It begins with a lone canine voice, a melancholy sound as the shadows grow longer across the valley floor. Another joins, and another; a chorus of untamed canines yipping and singing. In the crepuscular stillness, from hills far away, another group responds. Back and forth the tune ricochets — the sound of the wild welcoming the night.
Mendocino County supervisors voted Tuesday to renew the county’s contract with a federal agency that aids ranchers in killing predators that prey on their livestock. The county had previously contracted with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services, which has garnered criticism from animal advocates for killing predators such as coyotes, mountain lions and bobcats instead of considering nonlethal ways of curbing attacks on local livestock.
Since 2014, Gowan Batist, co-owner and manager of Fortunate Farm in Caspar and a fifth-generation sheep rancher, has utilized non-lethal methods to protect the farm’s 40 sheep grazed regularly on approximately 120 acres of land including their own, their neighbors and Jughandle State Park. “With a large coyote population, we have had, over the years, several losses to coyotes. We didn’t want to shoot them so we went from hardscape fencing to electric mesh; we haven’t had a loss since then,” she says.
As sportsmen and conservationists, we commend the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission for considering CR-102, a proposed rule to ban wildlife killing contests statewide. Competitions involving indiscriminate killing of animals for cash and prizes – the greatest number, the largest, or even the youngest – promote irresponsible waste and devalue wildlife and their sensitive habitats. This rule will address the public’s concerns that these events are cruel, unethical and ecologically destructive, and will protect the reputation of the state’s sportsmen and women who understand that killing contests show complete disregard for life and threaten the future of Washington’s legitimate hunting traditions.
On any given day, it’s not unusual to find Carmichael’s Guy Galante wandering along the American River, watching, listening, tracking. A naturalist and Sacramento region’s resident coyote expert, he’s been documenting and photographing the coyote packs in our region for nearly 15 years. He knows them individually, and their family units, habits and unique personalities. And that’s important.
A key piece of information is missing from the March 7, front page article in the Ukiah Daily Journal entitled “Non-lethal Wildlife Option Explored.” It’s laudable that the Board of Supervisors is investigating non-lethal means when it comes to wildlife/human conflicts. But the Board’s current proposal is to have taxpayers continue to foot the $170,000 bill for the County to contract with USDA Wildlife Services to kill thousands of wild animals annually, using neck snares and other brutal killing methods that have been proven to be wildly ineffective and even counterproductive in protecting livestock.