The civilian disarmament industry keeps talking about how an “assault weapons” ban, ammunition capacity limits and universal gun registration leaves hunters’ rights intact.  As if the Constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms is use-specific. Which it isn’t. Of course, the gun control folk know nothing of hunting, as witnessed by the oft-repeated remark that any hunter who needs more than three bullets isn’t much of a hunter (ignoring hog hunting and the modern sporting rifle’s other advantages in the field). Brits will recognize the U.S. gun grabbers’ “we’re not anti-hunting” arguments—even as they fight a rear-guard action to preserve their few remaining gun rights and the antis launch drones. In short, we’re all in this together.

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38 COMMENTS

  1. maryland they are wanted dead too, buts its a hush-hush secret because we would not want to offend the libotards. I feel like some of the libotards in Maryland tolerate the hunters like the Amish Mafia – they know we are needed to keep the deer and coyotes at bay, but shhh dont talk about it!

    • all these people who object to “To try to establish that it’s normal to have guns and it’s normal to kill other living creatures in New South Wales, which at the moment, it isn’t normal.”

      the first question I have is how long they have been 100% vegetarian in New South Wales.

  3. Why is the NYT writing about a predator problem in the West that they know nothing about? Typical. I know this doesn’t apply to the readers on here but there are a lot of people from the East who seem to think they know what is best for us and our wildlife. They think we just don’t have enough coyotes, wolves, cougars, grizzly bears, etc. Well why don’t they take some of them? Really wolves and cougars were native to the East yet any attempt to reintroduce them is stopped. They only want mythical animals, ones that they say are there but aren’t. It is amazing how many black cougars have been spotted in the East. You know what is really amazing about it? There never has been a black cougar killed or captured! All the cougars that have been killed or captured in states like NY have been released pets identifiable as South American origin through DNA analysis.

    Coyotes are a problem and killing 10,000 of them certainly is not going to hurt the population. I live in the Seattle city limits and I have the damn things in my backyard at times. Well there have been cougars and bears in the city limits here but the coyotes are common whereas the other animal visits were oddities.

    It seems to me that many people in the East seem to think that those animals should be “out there” and remain uncontrolled. I like having all predators here and in fact one of my most memorable hunts was shooting a 180 pound cougar. Ate it too! I just think they should be managed and the wildlife departments are far more capable of that then some do gooders that know nothing about the situation.

    Anyway the coyote problem is going to take a second seat in Utah when the wolves reach there which they will in numbers soon. There have already been reports of some wolves there and they will become numerous in a few years. Wolves are already all over Washington state coming from the transplants in Idaho and natural migration from BC. The impact has already been felt with ranchers. There is an answer that I don’t agree with but when people get desperate they resort extralegal means. Small ranchers cannot afford to lose even a couple of cattle so some have started spreading Xylitol spiked meat about, or so I am told.

  4. Am I the only one who finds this widespread practice repulsive? Unless you are going to eat them (!), or they are causing you personal harm and/or destruction, let them be. Remember “live and let live”?

    If coyotes are causing your neighbor problems, leave it to him to take care of the problem. Unless he specifically asks for your help, and has a good reason.

    Coyotes have suffered depradations formerly reserved for wolves, who are much more destructive and dangerous. They remove some of the field rodent population, as well as rabbits and young deer.

    If you are personally suffering harm to you, your family and pets, by all means, do what you have to do. But remember, they’re not ambulatory furry targets. They’re living things.

    • Yes, you are the only one. Coyotes are very destructive to farms, deer, foxes, pets, birds, and small children. Around here they are traveling in packs and attacking pets. I dont mind so much about the deer and geese, we are overrun with them, except that they displace the foxes and then when they are numerous and hungry they go after small kids and pets.

      • No, he is not the only one.

        Shooting critters for giggles is messed up, not that you have specifically stated that you do this, Dwb, but there are plenty who do.

        • i dont think anyone mentioned shooting critters for giggles. The point of the program is that they are destructive predators. the bounty is to encourage people and make it worth their time and ammo – not much different than calling animal control, who also get paid. If people were shooting them for giggles, they would not need to pay them.

      • We’ve been having similar problems here, in the suburbs just north of Cincinnati, OH the past few years. Mom and I have seen coyotes track through the yard since we moved in about 20 years ago, but it was always late at night, usually alone or in pairs (or with pups in whelping season), so nothing to be worried about. The past about 5 years they’ve been moving in packs of 5-10 and have become bold enough to be out in the yards, away from cover, as late as noon. One pack is bold enough to use my deck as an ambush point for deer. We tried to notify animal control about 6 years ago when one tracked me from my car to the house (approached to within 15 feet and was maintaining aggressive posture the whole time. Bear in mind I’m 5’9″ and at the time weighed 225lbs from warehouse lifting all day) when I worked an odd late shift. They told us we were nuts and just seeing a neighbor’s dog that got out. Now people’s kids and I have been approached and pets have been killed. We can’t shoot them because of city limits, and animal control now won’t do anything because it’s “too big a problem”. We have to pay for traps, etc. ourselves..then pay $600 a carcass for the state to take it.

    • There can be all kinds of rationale for wholesale slaughter but it is what it is. Participating in government (taxpayer) funded bounty programs just makes you an enabler of short-sighted, asinine people and programs that drain our pockets and perpetuate our adverse impacts on the natural world. Deer and elk don’t need us to feed them. Killing off coyotes results in population surges of rabbits and rodents. I’m not about to shoot anything just because the government encourages it.

      • psmcd sounds like someone who has never had to live with a significant coyote population. After they kill and eat his pet cat or his miniature schnauzer he will have different feelings about them.

        The deer in our neighborhood are a bigger problem than the coyotes. I have counted as many as 19 of them in our yard destroying totally any landscaping or gardening we have foolishly attempted. Our city council was going to sponsor a bow hunt a few years ago but the mommies put up too much of a stink–afraid their kids would be mistaken for a 300 pound white tail buck! Of course, they could just keep the damned brats inside for a couple of hours but it might spoil their little psyches.

        • I live and work where coyotes and foxes eat cats and small dogs. I see plenty of them. I once watched a fox steal a potato from my cook fire and I once spent a night too close to too many coyotes wondering if they might take an interest in me. As a boy out in the fields the big concern was two or more dogs up to no good and that’s no different today. If a dog, fox, coyote, raccoon, skunk or whatever is a problem I would trap it or shoot it. I also think the DNR/DWR does good work, but I’m not a fan of taxpayer funded bounties.

          I’ve known farmers, ranchers and folks who live in rural areas all my life and have no problem with how they deal with wildlife problems. I think where you are Jay, we would be on the same page. I just wouldn’t want the government paying anyone to sling lead in the neighborhood. If you have a clear, safe shot downrange and it’s your neighborhood you ought to be able to manage your property as necessary.

  5. If you kill too many predators, it will upset the natural balance and other problems will occur from it. Like what happened with wolves in Yellowstone.

    • If there are too many predators it will upset the natural balance and other problems will occur from it. Balance has two ends to it.

      • This. I’m going coyote hunting next week because they’re out of control in the area around my host’s ranch. They have nearly obliterated the local turkey population, and the ranchers sometimes have to stand guard during calving/lambing season.

        Humans are part of the ecosystem too, like it or not, and as a result we have a role to play in restoring balance when our presence disrupts the equilibrium. Sometimes that means shooting predators.

        It’s also more enjoyable to hunt predators in CA, in many cases, because the regulations are much more reasonable. I’ll be using my new 5.45 AR, for example, which would not be allowed for most other legal game.

        • Definitely. People who know nothing of coyotes and the harm they cause should not give advice about coyote hunting. In the same manner, I don’t accept hunting advice from Feinstein or self defense advice from Biden.

  6. I was recently summoned to the home of a family member, by them and their neighbors. Walked into an ‘intervention’ type setting :/. Well, as it turns out the coyotes that roam the gold course their houses border, had begun to take interest in their lil dogs. Fyi this is just outside cook county, Illinois. They had all expressed anti-gun sentiments to me before, and yet they wanted me to go out at sunrise and just kill all the coyotes ‘because I was in the army’ LOL.. I tried to explain how that they would have probably be the ones calling 911 on me if it wasn’t their dogs at risk.. And how the sound of rifle fire carrys, especially over a golf course. They didn’t get it… I took care of it anyway, with a .22 marlin I had to borrow from a friend. Probably not the most humane way, but these people treat their dogs like family, and I enjoy my freedom.

  8. A lot of the anti stance over here in the U.K seems to stem from ignorance about agriculture and the surrounding tasks associated with it Pest/Predator Control. Since the majority of the population mass is located in the cities that tends to be where most of the opposition comes from. Lets face it there are some people over here that have absolutely no idea that beef comes from a cow let alone how vegetables are grown.

    They are ignorant of what it takes to successfully manage an agricultural environment. The only predators and pests they will ever face are the ones that come on two legs and may well be armed in some way so they will always react with fear and intollerance to anything associated with firearms.

    They like to live without the realisation of death and its place in their own lives. What I mean by this in example is that from the clothes they wear (cotton) to the food they eat all of it comes from an environment where pests have to be “controlled” and thereby in extension they are in someway (product demand) associated with the act of control.

      • I have lived in both countries and its usually the women and the feminised/overly civilised males whom have lost the inner hunter gatherer. They are antis that will accept the byproducts of death but not the act itself.
        .
        Then when you ask them the dilema question….

        Would you rather be hunted (with chance of escape) or farmed (no get out of jail card)? or would you just be prepared to give up the majority of the everyday items you have come to rely on in life?
        It usually causes them to give up when you ram home the mental idea that even if they are vegetarian even the act of turning on the lights is a result of something dying somewhere along the line either by habbitat loss or other.

  9. I live on a small island with a draw bridge and guess what? We have a coyote problem. The latest incident was a couple of weeks ago when a lady was walking her dog and the small dog got attacked and killed. There is more than one as well. More like a small family pack.

    And how about feral hogs? They breed like rabbits and destroy everything.

  11. I grew up in the rural southeast, and it was not uncommon to lose a calf (in addition to plenty of barn cats and the odd goat) to coyotes. They were shoot-on-sight animals not because we wanted the thrill of killing a living creature, but because they’re immensely destructive to farmers.

    By far the worst coyote problem I’ve seen, though, is in the semi-rural areas of San Diego County. Virtually every cat that escaped from a house was a lost cause, and it was a common thing to hear about coyotes grabbing a labradoodle from the backyard of a mcmansion or snatching up a chihuahua while it was on its leash in the middle of a residential neighborhood. I even had one neighbor who swore that coyotes killed his pit bull. And, since it’s SoCal and everyone is hippie-dippie enlightened and disarmed, the coyotes will trot through your garden in broad daylight with you sitting fifteen feet away.

    Wily critters that they are, they’ve long since learned that people are nothing to worry about and might even bring them a meal on four feet every now and then.

  12. Canis Latrans. The singing dog. My favorite animal of all time. Tops out at 45 mph or so, fastest dog on earth, beats greyhounds. Lives in almost all eco systems. Has been known to play dead then snatch at curious vultures, also one will stalk a groundhog entrance while another waits at the backdoor then they switch for each other. We’ll never dent there population cause they’re better at it than us, even while howling out there location every night. They will be here after we are gone. A few years ago when Chicago got real hot, I saw a news story where one came in a convenience store and hopped in a freezer for a while to cool off. I love to see snooty progressive/liberal/tell-u-how-to-live types talk all about how predatory hunting is bad while wearing a $200 down puffy coat: Where do you think the feathers came from, idiot? This has inspired me to go hunt coyotes, even though I never thought I would. I want a free coyote fur coat. Meat is murder…tasty, furry, warm murder

    • Due to the mild (albiet long) winter here in chicago… they are having a huge rebound in population. just west of o’hare, wheren the houses start to thin out… they are quite bold. and biking along the des plaines river… closer to the city.. if i ride for a couple hours along the river …i’m certian to see one, at least with the leaves down. Also, it has been many generations that they have been living alongside us, it’s almost getting to the point of a symbyotic relationship. Not as of our best friend, but as of a small predator that has to hop in to attempt to fix our fukd suburban ecosystem.
      Eventually they will relearn thier fear of humans, and begin to cut down on the damn skunks hopefully.

  13. Coyotes in the west are like cockroaches in NYC. We have a joke in the intermountain west: After they drop The Bomb, there will be only three things left alive:

    – the cockroach or stinkbug (depending on your location)
    – the pocket gopher
    – and the coyote.

    Coyotes reproduce like crazy and they will take on just about any meal they can get. Roadkill, small vermin, domestic animals. I’ve seen them in cattle pens at this time of year, feeding on cows’ placenta after they’ve calved (or dink calves if the mother can’t or won’t defend them). I’ve seen them in people’s garbage. I’ve seen them break into dog pens to eat domestic dogs’ food/kibble.

    The best game numbers in Nevada (a state were I’ve seen the stats and prior studies on game populations, including pronghorn and mule deer) showed that the “fawn recruitment rate” (survival of infant game species through their first breeding season) was significantly higher when the western range had the ADC (Animal Damage Control) program going in the 60’s. You could see the fall-off in mulie recruitment after the environmentalists got the ADC programs curtailed, severely, in the 80’s.

    There are now coyotes in all CONUS states, and there have even been coyotes spotted in Central Park, NYC. There is no shortage of these animals, and the trope the PhD’s in “wildlife management” keep shopping is that the huge number of coyotes in the west “are not the reason for decline in mule deer recruitment” or anything else, for that matter, including the heavy decline in the numbers of some passerine birds. This strikes me as nonsense on stilts, because until Utah’s bounty came along, there has been no structured study from which anyone could make such pronouncements based on sound science.

    Now, here’s a little tip for people who want to hunt ‘yotes: The price of pelts is up this season – as high as $45 in some places for a skinned, stretched and dried pelt. That’s a pretty good return on investment if you shoot them in the head with a .17 HMR, which won’t exit and leaves only one small hole you can close with a single stitch. An afternoon calling on BLM land could pay for a lot of ammo…

  14. As someone who lives in Utah, I can tell you right away that a lot of the information this reporter is saying is false (I know you’re surprised coming from the NY Times). I would like to know her source for saying the 5k were killed in just the first couple months as that would deplete half of the budget. She also makes it sound as if hunters are just flooding in with truck loads of coyotes to get their bounty. Someone could hunt coyotes here for days and never see a single coyote, i know from personal experience. I know other states that have significantly more coyotes than what we have here. The bounty money does NOT come from taxes, it is funded with money the DWR gets from hunting permits. People are not making a living hunting coyotes, they would starve to death fast if that was the case.

    They occasionally roam where I take my dogs for walks and I have had to put down one coyote after it tried to attack my dog. Not a month goes by here that there isn’t a a story in the news where a coyote attacked livestock, pets or even humans. It’s rare for a coyote to attack a human but it’s becoming of frequent here for some reason. They also kill deer as I’ve seen pictures from trail cameras of coyotes carrying a fawns in their mouths. I’m not one to just hunt and kill for “giggles” but I will protect my dogs and food sources.

    For those on here that say it’s wrong to kill these pests, if one came into your house and stole food out of your fridge and endangered the safety of your family, would you just let it do it’s thing?

  15. I live in SLC. In 2014, my cat was killed right in front of my home by three raiding coyotes. I was able to chase them in my car down the road – this was not outside town, but INSIDE Millcreek area! I retrieved my cat’s body and at least there was coyote fur embedded in its claws…

    I’d love nothing more than to squeeze a few rounds off at a coyote someday.

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