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Petitions to Prohibit Wildlife-Killing Contests–Please Sign!

posted Dec 25, 2015, 1:24 PM by Scott Slocum [ updated 2 hours ago ]

Problem

The Animal Legal Defense Fund describes the problem as follows:

“Killing contests are reckless wildlife management: those who defend the killing sprees by pointing to an increase in coyote populations refuse to acknowledge science which has conclusively shown that killing animals haphazardly like this increases their populations and worsens any problem they may create for livestock. These contests are creating the problem they pretend to be controlling, and are ineffective at best, savage at worst: glorifying killing for the sake of killing. As ALDF has repeatedly shown, nonlethal predator control works, is more effective, and is more humane.”

Solution (Please Sign!)

Alberta, Canada: Ban Wildlife Killing Contests.

Please sign online.

California: Prohibit Wildlife Killing Contests.

This Petition was successful!
Result: California Fish and Game Code, Section 2003: “Except as specified… it is unlawful to offer any prize or other inducement as a reward for the taking of any game birds, mammals, fish, reptiles, or amphibians in an individual contest, tournament, or derby.”
Sample Contest: Big Valley Coyote Drive, Adin, CA, 2/7/2014.

Georgia: Stop Coyote Trapping in Atlanta.

Please sign online.

Minnesota : Prohibit Wildlife Killing Contests.

New Petition! Please sign online!
Sample Contest: “Save the Birds” Coyote Hunting Tournament, Marshall, MN, 2/19/2016.
Sample Contest alternate URL: http://coyotecontest.com/contest/2nd-annual-save-the-birds-tournament
Sponsored by the Buffalo Ridge Gobblers MN Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation, Marshall MN Visitors Bureau, Lyon County Chapter of Pheasants Forever, and Prairie Highlands Branch of the Quality Deer Management Association.
Watch a video recording of a MN House Environment & Natural Resources Committee at the beginning of a process through which charitable-gambling opportunities for killing contests like this were made available (by adding a new allowance for “wild game or fish taking events” to MN Statutes Section 349.173). See if you could have figured out by reading the legislation that it would have enabled killing contests like this. Hint: I read it at the time, but it was presented as such a harmless “charitable” provision that I didn’t think to object to it. Notice that there was no public input and no critical discussion of the bill in this hearing (and probably none in subsequent hearings of this 2014 bill HF 2651 or the 2014 Game & Fish Bill HF 2852 in which it was eventually included and passed). All of this was done with a monumental lack of foresight. For the idealists who might have expected that kind of foresight to come from the MN DNR: not.

Idaho: No predator-hunting derby on federal lands.

This Petition was successful!
Sample Contest: Idaho for Wildlife’s Predator Hunting Contest, Salmon, ID, 1/1/2015. (titled “Coyote & Wolf Derby” in previous years.)
Narrative of this contest by an embedded journalist: How to Kill a Wolf, by Christopher Ketcham, VICE, 3/13/2014.
Wildlife News article about this contest: With Lawsuit Pending, Feds Cancel Idaho Predator-killing Derby. The lawsuit was prepared by the Center for Biological Diversity, Western Watersheds Project, Project Coyote, and Defenders of Wildlife.

New Mexico: Ban Wildlife Killing Contests.

This Petition was delivered.
Wildlife Conservation Advocacy Southwest: “native species must be included and protected in New Mexico’s wildlife statutes.”

Nevada: Help Ban Coyote Killing Contests.

This Petition was delivered on 3/20/2015 and (in revised form) on 11/13/2015 to the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners.
Project Coyote’s blog about this Petition.

New York: Prohibit Wildlife Killing Contests.