Coyote killing contest in Montana prompts protests from animal rights groups, hunters
The Associated Press
Thursday, January 11, 2007
BAKER, Montana
The barren buttes surrounding the small ranching town of Baker, Montana, will offer few hiding places for coyotes this weekend as hunters converge for a contest to see who can shoot the most coyotes.
The annual event, part predator control and part economic development ploy, began five years ago in a bid to pique outside interest in Baker with a $6,000 purse funded by entrance fees, local businesses and the Baker Chamber of Commerce and Agriculture.
While organizers see success in the event's growth, the increasing popularity of such contests is prompting a backlash from animal rights groups and even some hunters, who contend the events trivialize the sport by turning it into a cash-fueled spectacle.
For the coyote, the hunts reflect the lowly place the animal still holds across the American West. Even as a debate rages between state and federal officials over whether its famous cousin, the gray wolf, should be removed from the endangered species list, the coyote is stuck with the label "varmint", to be killed on sight.
Most states have few, if any, restrictions on killing the coyote, said Stephen Price, president of coyoteclub.org, which connects hunters with ranchers hoping to eliminate the animals from their land.
In Baker, a town of about 1,700 tucked against the North Dakota border, supporters of this weekend's contest say it will deliver a much-needed jolt to the area's economy, drawing some 180 participants. They also say fewer coyotes means fewer livestock killings.
Coyotes caused an estimated $47 million in damage to the cattle industry in 2005, according to the USDA. Sheep losses topped $10 million in 2004.
Not everyone agrees contest hunts are the answer. Randy Tunby, a sheep rancher in nearby Plevna, Montana, has turned down requests from contest participants to hunt on his land. Tunby prefers the services of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's predator control program. According to USDA records, its Wildlife Services division destroys about 80,000 coyotes a year on private and public lands nationwide.
Groups including the Humane Society of the United States and Predator Defense say neither private hunts nor public agency killings offer a real solution because of the coyote's ability to reproduce rapidly.
Price and others describe a booming interest in coyote hunting, with an estimated 500 "calling contests" nationwide and more added every year. They get their name because hunters howl and make distress calls to mimic prey, thus attracting coyotes.
To some hunters, turning the challenge of coyote hunting into a contest with large sums of money at stake defies long-standing traditions of the sport. Jim Posewitz, a leading voice in the field of hunters' ethics, says that to purists, the contests violate the basic tenet of "fair chase" — the notion that hunting is a private struggle between predator and prey.
"I don't think hunting is a contest between human beings," said Posewitz, a biologist who spent 32 years with the Montana wildlife agency before founding the Orion Hunters Institute. "We like to think it's a more meaningful relationship that we have with wildlife than simply viewing them as a competition between people."
