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 [...]
Continue Reading →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 [...]
Continue Reading → 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 [...]
Continue Reading →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 [...]
Continue Reading →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 [...]
Continue Reading →Common human brain parasite Toxoplasma gondii doesn’t just make rats like cats-
It works like this. The protozoan Toxoplasma comes to maturity inside a cat and the cysts are expelled in cat feces. Any cat that lives part of the time outside may be infected. The parasite doesn’t hurt the cat, however.
A rat or [...]
Continue Reading →This post is in response to 2 scientific publications that have recently been published in the journal Canadian Field-Naturalist. Essentially, these two papers describe two different scenarios where the killing of coyote(s) eventually led to more coyotes in a local area. Many people, especially hunters that I have talked (or argued) with over the years, [...]
Continue Reading →Livestock owners’ wild imagination about predators not limited to the West-
Here is a little time out from the yarns and tales they spin in the Western United States about the vicious predators’ amazing feats of carnage. Supposedly a 10-member coyote pack came into a bison enclosure where there were 14 bison and somehow drove [...]
Continue Reading →Rancher ends up poisoning neighbor’s dogs instead of the intended coyotes-
This has happened many times. Rancher decides to poison coyotes, hawks, eagles, etc. Doesn’t have a legal poison to do it, or the animal might be protected. Rancher figures a toxic herbicide, pesticide, or his or her own concoction will do the trick. Ends [...]
Continue Reading →Puppy runs up to coyotes and gets killed-
Dog killed by coyotes in Aspen while on hiking trip. AP
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