From our friends at Project Coyote, this upsetting press release.
Wildlife advocates are condemning an upcoming coyote killing “tournament”, scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 21, and sponsored by the Bent Rod Outdoors, a Challis business.
“This event has no place in the 21st Century”, said Brian Ertz, a Hailey resident, and president of Wildlife Watchers, a group that says wildlife viewing, rather than killing, is preferred by the majority of Idahoans. “We are urging concerned citizens to contact the Bent Rod Outdoors [(208) 879-2500], and also the Challis Chamber of Commerce [(208) 879-2771] to protest this day-long coyote slaughter.”
The coyote “tournament” was publicized through ads in the Challis Messenger on Feb. 12 and 18. When contacted, a Bent Rod employee stated that there would be prizes including cash for the most coyotes killed, the largest and smallest coyotes, and other categories. Coyote killers would enter the Bent Rod’s “tournament” by paying $25 per person, or $50 for a two-person team. The “contest” starts Saturday morning and ends that evening at Bent Rod Outdoors.
The full release is below the fold. You have time to make a call: I know it.
No, seriously, you do. Don’t make me pull out the pictures.
OK, fine.
Idaho coyote and raven. Photos by Lynne K. Stone.
Challis Chamber of Commerce (208) 879-2771
Bent Rod Outdoors (208) 879-2500
Also, please note the ORV-related item in the release. Yeah, class acts, those guys. Respecters of wildlife, those guys.
PRESS RELEASE
February 18, 2009
CONTACTS:
Brian Ertz, President, Wildlife Watchers, www.wildlifewatchers.net
Camilla Fox, Director, Project Coyote, Wildlife Consultant, Animal Welfare Institute
www.projectcoyote.org www.awionline.org
Lynne K. Stone, Director, Boulder-White Clouds Council
www.wildwhiteclouds.org
Wildlife advocates condemn Challis coyote killing “tournament”
(Hailey, Idaho)- Wildlife advocates are condemning an upcoming coyote killing “tournament”, scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 21, and sponsored by the Bent Rod Outdoors, a Challis business.
“This event has no place in the 21st Century”, said Brian Ertz, a Hailey resident, and president of Wildlife Watchers, a group that says wildlife viewing, rather than killing, is preferred by the majority of Idahoans. “We are urging concerned citizens to contact the Bent Rod Outdoors (208.879.2500), and also the Challis Chamber of Commerce (208.879.2771) to protest this day-long coyote slaughter.”
The coyote “tournament” was publicized through ads in the Challis Messenger on Feb. 12 and 18. When contacted, a Bent Rod employee stated that there would be prizes including cash for the most coyotes killed, the largest and smallest coyotes, and other categories. Coyote killers would enter the Bent Rod’s “tournament” by paying $25 per person, or $50 for a two-person team. The “contest” starts Saturday morning and ends that evening at Bent Rod Outdoors.
“Coyote contest hunts are ecologically unsound and ethically indefensible,” states Camilla Fox, Founding Director of Project Coyote and Wildlife Consultant with the Animal Welfare Institute. “Such hunts do nothing to reduce coyote populations or conflicts and if anything may serve to increase regional coyote populations.”
Ertz adds: “There’s no fair chase in trapping or calling in coyotes and nobody’s feeding their family with coyote meat. This is a blatant example of animal cruelty, indecency and shows a total lack of respect for life. I’m surprised and disappointed that a business would host an event that celebrates the needless pain and suffering of an animal that’s been called “God’s Dog.”*
“Coyote killing contests are brutal and foster antipathy toward coyotes, degrading them to vermin status, which is antithetical to conservation biology and ecosystem-based science.” said Fox.
The groups say that while coyotes will prey on larger mammals, their diet consists mainly of small mammals including mice, voles, rats, ground squirrels and rabbits—providing free rodent control services to ranchers. The coalition also points out that progressive cattle and sheep ranchers are living with coyotes using non-lethal methods.
Much like wolves, generally, unexploited coyotes may live in social family groups, with only the alpha pair breeding once a year in mid-February and giving birth 63 days later. Other females, though physiologically capable of reproducing, are “behaviorally sterile.” Coyotes respond to lethal control with a number of biological mechanisms, which can result in increased litter size.
In a coyote “contest”, so-called hunters slaughter coyotes using various techniques to attract the coyote into rifle range. This may include using leg hold traps that only have to be checked every 72 hours in Idaho, or a distress call that sounds like an injured animal. Coyotes, like humans, feel a strong bond to other members of their species, and when they hear a cry for help, may come to investigate.
Coyote hunters have also been known to bait in coyotes for “sport” shooting, using livestock that have died from old age, illness, or injury.
The wildlife groups protesting the coyote “tournament” include the Project Coyote, Wildlife Watchers, Boulder-White Clouds Council, Animal Welfare Institute, Big Wildlife, Footloose Montana, Dr. Tom Huhnerkoch/Mountain Cats Trust, Western Watersheds Project, and numerous individuals.
Coyotes have no protection whatsoever under current Idaho law. Coyotes can be run over with a vehicle, including being chased to exhaustion and run over with a snowmobile. When this happened in the Sawtooth Valley several years ago, a photo of the flattened coyote received widespread negative press for the sport of snow-machining.
The wildlife groups protesting the Challis hunt say they have contacted law enforcement officials in the Idaho Dept. of Fish and Game, the U.S. Forest Service and the BLM to make them aware of the coyote killing event planned by the Bent Rod, and urged extra patrols so that the common (though illegal) practice of shooting coyotes off highways and back roads does not occur.
*“God’s Dog” was written by biologist Hope Ryden, published in 1989 by Lyons
Press, and is an account of her studies of coyotes in the American West.
Ugh.. what do you even say to people who would sponsor something like this?
I’m definitely willing to make a phone call, but I’m really at a loss for anything to say that won’t just come across as “hippy liberal from Las Vegas telling us what to do” in their minds.
Hi there,
I am just emailing my support for the protest against this horrendous-sounding ‘tournament’. If there is
anywhere to email and voice this protest directly, please let me know. Thanks for advertising this and I
really hope the voices against it have some effect.
Yours sincerely,
Amy Dickman.
Damn. Some mornings I really don’t like the humans very much.
Foul, filthy, loathsome, disgusting motherfuckers. That is five redundancies.
That is sick.
I can’t believe this still happens - stupidly on par with the Texas’ rattlesnake round-ups.
I called the CoC this morning, told them I’m a wildlife photographer who wants to visit Idaho, and that their conduct will determine whether I choose to spend any money with their local businesses.
The above has the advantage of being true.
Unbelievable that we still have so many IGNORANT REDNECKS with a disdain for native wildlife. I really like coyotes. They’re intelligent and adaptable and unfairly persecuted by the criminal livestock industry. I sincerely hope these people get theirs someday for what they’ve done to innocent wildlife.
Please! Make phone calls including to the Idaho Fish and Game: 208-756-2271.
Do it! Pick up the phone—it will be worth it.
It’s so disgusting that words fail me (at least insofar as others have already said the various profanities and foul names that came to mind…).
I called both and shared this horror with everyone I know so they could do the same.
Okay, I’ve deleted comments from people on both sides of the issue, so my “censorship” has been even-handed.
I come from a long line of rural white folks. Rest assured that there are rednecks that would find this hunt abhorrent, people who live in trailers (like my mother, for instance) who would find this hunt abhorrent, and hell, even ignorant people who’d root for the coyotes.
So I’m not about to tolerate any more comments from people blaming this hunt on “trailer trash,” and if you don’t like that, may Coyote piss on your white picket fence and dainty lace curtains.
Hello, my name is Josh Kivi, and I kill coyotes. I call them in with my reed-calls and then shoot them with my high-powered rifle. I know this may sound like I persecute coyotes, but i don’t. They persecute my community. When cows are calving, ask any farmer about coyotes. They say the same thing I will. The fact that YOU people don’t know anything really upsets me. Any intelligent person can see that coyotes are vermin. They are. The mangy ones don’t do anything but make the whole pack suffer. Do you want that? A whole pack dying of exposure because all of their hair fell out. Or would you prefer that you kill one and save 10 from a long, horrible death in the Idaho cold. If you have anything to say to me, I would gladly tell you the truth. My e-mail is coruptcleric@gmail.com. Feel free to send me any correspondence you like.
You say you don’t persecute coyotes? You just called them “vermin” and implied that it’s OK to kill them for any reason, did you not?
Coyotes are NOT vermin. They serve a necessary role in the balance of our ecosystem.
Humanely killing wildlife that is SICK or DISEASED is vastly different than killing coyotes for FUN or SPORT, Josh Kivi.
Your post makes no sense as it does not distinquish between killing coyotes for any reason.
It is NOT OK to kill coyotes or any animal for the FUN of it or because you personally “think they are vermin.”
That is disgusting. If you have no respect for all of God’s creatures, you are a waste of time to talk to.
Coyotes don’t just kill “rats/prairie dogs/voles/squirrels and eat things that have already died” they kill or bring disease our pets, stock and antelope along with our other wildlife along with being known to have attacked more then one person and being linked to rabies and many other diseases. Plus they are very over populated with a very very resilient population in Idaho and are a nuisance to hunters and farmers all over the state. Besides its no different then say a fishing tournament and nobody is having a conniption over those. I cant believe all the controversy over this obviously these are people without a clue, just ask a farmer in the spring during calving and lambing season what they think of coyotes. I personally am proud to say I support The Bent Rod and their decision to host this. I hope they make it an annual event!!
When did this start being about Fundamentalist Christians?
Since wolves are the Saddam Hussein of the animal world, I guess that makes coyotes Osama bin Laden.
Anyone who holds a personal GRUDGE OR HATRED towards certain animals is probably one ignorant individual greatly in need of therapy.
It’s like hating all “Jews” or “Muslims.”
I LOVE coyotes and wolves and many other animals that have too long been persected by none other than the LIVESTOCK INDUSTRY.
Hi, I’m Jessica! so, I’m disappointed I missed this event and I hope they make this an annual event so I can attend next year. I do so much in the outdoors I might as well not even live in a house! I Hunt, fish, hike etc. and I support the event because I have seen how many coyotes are in the area and witnessed some horrendous things they do to other animals. And really, it’s one day long, this will hardly put a dent in the population!
Jessica
Well, Jessica, I’m just gonna have to disagree with you there. I’d much rather see coyotes than one more damned steer when I’m out in the outback. And while I eat venison with the best of ‘em, I just can’t understand the mind set of someone that would find pleasure in killing coyotes for sport.
But thanks for the upbeat message, and feel free to stick around. Let us try to change your mind. Have a good day!
When you say “sport” I don’t think you fully understand that. When I hunt I appreciate the trophy side of things but we also use the resource’s and eat everything we kill. With coyotes it’s a little different because they carry a lot of diseases so it’s not really safe to use them in that way but I tan my coyote hides and they are in my house just as a deer mount is. I respect everything I harvest.
thanks for responding!
Jessica
I respect everything I harvest.
Me too, Jessica. I respect the trophies I collect almost as much as I love killing them. Because what could express one’s devotion to God’s creation more than taking out one of the little suckers He put here for our amusement?
Coyotes are vermin. They are no better or no worse than a common rat or squirrel. The fact of the matter is, the more humans are separated from the origins of their food source, the more empathy they have for the common predator. A lot of it has to do with the media’s current love affair with wolves, and bobcats, and hawks, and the like. The difference is, a lot (but not all) of the populations of these predators remain far from public view. They do not commonly walk the streets of suburbia and scale a six foot wooden fence only to make off with your six pound Fi-Fi.
Coyotes carry and spread the same diseases that common pets can contract. They have been spreading diseases. They will continue to spread diseases. Why is this? Why are sick coyotes carrying rabies and distemper able to survive long enough to spread it on to other animals? Why are they now breeding with dogs, entering people’s homes, living in New York City while still sitting pretty on the range?
I can tell you. It isn’t the “Southern Hicks” who are creating a problem and then glorifying it. It’s all of you city folks who’s lives and wellbeing aren’t determined by how many calves are born each year or how many chickens are able to lay in a week. We work on a day to day basis spending countless thousands each year to make sure that our farm animals have the protection they need. Money for fencing, guard dogs, alarm systems, safe traps, and proper predator proof housing. We keep the lids on our trash locked and food out of the way. So far this year I haven’t lost a single chicken.
Yes, coyotes aren’t the problem. People are. But instead of sitting around telling farmers and ranchers what they should and shouldn’t be doing to solve it, take a look at yourselves. You may be living in Manhattan, but the issue is still there. Every time you throw away old food and trash, giving these creatures a place to live and eat. The cities are changing the way coyotes work. They’re making them bolder and more street smart and at the same time allowing genetically weak and inferior creatures to thrive.
All I can really say is, try to get closer to your food. Raise a few chickens. Try bantams if you don’t have a lot of space. It’s a learning process, but along the way you’ll figure out ways of keeping your ‘food’ safe all the while gaining a little more insight as to how large of an issue this has become. You’ll also realize that a lot of your old habits are what’s causing this issue. Put locks on the trash cans, dumpsters, keep your food indoors, feed the pets indoors… KEEP the domestic pets indoors, and learn the magic of chicken wire.
All the while, you’ll be lessening your ecological impact on the Earth and on the coyote populations. You’ll gain perspective before assuming that everyone in the country is some shoot-em-up hick. Coyotes are vermin, but shooting them isn’t the answer. Insight is. Learn it, gain it, use it.
(This is a post against some of the hateful remarks about country folk and not entirely the article at hand.)
Amazing that people can complain about “hateful remarks” when they start off calling things “vermin” and proceed to lay down a bunch of ignorant assumptions about the people who disagree with them.
Who is this “you” you’re talking to, Annie? Some straw-New Yorker you’ve conjured up in a bad dream? Among the people commenting in this thread are country folk, wilderness folk, field biologists and wildlife managers. Peddle your stereotypes somewhere else.
I’ve let this post stay open long enough. The people who project their hateful insecurities onto coyotes have had enough play time for their hate speech.