Captal_de_Buch
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Indiana is considering a $5 boundy on Coyotes.
Heres the whole story
Coyote bounty proposed
By SETH SLABAUGH
[email protected]
MUNCIE - State Rep. Dale Grubb of Covington wants to put a $5 bounty on coyotes in counties where they present a threat to domestic animals or wild game.
The farmer and Democratic caucus leader from west central Indiana said his House Bill 1118 had been prompted by sheep farmers.
But he has another motivation. Grubb believes coyotes are responsible for a lack of rabbits and game birds.
That's a myth, according to coyote experts, who also say coyote bounties are ineffective and ecologically reckless.
"The coyote population over here has just exploded in the last few years," Grubb said. "They have no natural predators, obviously."
While it's legal to hunt coyotes in Indiana in October through February, and while landowners may take coyotes at any time on the land they own, a bounty is needed "to provide a little encouragement for people to actively participate in holding the population down," Grubb said.
Under his bill, to claim a coyote bounty a person would deliver both ears of the animal to a conservation officer. Coyote bounty claims would then be paid by township trustees from their dog-tax revenue.
Farmers blamed
CeAnn Lambert of the Indiana Coyote Rescue Center, in Carroll County, doesn't buy the argument that coyotes are to blame for a shortage of game birds and rabbits.
She blames farmers for destroying fence rows and other habitat of ground-nesting birds and rabbits.
Bobwhite quail, once one of the most commonly recognized birds in rural Indiana, have not prospered during the transition from pastoral to clean, row-crop agriculture, according to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
"Over the last half century, agriculture has progressively tended toward cleaner practices resulting in the fragmentation or elimination of upland grass or old-field habitats," DNR reported in a 2001 study.
Lambert said she had heard no reports of livestock losses in Indiana caused by coyotes.
"What I'm hearing is people seeing them in their yards and people finding dead cats and small dogs whose deaths are blamed on coyotes," she said.
Coyotes benefit farmers by eating rodents and insects. A captive coyote at Wolf Park, near Lafayette, was observed eating 10,000 mice in a year, Lambert said. She said that a coyote living near her barn killed 11 rats in a day.
'A quick buck'
According to Camilla Fox, national campaign coordinator for the Sacramento-based Animal Protection Institute, keeping coyote populations intact benefits ground-nesting birds.
"It is a documented, scientific fact that in areas where coyote populations are reduced through ... poisoning, shooting and trapping, the result is the population of meso-predators like red fox, skunks, feral cats and raccoons increases," Fox said. "Coyotes keep those meso-predators, which heavily predate on ground-nesting birds, in check."
In addition, Fox said, bounties are ineffective in controlling coyote populations and reducing livestock predation, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has said so in writing.
"When you aim to kill as many coyotes as possible for a quick buck, it wreaks havoc on the ecosystem and disrupts the social structure of the coyotes, which leads to increased breeding, increased litters and increased pup survival," Fox said.
While lethal control might produce a short-term reduction of coyotes in a particular area, she said, the vacuum is soon filled by coyotes moving in from surrounding areas.
Heres the whole story
Coyote bounty proposed
By SETH SLABAUGH
[email protected]
MUNCIE - State Rep. Dale Grubb of Covington wants to put a $5 bounty on coyotes in counties where they present a threat to domestic animals or wild game.
The farmer and Democratic caucus leader from west central Indiana said his House Bill 1118 had been prompted by sheep farmers.
But he has another motivation. Grubb believes coyotes are responsible for a lack of rabbits and game birds.
That's a myth, according to coyote experts, who also say coyote bounties are ineffective and ecologically reckless.
"The coyote population over here has just exploded in the last few years," Grubb said. "They have no natural predators, obviously."
While it's legal to hunt coyotes in Indiana in October through February, and while landowners may take coyotes at any time on the land they own, a bounty is needed "to provide a little encouragement for people to actively participate in holding the population down," Grubb said.
Under his bill, to claim a coyote bounty a person would deliver both ears of the animal to a conservation officer. Coyote bounty claims would then be paid by township trustees from their dog-tax revenue.
Farmers blamed
CeAnn Lambert of the Indiana Coyote Rescue Center, in Carroll County, doesn't buy the argument that coyotes are to blame for a shortage of game birds and rabbits.
She blames farmers for destroying fence rows and other habitat of ground-nesting birds and rabbits.
Bobwhite quail, once one of the most commonly recognized birds in rural Indiana, have not prospered during the transition from pastoral to clean, row-crop agriculture, according to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
"Over the last half century, agriculture has progressively tended toward cleaner practices resulting in the fragmentation or elimination of upland grass or old-field habitats," DNR reported in a 2001 study.
Lambert said she had heard no reports of livestock losses in Indiana caused by coyotes.
"What I'm hearing is people seeing them in their yards and people finding dead cats and small dogs whose deaths are blamed on coyotes," she said.
Coyotes benefit farmers by eating rodents and insects. A captive coyote at Wolf Park, near Lafayette, was observed eating 10,000 mice in a year, Lambert said. She said that a coyote living near her barn killed 11 rats in a day.
'A quick buck'
According to Camilla Fox, national campaign coordinator for the Sacramento-based Animal Protection Institute, keeping coyote populations intact benefits ground-nesting birds.
"It is a documented, scientific fact that in areas where coyote populations are reduced through ... poisoning, shooting and trapping, the result is the population of meso-predators like red fox, skunks, feral cats and raccoons increases," Fox said. "Coyotes keep those meso-predators, which heavily predate on ground-nesting birds, in check."
In addition, Fox said, bounties are ineffective in controlling coyote populations and reducing livestock predation, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture has said so in writing.
"When you aim to kill as many coyotes as possible for a quick buck, it wreaks havoc on the ecosystem and disrupts the social structure of the coyotes, which leads to increased breeding, increased litters and increased pup survival," Fox said.
While lethal control might produce a short-term reduction of coyotes in a particular area, she said, the vacuum is soon filled by coyotes moving in from surrounding areas.
