Coyotes
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People upset by the actions of the federal wildlife control agency, Wildlife Services in the Dept. of Agriculture, usually don’t get any media attention. However, for over a year now the Sacramento Bee has had many stories about the Service, and they have done a lot of investigative reporting. Davis, Caifornia just responded to complaints…
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Famous scientist tells USDA Wildlife Services their age old coyote killing program actually increases number of coyotes and depredations- USDA Wildlife Services and its prior incarnations such as Animal Damage Control and Predator and Rodent Control has been indiscriminately killing coyotes for as long as the agency existed. This practice has often irritated a diffuse…
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Small canine predator chows down on white footed mice- People have sometimes blamed white-tailed deer as a factor spreading this growing menace, but a new study “Deer, predators, and the emergence of Lyme disease” hypothesizes through modeling and correlation analysis that the ecology of small mammal predators plays a key role in controlling or facilitating…
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This installment of Tom Knudson’s series in the Sacremento Bee investigates the efficacy of USDA Wildlife Services’ predator killing program to benefit wildlife. In short, it doesn’t, it generally causing more harm than good and could be having impacts on disease such as the plague due to the increase of rodents after control actions. In…
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I think it’s safe to say that this couldn’t be called a trend, but last year a funding shortfall for USDA Wildlife Services shortened their coyote killing season by two months in Montana while at the same time the number of domestic sheep that coyotes killed ended up being lower by 1,900. The effectiveness…
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White-tailed deer overpopulation boost cases due to more deer ticks- Lyme Disease is a real threat to those who go outdoors, unlike the recent hysteria over the rarely transmitted dog tapeworm larva (Echinococcus granulosus) to humans. In 2010 there were over 30,000 reported cases in the U.S. of often debilitating Lyme disease. It is usually…
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Ethics, safety, and fair chase hunting demands people should not be able to bait coyotes and engage in “recreational” hunting from their easy chair next to their window- On this blog we have often talked about the disproportionate favoritism that hunters generally receive over other users of wildlife. Well, recently one of my radio-collared eastern…
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In May of this year, the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed creating a Distinct Population Segment (or “DPS”) of wolves in the Great Lakes Region, and removing wolves in this DPS from federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections (76 Fed. Reg 26086). The “delisting” of wolves in the Great Lakes was recently discussed in…