URGENT: Your Voice Needed To Protect Wildlife In Virginia!

Speak up before Feb. 2 on two fast moving-bills

We need your help with two bills moving quickly through the Virginia Legislature!

House Bill 1247, recently introduced in the Virginia House of Representatives’ Agriculture Committee by Delegate Mark L. Keam (35th District), is looking to prohibit all contests and competitions that offer cash or prizes for the killing of coyotes and other mammals in the state. The Virginia State Legislature is also considering HB725, a bill that would ban all steel-jaw traps across the entire state.

The proceedings are fast moving, and we have just received word that the Committee on Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources will be hearing these bills TOMORROW (2/2). Please call and email the committee members to help get it passed!  

These bills will be heard by the House Natural Resources Subcommittee in their meeting starting at 7 a.m. ET Wednesday, Feb. 2.

Take action:

1. Submit written testimony in favor of these bills. You can do so through the Committee’s SPEAK site.  Scroll down to select ‘HB1247’ and then further down to select “Next” at the bottom right. (Please also do the same for HB725.) Then write your comments in the corresponding form. You may also write longer letters and attach them to that same online form. These comments will be printed out and provided to the committee delegates.
2. Provide oral testimony. Your testimony is crucial for promoting legislation. Please consider doing so, especially if you are a hunter, scientist, wildlife manager, farmer, community leader or animal advocate. Legislators need to hear your perspective!
   • To testify, visit https://hodspeak.house.virginia.gov/about and sign up by midnight ET Tues. Feb. 1.
   • Select “House Meeting Schedule”
   • Select “Sign-up to speak or submit comments” on the 2/2/22 Natural Resources Subcommittee meeting
   • Craft your message. Use the talking points below, remember to be respectful and keep your comments brief. Testimony is limited to 3 minutes per person.
3. Write a Letter to the Editor (LTE) and submit it to your local newspaper to encourage fellow Virginia residents to support a ban on wildlife killing contests. Use the talking points below, and see tips on LTEs here.
4. Share this alert on social media, forward it to your network and ask other VA residents to submit comments supporting HB1247, which prohibits wildlife killing contests, and HB725, which would end steel-jawed trapping in the state.

Let legislators know that you care about Virginia’s wildlife!

HB1247: Help Ban Wildlife Killing Contests in Virginia

Every year, Virginia’s bobcats, coyotes and foxes are targeted in cruel and senseless wildlife killing contests, in which participants compete to kill the most, the largest or even the smallest animals solely for cash and prizes. Hundreds of animals may fall victim over one or two days and are typically discarded like trash after the prizes are awarded.

We have an opportunity to ban killing contests in Virginia now but we need your help.

HB1247 TALKING POINTS (remember to personalize your message and be respectful):

• There is no scientific evidence that indiscriminately killing coyotes and other wildlife reduces their populations, increases populations of game animals like deer or protects livestock. Randomly killing coyotes disrupts their pack structure, which can increase their populations and increase conflicts between coyotes, humans, and domestic animals. Preventing conflicts by utilizing humane, non-lethal solutions is more effective.
• Wildlife targeted by contests play an important ecological role in healthy ecosystems. For example, coyotes reduce rabbit and rodent populations, scavenge animal carcasses and increase biodiversity. These contests are counterproductive to sound management.
• Eight states have prohibited wildlife killing contests. As awareness of these barbaric events spreads, Americans are increasingly demanding an end to this bloodsport.
• Killing contests damage the reputation of responsible hunters by violating fundamental hunting ethics. Countless animals are injured or orphaned during killing contests. The events also put non-target species at risk.
• Killing contests are a bloodsport. Killing coyotes for thrills and prizes—with no respect for their intrinsic or ecological value—is senseless violence and waste.
• This bill is not a ban on hunting and does not impact other laws. Individuals will still be allowed to hunt coyotes and other wildlife according to state laws.
• Virginia’s wildlife is managed in trust for all Virginians. Allowing individuals to wantonly kill wildlife as part of a cruel bloodsport is a grave violation of the state’s obligations to hold wildlife as a public trust for all citizens.

HB725: End steel-jaw trapping in Virginia!

Steel-jaw traps are a cruel and indiscriminate capture method that often catches and kills imperiled species as well as domestic animals. This gut-wrenching video showing the first-hand experience of rescuing a coyote from a steel jaw trap! (Warning: video contains graphic imagery.) 

Ask the committee to outlaw these cruel traps. Please remember to be polite, respectful, and state that you are a Virginia resident. Personalizing these talking points helps ensure they will be thoroughly read and reviewed:

HB725 TALKING POINTS

• HB725 would protect wildlife, humans, working dogs and companion animals from steel-jaw traps, and save countless animals from suffering excruciating pain and death. 
• Science does not support trapping as a legitimate means of wildlife management. Modern wildlife management uses effective nonlethal tools to protect wildlife and livestock. (For more details, review Project Coyote’s letter in support of HB725 signed by leading wildlife scientists that sets forth the relevant science and value-based arguments against trapping. Read more about trapping in Camilla’s Fox’s co-authored book Cull of the Wild here).
• In the case of coyote “control,” multiple state agencies have echoed the sentiment that it simply does not work to effectively reduce conflicts or populations. Neighboring North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission stated in 2018, “While coyote population reduction (‘coyote control’) is often the first and only management approach that people suggest, it has proven ineffective.” Similarly, in 2016, the Pennsylvania Game Commission stated, “After decades of using predator control (such as paying bounties) with no effect, and the emergence of wildlife management as a science, the agency finally accepted the reality that predator control does not work.”
• More than 80 countries and several states, including Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, have banned leghold traps because of their inherent cruelty and indiscriminate danger to non-target animals.
• Steel-jaw traps are dangerous and inhumane — there have been incidents reported in Virginia of illegal trapping that caused a raccoon to suffer for a week in a trap. A similar incident involved a fox who lost two toes. Banning steel-jaw leghold traps will greatly reduce needless animal pain and suffering.

Thank you for taking action! Follow these bills’ progress here, support them in future committees, and in floor votes. Learn more about how a bill becomes law in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

**Please also note this same committee is hearing two bills that would prohibit the use of snare traps in the state; we also encourage you to voice your support for these bills if you have time: HB1175 and HB1776!

Thank you for helping protect Virginia’s wildlife!

Michelle Lute, PhD
National Carnivore Conservation Manager