It’s barbaric. It’s dangerous. It’s archaic and a practice whose time has come and gone. Yet unlike too many of its victims, trapping is alive and well in New Mexico.

Wildlife columnist Patricia Randolph, who writes a twice-a-month column for us and is a pain in the butt to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources with her unabashed advocacy for wild animals, spotlighted the incredibly cruel practice of organized predator-killing contests throughout the country, including over a dozen right here in Wisconsin.

As evening falls across bronze stalks of winter bluestem, a single, high–pitched yowl rises like a mournful spirit. Within seconds, the lament is joined by a concerto of yips, yaps, and yelps that grows in crescendo, slicing the air in a wild a cappella performance. Call it opera done Okie style. A coyote cantata. A great howling hooha with a feral metronome known only to the songsmiths. If a million-year run on the evolutionary stage is any measure, the coyote song is a Grammy winner. Who among us can resist the urge to stop, for a moment, and listen?

The first thing you notice are the smiles. Toothy smiles, goofy smiles, ear-to-ear grins announcing the thrill of victory. Next, you notice the bodies, some hanging from the back of a pickup truck, some piled high in a trash bin, others displayed tidily before a camo-clad group preening for a social media post.

Calling animal killing contests “brutal, barbaric and inhumane,” new State Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard banned the practice on state trust land Thursday.

Many homesteaders worry about protecting their animals from coyotes. The notoriously wily animals may prey on unsuspecting chickens or attack unprotected pets. But though there are certainly incidents of unpleasant experiences with coyotes, much of the fear surrounding the wild dogs is largely overblown.

Since its inception, Project Coyote has been one of my favorite organizations working tirelessly for compassion and coexistence with carnivores, rather than lethal control. I’ve known its Founder and Executive Director, Camilla Fox, since she was three years old, because her father, Dr. Michael W. Fox, was my Ph.D. mentor.

In the Dec. 12, 2018, article “A Death of Ethics: Is Hunting Destroying Itself?” lifelong hunter Todd Wilkinson calls out predator-killing contests and the methods of killing (any) that can be used on wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, bobcats, raccoons, and even crows and mourning doves. Hunters treat predators as worthless vermin.

A tournament this weekend in central Arizona that rewards the team that kills the most coyotes has some communities on edge.

Right now, as you read these words, it is perfectly legal in the state of Wyoming for a person to climb on the back of a snowmobile and chase down wild wolves, pursuing them until they drop from physical exhaustion. And, if that’s not enough, you can then run them over relentlessly with the machine, injuring them until they die.

You may know me as a founding member of the rock band Queen and founder of Save Me Trust.

It would be easy to call the Young Farmers & Ranchers Coyote Hunt, which begins today (Dec. 30) in Burns, a blood sport. The Young Farmers & Ranchers program is part of the Oregon Farm Bureau. Its contest offers cash prizes to the top three finishers in the hunt, which requires killing coyotes.

At the urging of Arizona citizens and local, state and national wildlife and animal protection organizations, the Dewey-Humboldt Town Council voted 4 to 2 last week in favor of a resolution that opposes wildlife killing contests.