> This anti article below is wrong on science and a mere PR piece for those opposing our rights.
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> The antis are targeting hunting (which always included trapping), fishing and shooting in Vermont.
> They receive out-of-state funding and other resource support. Our strength comes from our ranks
> standing together. In solidarity we are a formidable force in protecting our rights from anti campaigns.
> Olguita Sobko: Coyote killing needs to stop
> Mar. 9, 2016, 6:55 pm
> Editor's note: This commentary is by Olguita Sobko, of Fairlee, who lives sustainably along the edge of a forest, with fox, coyote and other wildlife while raising organic and free range farm animals and is an award winning amateur nature photographer.
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> In North America, our very special dog — the coyote — was and still remains highly respected by Native American Indians. Coyotes hold a special place in our history. The Navaho sheep and goat herders greatly revered coyotes, and referred to them as "God's dog."
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> In the past 10 years, what was once a regular occurrence in the woods around our home was the chorus and howls of the song dogs, otherwise known as the Eastern coyote. Now, if we hear them once or twice in a year's time we consider ourselves blessed to have heard the call of the wild. Instead, the call is replaced with the blasts of gunshot and hounds bellowing on a coyote chase.
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> The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department not only allows for an open season on coyote hunting, but also allows for their trapping and does not hold coyote hunting contests to be illegal.
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> Today, we are able to witness the results of such inexcusable, unmonitored, scientifically unsupported and negligent management system by the Fish and Wildlife Department.
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> Today, Vermont-based news articles inform us of "field agents" and sales personnel teaching seminars on how to hunt coyote. What these articles fail to acknowledge is the self-serving association that these instructors have notably that they are employed by FoxPro, an electronic "animal calling" device business. Not only do these "field agents" boast of the "fun" and "thrill" from killing, but also boast of killing over 500 coyote in the span of six years. In one article, the staff writer failed to provide appropriate scientific support to the comment made by an instructor that coyote will pull "a calf out of its mother before it's even born." The article also failed to provide unbiased and scientific information or reference about why unrestricted coyote killing is counterproductive.
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> Today, if you spend any time on social media you can actually witness the sordid, perverse and extremely disturbing trend to capture the moments leading to the kill, be it by trap or hunting with hounds. We can even see a video collection of the event itself. These photographs and videos are then an open forum for support and cheers by the unethical hunting or trapping community who embrace the killings, tally goals and quantities killed numbering to 50 or who killed the smallest or largest coyote. They regale at the evident fear, stress and singular vulnerable moments these coyote experience prior to meeting their death after possibly having spent 24 hours in subzero temperatures caught in a leghold trap or after having been chased by several hounds for 38 miles to a fatal exhaustion; only after a final photo-op with the smiling owner of the camera and gun as he poses for one last shot — pun intended.
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> The research of Dr. Robert Crabtree, a well-respected wildlife biologist, shows that coyote populations subjected to varying degrees of lethal control — including natural populations with no control at all — demonstrates the failure of lethal control to minimize predation on domesticated livestock and wild ungulate populations. Instead his research shows that indiscriminate killing of adult coyotes — like that done by USDA Wildlife Services — actually causes social and behavioral changes that drive coyotes, for example, to target unnatural prey sources such as sheep in order to feed larger litters of pups.
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> Certainly if the state Fish and Wildlife Department can pay to have deer poaching deterrents and is concerned about the ethics of deer hunting, then there should be just as much concern and monitoring of coyote hunting.
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> Coyotes respond to control programs with a number of complex biological mechanisms, which work very efficiently to boost their numbers. When the alpha or dominant breeding pair is killed, subordinate pack members often begin breeding, bearing larger litters of pups with significantly higher survival rates. In order to feed large and healthy litters, coyotes must increase their caloric intake, which can result in their changing from the natural rodent prey source to preying on sheep and lambs.
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> While coyote are a natural predator of deer, they more importantly keep the herd healthy by taking the weak and older members of a herd. Rodents, rabbits, turkey serve a greater portion of their diet, all the while keeping rodents in greater control, supporting management of ticks and Lyme disease-carrying hosts. The also eat fruit, vegetation, insects and keep ecosystems vital, healthy and clean. Coyote may also minimize the feral cat population, thereby reducing bird predation.
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> This letter is a call to action. This letter is a call to our humanity, our morality, our ethics and our absolute need to find reverence and respect for the lives of these "God's dogs" and the role they play in our ecosystem as essential predators.
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> This letter is a call to our Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, board and Legislature to address this unscientifically supported open season whereby coyote can and are killed during mating season, while pregnant, and while raising their young. It is time proper monitoring is mandated. There is no measure of how many coyote remain in this state, or how many are so brutally killed for "fun," an "adrenalin rush," a monetary winning contest, for their fur in a trap, or lastly for misplaced ignorance by the sport hunting community that coyote "poach" "their" deer.
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> There should be a monitoring system and a means of accountability. Certainly if the state Fish and Wildlife Department can pay to have deer poaching deterrents and is concerned about the ethics of deer hunting, then there should be just as much concern and monitoring of coyote hunting.
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> It is time we as citizens of this state take a better look at the way the Fish and Wildlife Department manages our wildlife. As intelligent humans how do we sit by and allow such barbaric killings to occur? What are we teaching our children? Where are the morals and ethics and regard for other living creatures who too are trying to survive their ever shrinking world challenged not only by nature herself but by these barbaric methods of "sport" – hound/hunting and killing. Our society is shocked and questions acts of violence perpetrated on a daily basis in the country and yet fails to acknowledge or implement greater measures for preventing acts of violence upon animals and wildlife. Where is the difference? This is not hunting or trapping for food but truly a sadistic, violent and destructive trend. Children are witness and being taught from an early age to disengage from compassion and empathy but to harden their innocence to accept violence against wildlife.
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> This is a letter is a call to action; to write your legislators to address these acts of violence upon our wildlife but also to find compassion within yourselves, teach it to your children by example, and not accept or tolerate unethical and scientifically unsupported open season killing of coyote for fun, for increased sales to a salesperson working for a hunting business, for fur, for an adrenalin rush or for misguided, misinformed, ignorant and false reasons.
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> Like our beloved dogs, devoted and part of our families, coyote, too, are intelligent, altruistic, playful, affectionate, and devoted caregivers. Coyotes are magnificent animals that are tragically persecuted and maligned.
