A Coyote sticking out its tongue
Yesterday I clicked a link on Facebook to see the trailer of a movie called WILD THINGS: A film about the war on native carnivores and I know for certain that I want to see the movie in its entirety because I am totally against the war on our native predators. After viewing the trailer I noticed a link to another article written by NRDC’s Melissa Waage titled “The Federal Government is Killing 227 Coyotes a Day” and read it which led me to another article written by NRDC’s Andrew Wetzler titled “Setting the Record Straight: Why Wildlife Services Needs to Be Investigated“.
227 dead Coyotes a day are exterminated by U.S. Wildlife Services. In 2011 over 83,000 Coyotes met their deaths at the hands of Wildlife Services and I don’t know if that total includes the numbers of Coyotes killed by bounty programs in the states that have them including the state I live in where 6,000 Coyotes were killed in the first year that Utah offered a $50.00 bounty.
There are ways that people, Coyotes and other wildlife can peacefully coexist and a good source for information on that is Project Coyote where they promote coexistence between people and wildlife through education, science and advocacy.
I am thoroughly disgusted by the numbers of Coyotes and other apex predators that are killed annually by Wildlife Services and by the number of “unintended” kills. The number of “Animals Taken by Wildlife Services – FY 2011” totals 3,752,356 for just 2011 and it includes endangered species and federally protected migratory birds. Their “Bye bye Blackbird” program kills hundreds of thousands of “target” birds annually and also “unintentionally” kills bird that are not target species.
The name “Wildlife Services” even makes me ill because one would think that “Wildlife Services” would have something to do with protecting wildlife and this agency DOES not do that. I think it should be called “Wildlife Exterminators” because to put it simply THAT is what they do and they aren’t even transparent about it.
Do I think that Wildlife Services needs to be investigated?
Yes, and the sooner the better.
Mia
Heart hurtingly awful. And we do more than our fair share of killing on this side of the world too.
Yes I did know about it and have signed many petitions because not only do they kill them, but there was a whistle blower that exposed that some use extremely inhumane ways of killing them. It is revolting. Here is a video about it. http://www.predatordefense.org/exposed/ I hope everyone will view it and try to get this stopped.
Excellent but shocking half-hour on YouTube: four whistle-blowers expose the hidden side of Wildlife Services. Thanks for the link Sarah.
“Charismatic Megafauna” is the term I meant to use in the previous comment.
Sad news 🙁
The pressure that livestock farms, ranchers, and agriculture puts on the government to get rid of these “competitors” is just so overwhelming that the U.S. Wildlife Services has to ‘succumb’. The issue seems to be also that ‘wildlife’ is simply ‘wildlife no more’ because it competes with human interests. Coyotes eventually move in to more urbanised areas, private farms and agricultural fields. They are simply not allowed to hunt voles in those areas, because the voles are already controlled by other means (traps, poison, human control). This is the tragedy. Unfortunately, wildlife has been alienated and has to be “managed” by humans because of these natural ‘competitors’. Worse still, coyotes are “stigmatised” by their appearance and cunning abilities. They are also not the “cute” animals (Megafauna), so there is no remorse in killing them by the thousands.
Right on Maria! And it’s a similar story for the wolf, sad to say. Thanks Mia for this post today — recognizing the problem is a good first step.
It would be interesting to know if the Canadian gov’t is doing the same thing. WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!
Very interesting post, Mia. And I had no idea . . .