MWC Opposes Establishment of Western Great Lakes Distinct Poplulation Segment

The Maine Wolf Coalition, Inc. opposes the establishment of a Western Great Lakes Distinct Population Segment for the gray wolf and the removal of the WGL DPS from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife established under the Endangered Species Act of 1973, as amended.  We support the recovery of wolves in the northeast states of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine as the second viable population of wolves required in the Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf.  We believe that the Recovery Plan and the Recovery Team (none of whose members are from a state east of Wisconsin) place far too much emphasis on recovery in the Great Lakes States and far too little (essentially none) emphasis on wolf recovery in the northeast U.S.  As evidence, we point out that the proposed rule states on page 15267 of the Federal Register, "...this recovery program has continued to focus on recovering the wolf population that survived in, and has expanded outward from, northeastern Minnesota, regardless of its taxonomic identity."  We believe the proposed rule is another attempt by the federal government to extricate itself from wolf recovery in the northeast U.S. inasmuch as the proposed rule is contrary to the expressed Primary Objective of the Recovery Plan, that objective being to "maintain and re-establish viable populations of the eastern timber wolf in as much of its former range as is feasible."
 
We oppose establishment of a Western Great Lakes Distinct Population Segment for the following reasons:
 
1) The proposed WGL DPS is not discrete.
 
The proposed WGL DPS is not "markedly separated from other populations of the same taxon...."  The proposed rule completely ignores wolf populations and wolf range across central and southern Ontario and Quebec.  It ignores the wolf population some 200 miles to the east in Algonquin Provincial Park.  It ignores the fact that New York State and its approximately 10,000 square miles of potential wolf habitat lie just over 400 miles to the east of the eastern boundary of the proposed WGL DPS.  This is within the maximum known dispersal distance of wolves.  Page 15273 of the Federal Register states, "There are no known gray wolf populations to the south or east of this proposed WGL DPS."  This statement is patently false.
 
The proposed WGL DPS is not "...delimited by international governmental boundaries within which differences in control of exploitation, management of habitat, conservation status or regulatory mechanisms exist that are significant in light of section 4(a)(1)(D) of the ESA."  In fact, wolves freely move back and forth between portions of the proposed WGL DPS with wolves from Canada dispersing into the U.S. and vice versa.  Any differences in regulatory mechanisms are insignificant and have little or no effect on the wolves in the proposed WGL DPS.  Furthermore, as it clearly states on page 15273 of the Federal Register, "More than 50,000 wolves exist in Canada...(and) in general, Canadian wolf populations are sufficiently large and healthy so that harvest and population regulation rather than protection and close monitoring is the management focus."  We maintain that harvest and population regulation are now the very same management focus that exists in the proposed WGL DPS.  Although the regulatory mechanisms in place in the proposed WGL DPS are different from those in Canada, the end result is very similar, the primary difference that the legal U.S. harvest is not by the general public, but by agents of the government.
 
2) Because the proposed WGL DPS is not discrete, any analysis of its significance is moot.
 
For the sake of argument, however, suppose that the WGL DPS was determined to be discrete.  In this event, there is insufficient evidence for the USFWS to make the determination that the proposed WGL DPS is in an ecological setting unusual or unique for the taxon.  The USFWS bases its finding of significance largely on the alleged absence of gray wolves outside the proposed WGL DPS.  On page 15274 of the Federal Register it states, "Furthermore, WGL wolves represent the only use by gray wolves of any form of eastern coniferous or eastern mixed coniferous-broadleaf forest in the United States."  This statement is also patently false, and is both contrary to, and unsupported by, the facts.

It is a fact that documented wolf populations exist in Quebec just sixty miles from New York and seventy five miles from Maine.  It is a fact that a 67 pound, black female wolf was shot and killed in northern Maine in August 1993.  It is a fact that an 81 pound male wolflike canid was trapped and killed in eastern Maine in November 1996.  This animal is undergoing more modern and sophisticated DNA analyses in an attempt to determine its identity and origin.  It is a fact that an 85 pound male wolf was shot and killed in New York's Adirondack Mountains in December 2001.  DNA analysis of this animal showed that the animal likely originated from the Great Lakes region.  It is a fact that an 85 pound wolf was killed by a trapper in Quebec's Eastern Townships some 20-30 miles from the U.S. border in January 2002.  Its DNA was analyzed and it was confirmed to be a wolf by Quebec wildlife authorities.

It is wrong to base a delisting argument, or any argument for that matter, on incomplete or false information.  There is a dearth of wolf information in the northeast U.S. outside the proposed WGL DPS because the USFWS and the states have failed/refused to mount a meaningful effort to document the presence of wolves.  Likewise, the state and federal governments have failed miserably to adequately protect wolves from illegal hunting and trapping so that they may naturally recolonize the tens of thousands of square miles of potential wolf habitat east of the WGL DPS.  In Maine, it took the threat of a lawsuit by a private organization to force the Dept. of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife to stop its coyote snaring program.  In New York, the Department of Environmental Conservation failed to even report the 2001 wolf to the USFWS.  They publicly claimed that the animal was either a coyote or a wolf/dog hybrid.  It was only after a private citizen brought the animal to the attention of the USFWS Special Agent that federal law enforcement became involved and the animal was properly identified as a gray wolf.
 
We oppose removal of the Western Great Lakes Distinct Population Segment from the List of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife for the following reasons:         
 
1) Removal is inconsistent with the Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf.
 
The Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf states as its primary objective to "maintain and re-establish viable populations of the eastern timber wolf in as much of its former range as is feasible."  The proposed rule violates this objective because it does not also contain a proposal to restore wolves to the northeast U.S. states of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.  Because this proposal is not coupled with a plan to re-establish a viable population of wolves in the northeast, and because we believe this proposal will likely signal the end of USFWS efforts to recover gray wolves, specifically the eastern timber wolf, we oppose it.
 
2) Removal is inconsistent with the recovery criteria.
 
Page 24 of the Recovery Plan for the Eastern Timber Wolf states in part, "The Plan's basic approach to eastern timber wolf recovery is, and has always been, to try to ensure that there be at least two viable populations of wolves within the historic range in the United States."  From a biological perspective, the proposed WGL DPS contains just one population of wolves.  These wolves travel throughout the proposed WGL DPS, interact and interbreed.  The so-called "second population" of wolves outside of Minnesota no longer exists.  The Michigan, Wisconsin and MInnesota populations have become merged into one.  Because there is no proposal to also restore a second viable population of wolves, presumably to the northeast U.S., the de-listing of the one wolf population in the WGL DPS is inconsistent with the recovery criteria. 
 
3) The recovery criteria are inadequate to insure survival of the eastern timber wolf.
 
The recovery criteria considers a wolf population within 100 miles of the Minnesota wolf population to be a second wolf population.  From a biological perspective it would not be a second population.  The one existing population of wolves in the proposed WGL DPS is susceptible to a disease outbreak that could greatly reduce its numbers.  A true second population would be one that is far enough away to minimize the potential for interbreeding and disease transmission.  The only area large enough to sustain a second viable population is located in the states of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. 

In closing, the Maine Wolf Coalition, Inc. urges that the proposed rule not be adopted and that the recovery criteria be revised to require restoration of a second viable wolf population in the northeast, within suitable wolf habitat in the area encompassed by the states of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
 
Sincerely,
 
John M. Glowa, Sr. (on behalf of The Maine Wolf Coalition, Inc.)
30 Meadow Wood Drive
South China, ME  04358

MAINE'S WAR ON COYOTES

The state's predator-control program is ill conceived, ineffective, and inhumane. What's more, it has turned an enlightened resource agency and its talented staff of wildlife professionals into a national laughingstock.

BY TED WILLIAMS

Published in Audubon Magazine, September 2002.

IN MY MEADOW-- IN BACK OF THE COMPUTER SCREEN, amid lupine, phlox, high grass, and bluebird boxes -- things happen that make writing difficult. On a summer morning a wild canid, sleek coat gleaming in the sun, leaps high, twists, swats the ground with huge forepaws. He is well muscled but, in late puppyhood, still gawky and playing as much as seriously hunting mice. His race, maybe not new but newly noticed, first got the attention of humans about 60 years ago. It has been called "coy dog," "coy wolf," "new wolf," "brush wolf," and, now, "eastern coyote."

The "coyote" part is misleading. Eastern coyotes are larger, heavier-set, and much more wolf-like than their western cousins. They possess wolf genes, so maybe they interbred with wolves on their way east. Or maybe they were here all along, identified as small wolves whenever they were shot, trapped, or poisoned by the many people who hated them. When moonlight washes hardwood ridges, I like to howl at eastern coyotes; they answer me, then embark on prolonged conversations among themselves. Unfortunately for midlevel plant communities, shrub-nesting birds, and my wife's tulips, they kill very few deer in central New England

They kill more deer in Maine, but not enough to limit the population, which has been growing for 20 years. Maine is the only state that sees fit to hire eastern-coyote-control agents for the alleged benefit of deer hunters, and one of the few states south of Alaska that still believes it's desirable or even possible to make more game by knocking off predators. Unlike wolves, eastern coyotes prefer low-energy pursuit. They'll take deer when varying hare (their favorite prey) are scarce or when they can do so safely and economically, as when the snow is deep and crusted and the deer are "yarded up" in thick conifers. But in the colder regions, where deer haven't been increasing, the limiting factor is poor winter habitat, not coyotes.

In June 1980, on my first assignment for Audubon, I joined a team from Maine's Cooperative Wildlife Research Unit and followed radio-collared eastern coyotes around Maine's western mountains. As far as the unit had been able to determine, in nine months 41 animals had killed zero deer. There had been deer hair in the scats, but in almost every case the researchers had been able to pinpoint the source: carrion. Documented stomach or scat contents had included varying hare, butterflies, beetles, grasshoppers, berries, apples, offal, fish, voles, aluminum foil, rope, leaves, leather, dog food, and dog-food bags. That year eastern coyotes made it onto the Maine Republican platform, where they were identified as one of just three environmental ills worthy of the party's consideration (the others being anti-pesticide sentiment and unfair property taxes).

At least with coyotes there was bipartisan agreement. When I had finished my work in the woods, I stopped by Augusta to visit Glenn Manuel, the father of eastern-coyote control. For helping get the state's Democratic governor elected, Manuel, a former state senator, had been appointed commissioner of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. He told me that coyotes threatened to eliminate Maine's deer herd and scoffed at his biologists who claimed otherwise.

"[They] still believe in the balance of nature," he declared. "They're textbook boys." Later, without a shred of documentation, he publicly announced that "many does are found dead, but only the unborn fawn is eaten" and lamented that coyote snares were illegal. Even as commissioner, Manuel ardently supported the Dickey-Lincoln dams project, which would have destroyed 130,000 acres of habitat for deer and other wildlife, 268 miles of free-flowing trout water, and 30 wilderness ponds. And when he chaired a public meeting to consider reintroducing wildlife that had been extirpated from Maine, his biologists hid behind their clipboards when he urged them to "bring back" penguins.

MANUEL, TO BORROW LYRICS FROM folksinger Tom Rush, would have killed "a thousand coyotes, if [he] could only just find one." In 1980, the first full year of the control program he designed, the entire Maine warden force "controlled" three animals. But five years later the state legislature ordered the department to kill coyotes, authorizing it to hire private citizens as coyote-control agents and train them in the use of snares, now legal. About 60 of these agents have been snaring roughly 400 coyotes per season (winter and early spring). Last season, 51 killed 564, presumably as a result of liberalized regulations implemented after the legislature passed a resolution asking the department "to encourage the harvest of coyotes."

The public is unhappy about this. In Augusta, at the June 1, 2002, meeting of a group of angry citizens who call themselves the NoSnare Task Force, Susan Cockrell showed me a coyote snare. Basically, it's a noose made of stout cable. You hang it from a tree, and when the coyote sticks its head through the loop, it closes on the animal's neck. A floppy washer keeps the loop from loosening. Cockrell, one of the group's founders, teaches nature writing at the University of Maine at Orono. Other founders include her husband, Will La Page, a forestry professor at the same institution; wildlife biologist Debra Davidson; and registered Maine guide Daryl DeJoy.

They plied me with internal correspondence they had excavated from the bowels of the department under threat of Maine's Sunshine Law, a state version of the Freedom of Information Act. As I perused the reports, memos, and e-mails, the value of the law became increasingly apparent. Without it, the public would never know what wildlife biologists think about coyote control or how the state legislature had secretly and successfully pressured the department into liberalizing the regs. Lawmakers had opted for a resolution rather than a bill because resolutions don't require public participation.

Department biologists repeatedly observe that killing coyotes stimulates reproduction and that in order to lower a population you have to remove at least 70 percent of the animals every year. But even with the relaxed regs, the control agents are getting only 4 percent. In areas off-limits to coyote controllers (Yellowstone National Park and the Hanford nuclear site in Washington State, for example), an average of fewer than two pups make it to fall. In "normal areas," where humans are busy killing the coyotes' main competition -- i.e., other coyotes -- the figure is about six. Moreover, coyotes are highly territorial. An alpha male might be defending a cedar swamp, killing deer when conditions are right-say, four a winter. If that coyote is snared, half a dozen subordinate coyotes might move in and kill 24 deer. In 1946 federal agents killed 294,000 coyotes in 17 western states. In 1974-after 28 years of intensive trapping, shooting, and poisoning-they killed 295,000 in the same 17 states. When populations increase so do ranges. Some scientists believe that coyote persecution in the West is why there are coyotes in the East.

"Coyote snaring is a mean-spirited government program whose sole intent is to catch and strangle wildlife with a wire noose, for some perceived biological gain," Chuck Hulsey, one of Maine's seven regional wildlife biologists, told me, emphasizing that he was speaking for himself and not his department. "You cannot stockpile deer like money in a mutual fund, to be enjoyed at a later date. Spending many tens of thousands of dollars to snare a few hundred coyotes is a poor use of public dollars."

AMONG WILDLIFERS IT IS considered "unprofessional" to fret about humane issues. But there's a limit; when cruelty to wild animals becomes sufficiently severe and senseless, good biologists get involved. "Killing an animal by strangling it with a wire loop often results in a slow, painful death, some times lasting days..." wrote Hulsey to his bureau director. "It would violate state humane laws to treat a domestic dog in the same manner."

Hulsey is just one of many department biologists speaking out. Last fall Wally Jakubas, the agency's top mammal scientist, got concerned when, checking 94 snared coyotes during a study to determine the genetics of the beast, he noticed a large proportion of carcasses with grotesquely swollen heads, bullet holes, fractured limbs, and broken teeth. Of particular interest to Jakubas were the animals with swollen head "jellyheads," the snarers call them. When the snare doesn't close sufficiently, it constricts the jugular vein on the outside of the neck, cutting off blood returning to the heart; meanwhile, the carotid artery keeps pumping blood into the brain, eventually rupturing its vascular system. In a memo to his supervisor, Jakubas wrote: "I think it is also safe to say that [this] is an unpleasant death. Anyone who has had a migraine knows what it feels like to have swollen blood vessels in the head. To have blood vessels burst because of pressure must be excruciating." Almost a third of the animals Jakubas looked at were jellyheads. Almost another third had been clubbed or shot, indicating that, contrary to department claims, the snares hadn't killed them quickly. Coyote-control agents have to check their snares only every three days, and under the liberalized regs suggested by the legislature, they can get permission to check them only every seven days.

Jakubas promptly turned his report over to his superiors, who promptly sat on it. Eventually someone leaked it to Maine Public Radio, thereby setting the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine and the Maine Trappers Association into full cry. These outfits, which together make up the state's entire coyote-control lobby and which claim (falsely) to speak for Maine's hunters, anglers, and trappers, crammed their publications and web sites with screeds about the alleged treachery of Jakubas, the alleged incompetence of his help, and the alleged deficiencies of his study. He had revealed facts they didn't want to know and, especially, didn’t want the public to know. Until this information got daylighted, the only thing they had to do to perpetuate the boondoggle was hiss into the ears of the 13 lawmakers who sit on the Joint Standing Committee on Fisheries and Wildlife.

HOWARD CHICK OF LEBANON, Maine, a member of the Sportsman’s Alliance, has hunted deer since the 1930s. He was born in 1922, in the farmhouse where he lives. In 1881 his father was born in this farmhouse. In 1843 his grandfather was born in this farmhouse. The farmhouse is on Chick Road. Howard Chick 'dispatches coyotes when they show themselves." But somehow there are never any fewer. He doesn’t buy the balance-of-nature stuff. "These are things I don't have to have a biologist tell me," he proclaims, in reference to the department's assertion that you have to annually remove 70 percent of a coyote population to reduce it. "Suppose you had a dozen rattlesnakes in your immediate vicinity," he says. "Any one you dispatch is going to lessen the chances of your getting bit; it's the same with coyotes." But it isn’t. Like so many other Maine deer hunters, Howard Chick doesn’t understand that killing coyotes is like trying to put out a fire with kerosene. You can do it if the fire is small and you have lots of kerosene, but coyote populations are never small and, in comparison, the amount of control is always tiny.

In southern and central Maine there are now so many deer that in some areas they're damaging their range, but Howard Chick worries more about deer in the north, where they are less plentiful. This is the natural range of moose and caribou, and deer are here mostly because humans have created openings in the boreal forest. Even with thick conifers to provide thermal cover, deer get winter-stressed in these parts. And now a lot of that cover has been removed by spruce budworm and paper companies. The official line from Fisheries and Wildlife is that coyote control in the north woods, in specific deeryards, "may" result in temporary relief for wintering deer. But it also may not. The department doesn’t know, because it hasn’t done any research. "In northern, western, and eastern sections of Maine, inadequate wintering habitat is the primary factor limiting deer populations," writes Maine’s deer biologist, Gerald Lavigne. "There, high predation rates by coyotes are the symptoms, not the cause, of deer population problems."

Lavigne had been responding to the state legislature, which in 1995 ordered the department to "conduct a study to determine the impact that coyotes have on deer, and to propose recommendations to encourage the harvest of coyotes." The bill had been sponsored by Howard Chick, who, in addition to being a farmer and a deer hunter, is a state representative, a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Fisheries and Wildlife, and the oldest member of the Maine legislature. Howard Chick, in fact, is the reason Maine now has paid recreational coyote snaring. Not believing the stuff he read in Lavigne's report, he introduced the 2001 resolution that hatched the liberalized snaring regulations. Before the resolution, coyote snaring (however misguided) had been in response to observed deer mortality. Now it's in response to the whims of the snarer.

It is curious behavior for the public to pay for the training of professional wildlife managers at state universities, pay their salaries, pay their expenses, and then pay politicians to tell them how to manage wildlife. According to Maine law, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife "shall maintain a coyote control program." It has no choice, but that excuse carries it only so far. The law also provides leeway: "The commissioner may employ qualified persons to serve as agents of the department for the purposes of coyote control." There's nothing in there that says he has to. Glenn Manuel, who thought penguins belong in Maine, was a career potato farmer. Lee Perry -- the current commissioner, appointed in the fall of 1997 -- is a career wildlife biologist. Wildlife advocates expect more from him, especially now that the NoSnare Task Force has shown them the nasty realities of coyote control. As a first step Perry could order his information-and-education staff to drop everything and start disabusing Maine deer hunters of their copious superstitions. But instead of leading and educating, the department plays subordinate coyote to the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine and the Maine Trappers Association, rolling over and peeing on itself whenever it gets barked at.

In response to Chick’s resolution, the department organized an ad hoc "study group" to make recommendations for new snaring regs. But of the groups that participated -- the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, the Maine Trappers Association, coyote-control agents, the department, and the Maine Audubon Society -- only the last disapproved of snaring. "The so-called 'study' consisted of one meeting and one phone call," complains Maine Audubon biologist Jody Jones. "The department took none of our advice. One thing that really upset me was that in the commissioner's form letter responding to letters and e-mails critical of the snaring program, he said Maine Audubon had participated in this group and these were the recommendations that came forward. That wasn’t a lie, but the implication was that we supported the snaring program. We got angry calls from members."

The department also ignored a lot of advice from its own biologists, who had expressed concern for the non-target wildlife that have been found dead in coyote snares -- eagles, deer, moose, bears, fishers, foxes, bobcats, and especially Canada lynx, now federally threatened. They had asked that snaring not be conducted in March, when so much of this wildlife is on the move. They had objected to the proposed regulation that did away with the limit on the number of snares an agent can set. (Since snares cost less than a dollar each, there's scant motivation to collect them when the season is over.) They had asked that snaring not be done where lynx had been seen and in lynx-study areas. In every one of these cases they were overruled.

On the other hand, the department acquiesced to George Smith, director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, who had written Perry as follows: "The [snaring] limits are apparently proposed to appease federal officials and radical environmental groups now that the Canadian [sic] lynx has been listed... We cannot support a policy that puts lynx ahead of deer in the north woods.... Our suspicions that DIF&W is not really committed to this program are only enhanced by this most recent decision [now revoked] to stop protecting deer in one of the largest and most important deeryards in the entire north woods."

The department's report to the legislature in response to the resolution listed 25 concerns of the ad hoc study group, followed by detailed explanations from the department. Concern No. 11 was "lack of support for snaring throughout MDlFW." But in the draft report the department declined to provide a single reason for this lack. When Hulsey suggested to his bureau director that the public deserved an explanation, he was told to write one. He complied, with a five-page memo that spared no detail. But the final report contained not a word of that explanation or of any other.

Whenever the public expresses concern about the threat to lynx, the department responds that no snarer has reported killing a lynx since the species was listed. Of course no snarer has reported killing a lynx. Such a confession could elicit prosecution under the Endangered Species Act. "We've had open discussions about the dangers of coyote snaring in lynx areas," says Paul Nickerson, chief of threatened and endangered species for the US. Fish and Wildlife Service's northeast region. "So if a lynx is taken, no one can just say, "Oops.'"

The official word from the department -- repeatedly contradicted by internal correspondence from its own biologists -- is that the coyote-snaring program is legitimate animal-damage control, not paid recreation. But animal damage control is, as the name implies, a response to animal damage. You don’t do it in advance. The department doesn’t go around knocking off bears because they might one day tip over a beehive; it doesn’t eradicate beavers in spring because they might flood someone's cellar the following winter.

However, the days when Maine wildlife could be managed by politicians like Howard Chick and radical special-interest groups like the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine and the Maine Trappers Association appear to be drawing to a dose. For one thing, the Nosnare Task Force has alerted the public to the cruelty and stupidity of coyote control. Of recent comments received by the department from Maine rcsidents, 7 supported coyote snaring, 4 were undecided, and 77 were opposed. Because the department is funded almost cxclusively by hunters, fishermen, and trappers, it hasn’t had to pay a lot of attention to anyone else. But that’s changing too. Next year 18 percent of its budget will come from the general fund, and with public funding comes public representation.

It is not clear how much of a threat eastern-coyote "control" is to nontarget species. It is abundantly clear that it is no threat whatsoever to the eastern coyote. Maybe what it threatens most is the reputation of legitimate, ethical sportsmen who already are getting kicked around by the animal-rights crowd. As Mark McCullough, the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife's endangered-species leader, has advised his supervisor: "All it will take will be one animal-rights advocate to videotape a 'jellyhead' in a snare and your program will be over, and maybe even take recreational trapping with it."

Moving into Maine with the coyotes themselves is the image of the Western coyote controller, eloquently captured by Tom Rush. You wouldn't have heard "A Cowboy's Paean to a Coyote" (a paean, pronounced "peein," is a song of joyful praise or exultation). Rush wrote it when he lived in Wyoming, to commemorate a threeday coyote shoot in which several hundred participants came up with a total of two coyotes, one with tire tracks on it. Herewith, a few verses:

Go on out and shoot yourself some coyotes, /Makes a man feel good, Lord it makes a man feel proud! /Go on out and shoot yourself some coyotes, /0ne for Mother, one for Country, one for God. /Well, if you’re having trouble with the truck, or with the woman, /Maybe them kids are screwin 'up in school. /If the cows are actin' smarter than the cowboy, You gotta show the world you ain't nobody’s fool. /I got my field rations straight from o1d Jack Daniel’s, /Hank, Jr.’s on the eight-track in my Four-by-Four. /And I’d shoot a thousand coyotes if I could only just find one, /'Cause, boys, that’s what God made coyotes for.

MAINE COYOTE CONTROL wastes something much more valuable than time, money, or even the sportsman's image. It wastes the credibility, effectiveness, and morale of an otherwise enlightened agency that is doing superb work restoring native ecosystems.

This year the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has an $8 million deficit, and Governor Angus King, who appears oblivious to the bad image coyote control is giving his state, has asked it to come up with ways of cutting back on expenditures. Under the liberalized snaring regulations, the costs of administering the coyote-control program have about tripled, at least according to one internal estimate. The governor needs to pay more attention to the people who truly know, the people who make the recommendations that get ignored by the decision makers, the people the public doesn’t hear from except when someone rifles through dusty file cabinets -- Maine's wildlife biologists. For the first budget cut, every one of them would have the same recommendation.  

Cunning coyotes: Tireless tricksters and protean predators

Reprinted with the permission of Marc Bekoff

In Maine, coyotes can be snared — a horrifically slow death follows — and in Utah, there’s a bounty on coyotes despite their being the Olympic mascot. Snaring is an incredibly inhumane technique and ethically repugnant. In my home state of Colorado, the Wildlife Commission has created a new opportunity for big game hunters to kill coyotes while they’re hunting any big game species, without the small game license that’s usually required.

It’s not surprising that the Colorado Mule Deer Association supports this move, because it believes that reducing coyote numbers will reduce predation. Once again, coyotes face additional exploitation by humans. ?Old man coyote? is an amazing being. Loved or hated and feared by many, coyotes have defied virtually all attempts to control their cunning ways. William Bright, in his superb collection of stories, ?A Coyote Reader,? notes: ?Coyote is the trickster par excellence for the largest number of American Indian cultures.?

Native peoples have portrayed coyotes as sly tricksters, thieves, gluttons, outlaws and spoilers, because of their uncanny ability to survive and reproduce successfully in a wide variety of habitats (including Boulder and other cities) and under harsh conditions. They not only survive their encounters with other nonhuman predators (though they’re losing out to wolves in Yellowstone National Park and are being forced to leave), but also with humans who attempt to control them using incredibly brutal methods, and who also hold well-organized community hunts in which the person who kills the most coyotes wins a trophy. Often these mass killings are considered to be wholesome family outings.

The federal Wildlife Services program (formerly called Animal Damage Control) slaughters tens of thousands of coyotes each year (about 86,000 in 1999, 10 percent more than in the previous year despite claims that the program is switching to nonlethal techniques) because coyotes supposedly are rampant predators on livestock. Livestock protection programs cost taxpayers about $10 million to $11 million annually. In Colorado more than 90 percent of WS money ($1.1 million) is spent on lethal control of native wildlife.

Federal extermination efforts have been conducted since 1885, and during the past 50 years about 3.5 million coyotes have been killed. Killing methods trapping (28 percent), poisoning (21 percent), shooting from airplanes (33 percent), and snaring and other procedures (18 percent) are extremely inhumane and indiscriminate and other predators, domestic dogs and endangered species also fall victim. In Colorado, during the 1999-2000 harvest season, about 26,000 coyotes were killed by private hunters.

Aerial gunners killed almost 31,000 coyotes in 1999 (along with 17 ravens, 180 red foxes and 390 bobcats). According to the Boulder-based conservation organization Sinapu, there have been 18 crashes involving planes used in aerial gunning since 1989, resulting in seven deaths and 21 injuries. The cost of aerial gunning to taxpayers ranges from $180 to $800 per animal. This comes to about $5.7 million spent on aerial gunning annually. Often tens of thousands of dollars are squandered to capture a single coyote that might be responsible for a few hundred dollars of livestock damage, or not blamable at all.

A study done at Utah State University that involved gunning down coyotes from helicopters showed this horrific practice to be ineffective. In another study done at Utah State, coyotes, some of whom were seriously injured, were kept in leghold traps for long periods of time to determine the effects of tranquilizers to keep them calm when they were in pain. Wanton killing doesn’t work, because little attention is paid to the versatile behavior of these adaptable predators. And disease and unsanitary conditions frequently cause more livestock death than do coyotes or other predators. Only rarely is the ?problem? coyote caught or killed, and when coyotes are killed, others take their place. There’s even evidence that in areas where coyotes are killed, birth rates and litter size increase, the result of which is the maintenance or increase in coyote numbers.

I’ve studied coyotes for more than 25 years, and paralleling research performed by my colleagues, have discovered that talking about ?the? coyote is misleading. The moment one begins making rampant generalizations, he or she is proven wrong. For example, in some areas coyotes live alone, in other locations they live with mates, while in others they live in groups that resemble wolf packs. In these packs there are ?aunts? and ?uncles? that help to raise youngsters. And coyotes are sometimes territorial and sometimes not. In a nutshell, coyotes are the quintessential opportunists, which defy profiling as individuals.

Coyotes are also a very important part of the ecological web in various communities because they help to regulate species at different trophic levels. Kevin Crooks and Michael Soule studied the complex interrelationships among coyotes, other predators such as domestic cats, opossum and raccoons, and scrub birds including California quail, greater roadrunners and cactus wrens living near San Diego.

Crooks and Soule found that scrub bird diversity was higher in areas where coyotes were either present or more abundant. Domestic cats, opossum and raccoons avoided areas where coyotes were most active (coyotes often kill domestic cats where they co-habit). This research is an excellent example of the importance of long-term projects that investigate complex webs of nature that aren’t obvious at first glance.

Unlike wild predators, domestic cats are recreational hunters; they continue to kill birds even when bird populations are low. Crooks and Soule found that 84 percent of outdoor cats brought back kills to their homes. Cat owners reported that each outdoor cat that hunted returned on average 24 rodents, 15 birds and 17 lizards to the residence each year, a large number of victims. The level of bird predation was unsustainable, and least 75 local extinctions have occurred in these areas over the past century.

An extraordinary amount of time, energy and money has gone into coyote control. But it hasn’t worked; if it had, coyotes would be controlled and the controllers could move on to other more economically worthwhile activities. I expect that if any of us were as unsuccessful and wasteful in our jobs as WS animal controllers have been in theirs, we’d be looking for employment.

Let’s appreciate coyotes for the amazing beings they are. They offer valuable lessons in survival. Though coyotes try our patience, they’re a model animal for learning about adaptability and success by nonhuman individuals striving to make it in a human-dominated world. Coyotes, like Proteus the Greek, who could change his form at will and avoid capture, are truly ?protean predators.? They’re a success story, perhaps hapless victims of their own success.

Coyotes: love them and leave them be.

Marc Bekoff teaches biology at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He has studied coyotes and other animals for more than 30 years. His book, “Coyotes: Biology, behavior, and management,” has recently been reprinted. His and Jane Goodall’s Web site is www.ethologicalethics.org. His home page can be found at: http://literati.net/Bekoff

Alaska's Aerial Wolf Program

Despite vigorous protests from environmental groups and animal advocates, and despite the fact that the people of Alaska had twice voted not to continue the program, the practice of aerial wolf killing in Alaska resumed this year.  The state issued more than 100 aerial permits to hunters this winter to shoot wolves from airplanes or to land and shoot wolves in five different parts of the state.  At the end of the allotted time, the reported tally of killed wolves was 276, less than half the number the Department of Fish and Game had hoped to kill in its controversial predator reduction program.  Critics of the state's reduction efforts found ammunition for their opposition in the fact that less than half the number of wolves targeted by the state were harvested indicating an overestimation of wolf populations in the control areas. 

This season's total brings to 420 the number of wolves killed in two years as part of the predator control program designed to bolster the numbers of moose and caribou in certain parts of the state over a five year period.  Last year, hunters killed 144 wolves in two regions.  This year, the state Board of Game added three additional areas to the program.  Last year's efforts not only reduced the adult wolf population but eliminated several litters of puppies that would have replenished the population in areas where wolves were killed last year.  Also, some of the wolves that were killed were breeding wolves, so normal reproduction numbers were decreased.

Although the program is over for this year, critics will continue their opposition in a number of ways including  lobbying Gov. Frank Murkowski and pressuring Interior Secretary Gale Norton to enforce the federal airborne hunting act, which opponents to the aerial hunting program say is being violated.  Defenders of Wildlife representative to Alaska Karen Deatherage believes that the state is inflating the numbers of wolves in the areas being hunted citing that there have been "few, if any surveys."  Friends of Animals executive director Priscilla Feral agrees that "There are far fewer wolves than they thought."

A Discussion on Wolf Hybrids by Deb Davidson

It's time someone addresses the real problem about having a wolf/wolf hybrid at a refuge. The actual problem lies with people having had the animal as a pet in the first place. Sometimes humans do things without thinking. This is often the case when people buy wolf hybrids. They haven't researched what's needed nor how much money it will take to care for a captive wolf or wolf hybrid. Not to mention the commitment of time these animals require due to their often very social nature. So social that they sometimes will hurt themselves if you're not around. Or they'll hurt your furniture. Or even someone else. These animals, when not properly cared for, lead a frustrating life for a wolf kept in a house or on a run like a domestic dog. That's both the problem and the uniqueness of wolf hybrids-they're not domestic dogs.

But whether it's the commitment needed in spending lots of time with them, or simply the animal's wary, even sometimes scary nature that finally gets to some wolf hybrid owners, what happens to many of these animals is that they're turned loose in the woods or they're allowed to escape for the twentieth frustrating time. They aren't wild wolves that know how to hunt. So they often starve or get shot or get run over by vehicles. There are some people who end up making the humane decision of euthanizing their "pet" and then living with that. Many people who buy these animals have a real love or interest of some kind in wolves but don't understand the responsibility that goes along with having a wolf hybrid. These "wildish" canids often lead a sad existence and once on their own, the future doesn't look too bright either.

There's another reason I wish people would stop acquiring these animals. As a wildlife biologist working toward acceptance of wild wolves, any released or escaped animal confuses the issue of whether or not we have naturally occurring wolves here. Many of these once captive animals get reported to the state fish & wildlife agency as a wild wolf. Then time and effort is spent locating the animal and trying to make a determination as to just what it is. This is what happened recently in Maine regarding the white canid that Loki Clan Wolf Refuge just took in. The Maine Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Department, the Maine Warden Service, the Maine Wildlife Park, the Department of Agriculture, two animal shelters, the Cleo Fund, myself, and many others were involved up to our elbows with the chaos created by the release of this animal. It finally became clear that it was a captive animal at one time when blood tests came back indicating the animal had been vaccinated for distemper.

There are very few wolf refuges in the entire United States for unwanted wolf hybrids. Loki Clan Wolf Refure in No. Chatham is one of the few refuges that I have visited where the animals actually looked happy. Although in pens, they live in packs at Loki Clan--like wolves do in the wild. These social groups are their new families. This is the only way they can replace the important relationship that they thought they had with their human families who no longer want them or can no longer handle their exuberance or odd, wary ways. People who know wolves know that the seemingly aggressive behavior sometimes exhibited by a wolf hybrid as he/she tries to pin down a family member at first to play and later to try to gain dominance should be expected from a healthy wolf hybrid. This often happens at sexual maturity which for a wolf might not occur until they're two to three years old. Up to that point, its human family often regards it as a seemingly perfect, loving pet.

This instinct (dominance behavior) is one that we purposefully bred out of our domestic dogs. Although an important behavior for wolves, it's an unacceptable behavior for a family pet.

The wolf hybrids at Loki Clan Wolf Refuge have each other with which to do their pack posturing now. Fred Keating is now caring for many wolf hybrids that people didn't want to put to sleep but could no longer keep. Until people stop buying captive wolves or wolf-hybrids, we need a place where the unwanted ones can go, unharrassed and allowed to live out their lives in peace with their own kind. Not everyone is willing to admit their error and then euthanize their family pet. My hope is that some day we don't need a place like Loki Clan Wolf Refuge, that people will finally stop trying to make pets out of wolves. Wolves belong in the wild, not in our homes. So instead of trying to cause difficulty for Mr. Keating, why don't those of us who are really concerned for these animals join in and help him put up some more fence? At Loki Clan they're currently penning in one acre parcels so that the packs will have lots of room to run. Volunteers are invited to help during the "fence parties" they hold every fourth weekend of each month.

And at the same time, while we're helping to get these animals contained properly, let's talk to our friends and neighbors about what a lousy idea it is to get a wolf hybrid without considering the commitment needed to care for them, not to mention the time and the money required for proper fencing and their totally meat diets.

RECOMMENDED READINGS:
 
DECADE OF THE WOLF:  Returning the Wild to Yellowstone

Douglas W. Smith and Gary Ferguson

"I meet pilot Roger Stradley at the usual time for summer flights, 6:30 in the morning.  We start early because of the nearly constant promise of afternoon wind and thunderstorms--tough on pilots and passengers alike.  Rising through the clear morning light we find the area around Gardiner still looking parched, desiccated.  Yet by the time we're past the foothills of the national park, crossing lands sitting at roughly 6,500 feet, the vegetation begins to perk up in a big way; by 7,000-foot Swan Lake Flats the place looks downright lush.  It's like flying into paradise."
 
"Across the past decade my work as a wolf biologist has changed in subtle yet significant ways.  During the first three years of the project we knew every single wolf intimately.  Back then I'd fly over this landscape just as I'm doing today, but more often than not be consumed by specifics:  whether or not wolf Number 9 could hang in there for another year, maybe have another litter of pups; or if Number 39, whose mate was shot by a poacher, would be able to hook up with another partner.  If only we could get through another year, I often thought, get just one more batch of pups, then the population would be on its feet.  Today it's a different world.  We know fairly well the fifty-five animals now collared--ten or fifteen of these we know really well--but there are plenty of others we don't.  Whereas once we thought only of the struggles of individuals and their packs to become anchored in this new home, now our thoughts rest in matters of population dynamics, of the links between predator and prey.  The relationships that drive our work, in other words, are these days less anchored in the intimate than the ecological.

Still, even now it's hard to overstate the impact of working with this animal.  I recall several years ago flying fairly low in the spotter plane, when we crossed directly over a wolf.  As it looked up I could see its eyes, and they were magnificent, bright and burning.  While a lot of animals in that sort of circumstance would be nearly overcome with fear, here was one tossing out a stare that seemed brimming with confidence.  The wolf looked hard at us, following us with its gaze for a couple of seconds.  Then it merely stepped away, back into its element.  The encounter was so vivid that the pilot, like me, seemed barely able to contain himself.  'Whoo-hoo!' he shouted.  'That was big stuff!'  Admittedly, such meetings don't happen often--I've been flying wolves for twenty-five years, and have seen such things maybe only half a dozen times.  But it's something that sticks with you long afterward."
 
"...At this point it seems certain that some in the environmental community will move to prevent delisting, either because they don't want to see wolves hunted, or in some cases because they don't believe the animal can withstand lower levels of protection.  As Mike Phillips put it, though, 'It's important to be reasonable.  With a system like Yellowstone in place the gray wolf can withstand a great deal of human exploitation and still thrive.  They'll continue to be wild.  And they'll continue to inspire.'  What's potentially going to be lost in the fight against delisting is a  fantastic opportunity for the American public to see this project as evidence that the Endangered Species Act really works.  Given that the act is often under fierce attack--some would say its very existence is now threatened--it seems vital to show the nation what is in truth an outstanding success.  As John Varley points out, 'What this reintroduction may show is that we can restore ecosystems to some semblance of what they were before European settlement.  And more important still, that we can live with them.'
I recall one of my professors in graduate school making the comment that the worst thing that can happen to wildlife biology is for it to end up in the courts.  By and large lawsuits don't help the wolves of Yellowstone.  What's more, land management and political leaders in other parts of the country who might otherwise accept this predator know full well that getting a wolf population means legal action, and for that reason alone they tend to do everything possible to avoid any talk of reintroductions.  Were there a way to resolve problems more reasonably without falling into the quagmire of the court system, wolves might well be able to be successfully placed elsewhere in years to come.  But it would require a coming together of those genuinely willing to seek solutions, refusing to let the process be hijacked by people on both sides who show up primarily to thump their chests and draw lines in the sand.  Likewise the wildlife management agency involved must be fully present, completely supportive, with neither hidden agendas nor backroom deals."

Note: This book is available for purchase through the Maine Wolf Coalition on-line gift shop. Click Here for information.

DON COYOTE: The Good Times and the Bad Times of a Much Maligned American Original

Dayton O. Hyde

This book is a gem. Don Coyote is an entertaining account of rancher Dayton Hyde’s experiences in transforming his working ranch into a piece of environmental heaven. His observations on coexisting with nature and wildlife, resulting from his unique relationship with an unlikely hero, are monumental in the lessons to be learned. Dayton Hyde really gets it.

"….I realized for the first time how smoothly the system of predation must have worked for the health of all species before Man came along and dared treat Mother Nature as a fool….While the American hunter, the sportsman, is only in the mildest sense selective, shooting the unwary, his tendency is to harvest the biggest and most beautiful, making his selection on a visual basis rather than a genetic one…As I sat…looking out over the lake, I thought of all those who persecuted the predator as an animal that competed with us for something we wanted to eat ourselves, ignoring the function of the predator in the system---a function that we humans are unable to perform---and overlooking the benefits.

When we removed the wolf from the scene because it competed with us for what we wanted to eat, we left a vacuum, which the natural system, in its need, filled with the coyote. In nature, if you remove a more specialized animal such as a wolf, it is replaced by a more adaptable one, in this case the coyote. We went from a pack animal with a highly socialized family structure and behavioral patterns, which made it vulnerable to control and eradication, to an animal only loosely organized socially, infinitely adaptable as to food and habitat, and we removed its best functional predator, which was the wolf. Much as we rant and rail, it is a bed of our own making. Create a vacuum and it will be filled by something, but often by something not better than what was there before.

….Wildlife biologists concerned with increasing the bag for hunters had cursed the coyote for killing fawns….And the fawn from the doe who has not hid her offspring well and has little instinct to protect it, even though it looks big and strong and healthy—do we really want that animal in our game herds?

And if we don’t want that animal in our herds, what means do we have to remove it? The hunter who…[picks] out the best? Or the predator who…[selects] prey not on its looks or condition but on its ability to survive?

Except for a few animals left in Minnesota and the West, we have lost the wolf as an aid to making the system work. In Alaska and Canada, the wolf is besieged by those who cannot understand his contribution. He is trapped, shot, poisoned, pursued by snowmobile and helicopter, because sportsmen think there will be more game when the wolf is gone. However, they are only creating a vacuum to be filled by the coyote, and when the coyote is gone, by the invisible predators: disease, starvation, and bad genes.

Looking down over the meadows, I was surprised at how green the ranch was compared to most. One of the things we did differently than most ranchers was to leave plenty of old feed to protect the new growth in the spring. It was just plain good grass management, but suddenly…I saw that it was good coyote management as well. The residual forage allowed mice to move farther from their burrows and made them easier to hunt, and even in the snow, the tall grasses made for a stable rodent supply a coyote could count on….

One of the most important aspects of our coyote management, however, was our treatment of dead animals. Every rancher has a certain amount of carrion. Whether you manage cattle well or not, some of them die….we had dragged each dead animal out into the brush and left it for the coyotes to clean up, selecting areas away from calving fields, searching out places where a coyote could feel comfortable….

If we had hated the coyotes, we would have set traps beside the carcasses or laced them with poison, and ended up teaching the survivors to avoid carcasses in the future. Instead, they trusted us. In effect, we trained the predators to utilize carrion and thus brought them through the hungriest periods of winter when rodent populations were lowest.

A hungry predator is a problem predator. By feeding and protecting our coyotes, we were insuring that each coyote on the ranch lived to a ripe old age…he could make a comfortable living without getting into mischief.

There is an old saying that if something works, don’t fix it. It can be applied to predators. If you are halfway getting along with the coyotes on your place, don’t remove one. It will only create a vacuum that will be filled by an animal you might not be able to tolerate at all…

…I saw overgrazing as one of the most important causes of livestock predation. Short grass makes for poor hunting, unstable prey populations, and hungry predators. In my travels I have seen many a ranch; the operators who grazed their pastures close were the ones who suffered the most serious losses.

I recognized that there was no way I could make coyote lovers of them. The only thing I could do was to manage my own land for predators instead of against them and hope that someone, someday, would look over my fences and realize that I had something special going for me."