Dear HCN,
In response to
your cover story, “Tinkering with nature,” (HCN,
3/31/03: Tinkering with nature), one must remember that Animal
Damage Control, now masquerading as Wildlife Services, was set up
in the 1930s at the instigation of livestock operators for the sole
purpose of killing coyotes, lions, bears and bobcats for the
ranchers. (Wolves by that time had been nearly extirpated.) It has
expanded its scope to include most things not on the endangered
species list. In a recent year in Idaho, in addition to 5,113
coyotes, they slaughtered 5,665 of those vicious predators, ground
squirrels, 1,204 California gulls, and 994 of that voracious avian
menace, the rock dove.
I know a few Wildlife Services
folks and some of them, unfortunately, seem to take a dark and
perverse pleasure in their work. The agency recognizes that if the
general public was aware of their mission and their success, their
budget would probably disappear in a heartbeat. It’s only the
Western livestock interests that shepherd their budget through
Congress every year.
Wildlife Services goes to great
lengths, usually successfully, to exempt themselves and their
activities from Freedom of Information Act requirements, and with
good reason. Seldom mentioned are the numerous fatal aircraft
accidents connected with aerial gunning of coyotes and the huge
costs to taxpayers resulting therefrom. It is a renegade outfit run
amok which deals in secrecy and death, and the sooner Congress
clips its wings, the better.
Lynn Fritchman
Boise, Idaho
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Wildlife Services must go.
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