Wildlife Services have injected coyotes with chemicals, poisoned them, shot at them from airplanes, strangled them with neck snares, run them down with snow mobiles, used leghold traps, buried them alive in their dens, and employed a host of other hideous methods to exterminate them. 1,884, 897 bounties were paid on coyotes from 1915 to 1947, and the techniques listed above continue to be used today.
Killing Coyotes Does Not Diminish Coyote Populations
Surprisingly, these efforts to control coyote populations have not decimated the animal’s numbers. In fact, the coyote’s range and numbers have increased. For example, the Colorado Division of Wildlife reports that in Colorado coyotes are likely more numerous than they were when settlers first arrived.
Violently disruptive measures cause packs of coyotes to splinter, allowing younger males to breed with females, a task usually reserved for the alpha male in a pack structure. The absence of a hierarchical structure results in an increase in coyote population. New coyote packs require new territory, and coyotes cover an increased amount of land in search of food sources.
Wildlife Services commonly employs several inhumane methods to control other predator populations as well, including:
The use of steel jaw traps and wire neck snares.
The use of sheep collars with Compound 1080, a poison lethal to humans and a cause of prolonged suffering before death.
The use of baited explosive devices that explode in a predator's mouth.
These lethal methods of wildlife management can be replaced with more humane methods.
Instead of killing predators, compensate farmers and ranchers for confirmed losses.
Use fences, scare devices, and guard animals to deter predators. Guard animals include certain dogs and llamas.
Place livestock in pens at night. Herd sheep with cattle. Cattle deter coyotes and certain predators.
