Predator killing contests were in the crosshairs of the Arizona Game and Fish Commission Friday at its meeting in Bisbee. Commission members unanimously voted to move forward with a ban on such events. In Arizona, predators are defined as foxes, skunks, coyotes and bobcats.

There is a movement happening as more people are becoming aware of wildlife killing contests and understanding they are a blood sport that takes place across the country just about every weekend of the year. Tuesday night, the Coconino County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution to oppose predator killing contests in a 3 to 1 vote and an advocacy group is asking citizens to help them ban the killing contests statewide.

It’s a small speck of brown moving across a seemingly endless valley of snow. The valley is so silent and so frigid, it feels as if the slightest sound could crack the sky.
Franz Camenzind is unbothered by the cold. He lines up his spotting scope atop a tripod and moves it slowly, left to right. He stops, focuses. A smile creeps beneath his beard.

Michigan wildlife officials say it’s the time of year when coyote sightings will be common around the state. The Department of Natural Resources says coyotes are particularly visible during their breeding season, which runs from January through March. Sightings also can be expected from April to August, when they’re caring for pups.

One morning in the 1930s in Yellowstone National Park, biologist Adolph Murie watched a trotting coyote joyously toss a sprig of sagebrush in the air with her mouth, adroitly catch it, and repeat the act every few yards. Murie was conducting a study to prove that coyotes were “the archpredator of our time.” But the biologist, whose work ultimately exonerated the animals, was more impressed by that sprig-tossing — proof of the joy a coyote took in being alive.

Coyotes don’t need our help to survive as a species. But there is something perverse in society marking an ancient American species for death, setting it outside the bounds of even our wildlife protections and anti-cruelty laws.

Yesterday was a momentous day for wildlife. In California, two bills that would end the cruel and senseless fur trade in California overcame their first hurdle. By a 9 to 3 vote, the Assembly Committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife passed AB 273, which would ban all fur trapping of fur-bearing and nongame mammals including coyotes and foxes in the state. The Committee also passed AB 44–which would prohibit the sale of new fur products in the state–with a vote of 10 to 4. Project Coyote’s amazing volunteers Kim Boester and Erin Hauge testified at the hearing. These historic measures would set a standard for the humane treatment of wildlife throughout the nation. Learn more about these bills here.

SANTA FE – The state Senate passed legislation Wednesday that would ban coyote-killing contests in New Mexico – after an 80-minute debate that highlighted the political divide between urban and rural lawmakers.

DEAR DR. FOX: Coyote and fox killing contests occurred last month in Minnesota. These wildlife killing contests are cruel, ineffective, and do not reflect the state’s tradition of sportsmanship and respect for the outdoors.

SANTA FE — As a bill to ban recreational and commercial trapping works its way through the New Mexico legislature, indiscriminate trapping is proving an enormous impediment for endangered Mexican gray wolves’ already uphill battle toward recovery.

Eva Woods’ op-ed (“Legislators, listen to agricultural, rural experts,” Looking In, Jan. 29) about coyotes is replete with scientific errors and largely ignores the substantial body of scientific literature on the biology and ecology of coyotes.

If we cannot agree that claims made about them should be rooted in the best available science, then there is little point in debating the killing contest issue. Science is objective fact — it does not matter where a person lives or his or her occupation when it comes to the making of factual claims.

Daniel Dietrich was driving around Point Reyes National Seashore one afternoon last year when he saw a flash of piercing blue. It was a coyote.

LAST SPRING, A photographer and guide in northern California’s Point Reyes National Seashore named Daniel Dietrich spotted an unusual animal: A female coyote with blue eyes. Blue is an incredibly rare eye color for coyotes, and it’s likely caused by a chance mutation.