Eastern Coyote/Coywolf Research

In some great news, I report on my October 26, 2012 Update of my field updates and news page that the proposed contest to kill coyotes and win a rifle was cancelled. Click on the above link to read that story and many more on my Field Updates and News (2012) Page. However, as of October 30: the hunt has been re-opened. What a disgrace to humanity and wildlife management. State wildlife agencies fully allow these type of barbaric activities. It is literally killing for fun. The man claims its his right to do this…. Gee, I wonder who he will be voting for on Tuesday.

Furthermore, until wildlife management changes (see my Canid Management page) all you have to do in most states is to buy a cheap hunting license and that gives you the right to slaughter as many coyotes per year as you want with little regulation. Most states allow you to hunt at night, to use bait, and to use other means such as dogs, to aide in tracking and killing coyotes. These laws need to change nationwide.

The following response (below) is my response to the two editorials (click here for first and second articles) from the New York Times on Wolf Delisting and my response to the New York Times about coyotes/coywolves living in their own backyard.

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I applaud your article “Victory for Wolves” and how it explains how there should be a robust and dynamic population of wolves in the west and more than hunters should be thought of in the next, revised federal management plan. However, you should realize that the same federal government has essentially denied federal protections for wolves here in the Northeast including recent petitions.

There is more and more evidence that the eastern coyote, which is a coyote x red/eastern wolf hybrid that could by called a coywolf, is very closely related to the original wolf that we had living here in precolonial times. In other words, what was once thought of as the gray wolf living here in the Northeast was probably the eastern or red wolf. State management plans in all Northeastern states essentially allow an unlimited slaughter of eastern coyotes for all or at least half of the year. This is wrong for 3 reasons. One, coywolves are important to the ecology of the area and should be allowed to live at natural, not human caused densities. Two, coywolves (and wolves) are social, sentient, and intelligent animals that should be treated like a valuable member of the natural community, not managed for hate which essentially modern regulations allow. Three, the current management of coywolves (eastern coyotes) here in the Northeast just about guarantees that non-hybridized wolves making it here from southern Canada will be killed.

It is only just for the NY Times to advocate for animals close to home (including sometimes in Central Park!) just as it is important for wolves in the Rockies.

Jonathan Way
Cape Cod, MA

Science-based wildlife management. My thoughts on the hypocrisy of state wildlife departments…

Science-based is a term that is often used to justify hunting seasons for a given species – i.e., “we used science to guide our decision”. But what does that really mean? Lets be absolutely clear, in my (and many others’) opinion there is little science in setting hunting seasons for most species, and it is often determined by trial and error. Wildlife is still managed for hunters and maximum sustainable yield, which I don’t even think is that accurate since state agencies have no idea of how many game species (like deer on the Cape) live in many areas, especially here in Massachusetts.

State wildlife departments often say they use “science-based management” in their decisions, especially the director, but I don’t even think he/they know what that means – which again, is their technical way of saying, we want hunters (a small minority of the population) to kill as many animals as possible and as long as they don’t go extinct (which is highly unlikely for most species especially coyotes/coywolves in this day and age of low hunter participation) then it is science-based.  Most often hunting seasons are set by trial and error and if the “harvest” (a word I hate for animals, they are not crops; instead use the term “kill”) stays steady then it is assumed that they are doing alright in their “science-based management”.

State agencies are selective with their “science-based management” and ignore many published scientific articles showing: 1) the importance of individuals; 2) the importance of predators on a landscape, often in biological significant numbers; and 3) the social nature of canids, among other reasons. Science-based for them is to look at one or two published studies that show that you can kill X percent of the population and it won’t go extinct, which we all know by now. It might also mean that state game agencies receive less calls (because fewer hunters are complaining) when we increase hunting seasons, so it (increased hunting) must be working, with no evidence to support their claim. It essentially says, “Shoot first, and ask questions later.”

However, this type of thinking is very outdated and hypocritical. For instance, it ignores modern scientific research that shows that many animals (coyotes/coywolves for example) are social, intelligent, family-oriented animals. It ignores a vast body of data on the importance of predators in an ecosystem and rarely, if ever, is there any data or way of knowing what effects a given hunt has on a predator and how it might affect its ecological impacts. Most frustrating for me, science-based (a.k.a. maximum sustainable yield) ignores the growing body of wildlife watchers (outnumbering hunters 30 to 1 and outspending them 10 to 1 here in MA) and how they like to watch individual animals. State wildlife agencies seemingly ignore the wildlife watcher that often likes to watch individuals of whatever species they observe. Yet wildlife watchers (many of whom also hunt) have no voice if someone wants to shoot and kill the animals they like to observe, which is most frustrating.

While I am getting off the subject of science-based management, I stand behind the assertion that little science is used to set hunting seasons but, instead, to maximize opportunities for hunters, who here in Massachusetts number less than 1 percent of the state’s population. And, after all, you can shoot and kill an animal only once, but you can watch it unlimited times, as long as it stays alive for people to watch it.

Furthermore, I will make the claim that wildlife managers are often hypocritical in their viewpoints. For instance, wildlife managers want scientists/biologists outside of their agency (people like me) to prove/show data for what effect hunts have instead of predicting it ahead of time. Of course, it is the ultimate “Shoot first and ask questions later” scenario. In other words, they will say that a season (like the coyote hunting extension season in 2007 in MA) was successful because more coyotes/coywolves were killed but none of their statements would survive peer review. For instance, what classifies as successful? There was never any documentation that a higher kill of coyotes led to fewer problems with the public, for instance. How can coyotes become less bold when hunters are allowed to shoot them at night under a pile of bait – nighttime is when coyotes are “supposed to be active” in urbanized areas to avoid conflicts with people. Yet state agencies are implicit in their thought process that a higher kill must lead to reduced conflicts without providing any accountability/evidence (“science”) supporting their views. It is dangerous and irresponsible to make these types of statements and claim that they are “science-based management decisions” when in reality success to them is often in the form of receiving less calls from hunters and potentially some angry home-owners. That is not science-based and if you collect no data besides dead animal body counts, you can not claim that something is science-based. But then to force other scientists and laymen to support their claims (e.g., often against a hunting increase) with science is the ultimate in hypocrisy. After all, when hunters just about solely pay the bill for state wildlife agencies (in this violation of public trust), shoot first and ask questions later is an easy mantra to subscribe to.

Is Coyote/Coywolf management inherently racist?

            Recently I read this book on Cougars (my favorite species of cat) and saw the following quote which caused me to think for many hours about this comment:

            “Hunters and (state wildlife) agency personnel often show limited empathy and openness because of their orientation toward self-enhancing power and achievement and political or other conservatism. Self-enhancing and conservative values have been closely identified with prejudice, unwillingness to engage constructively with unlike others, and a preference for power arrangements that perpetuate inequality.” – from People, Politics, and Cougar Management by David Mattson and Susan Clark, in Cougar Ecology & Conservation (p. 212), Edited by Maurice Hornocker and Sharon Negri.

            My thoughts from the quote: While this is certainly a stereotype and obviously not all hunters are prejudiced/racist, there is an element of truth to this statement. The many people that I have met that hunt and kill as many “coyotes” as possible seem to fit this statement to a T. They favor one species over another (“reducing the coyote population” without knowing what the effect is on the system). There are no doubt many other hunters that agree with my beliefs on coyote management like: the importance of predators in an ecosystem, having bag limits on them just like all other big “game”, the unsporting use of bait. These folks seem to be a much different group of people that would indeed be willing to work with others to have fair wildlife management practices. Essentially, they might listen to the non-hunters viewpoint. However, those folks also don’t have much say in current wildlife management which appears to be dictated by the vocal, and often “extreme” hunter. It doesn’t take a stretch to think that these self-enhancing values could be extended to other groups of humans (i.e., racism).

            In 2007, the coyote hunting season was extended to almost half a year including allowing an unlimited take by an individual hunter – literally meaning that someone can slaughter as many as possible for any reason. You can use bait, night hunting, predator calls, and dogs to kill them, and there is no wanton waste law – meaning that hunters can kill them just to kill them and you are technically allowed to intentionally waste something (i.e., their bodies) negligently or inappropriately.  The commission never revealed how many people were for or against the hunting extension but I bet the majority (certainly including me) wrote against it, and a few public meetings that I attended (or people reported to me) were heavily against the extension. The way that state wildlife game commissions have public meetings set up to have seemingly pre-determined outcomes, I believe is just another self-serving form of government that is discriminatory and favors certain groups over others – often with no scientific evidence to support the viewpoint (i.e., there is no scientific evidence that increased hunting of coyotes will reduce perceived problems). Furthermore, it doesn’t take a stretch to look into people’s worldviews and see the racist or hateful side of a person when they favor one species (game) over another (predator) and do things like leave bait piles out in their back yard and pluck coyotes/coywolves in the middle of the night, or kill as many as they can often just to kill them. All these are legal and promoted by most state wildlife departments.

            Furthermore, wildlife management doesn’t acknowledge anything about the importance of the individual or the social, sentient, family-oriented nature of coyotes and coywolves. State agencies have utterly ignored my (and others) peer reviewed publications on these topics and continue to follow the outdated model of allowing unlimited bag limits to hunters because the population won’t go extinct. Well the local loss of individuals in a given area can be significant and is unneeded for many reasons both for ethical and moral reasons and for wildlife watching and ecological reasons. And they have absolutely no data on the ecological importance of killing predators (often done for the sake of killing them). Also, what about the wildlife watcher (many hunters included) that likes to watch a given individual, only to see it pointlessly shot and killed for fun (“recreational hunting” being the official term)?

            In summary, without having equal representation, I believe wildlife management is inherently self-serving, prejudiced, and outdated in its clear stance of favoring hunters (especially extreme ones) over all other “users” of wildlife and perpetuating cruel practices of hunting because it has traditionally occurred. I especially believe that coyote and coywolf hunting brings this issue to a head based on the individuals that I have met over the years that participate in these currently legal and often inhumane activities with little scientific evidence to support their need for endless killing. I would be fascinated for a sociologist(s) to do a study/survey of people that participate in these unregulated slaughters and the people that allow this (and ignore all other voices). I think the answers they get would be very telling about current wildlife management. Certainly, this post is a taboo, “the proverbial Elephant in the living room that everyone knows about but ignores”. However, it is irresponsible to call these activities science-based and for state game agencies to legally allow someone to kill unlimited numbers of any animals out of hate or recreation, and to justify it based on the species not being severely affected by our activities. There needs to be a change in the composition of state wildlife departments and their extremely pro-hunting commissions to change this.

“Racism and cruelty and the manifestation of killing needlessly are all symptoms of the same disease – a damaged spirit.” Marie Thomas

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