Kill a coyote in exchange for free hunting license in Georgia

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The Georgia Department of Natural Resources is calling it the Georgia Coyote Challenge where the state is inviting people to hunt or trap coyotes to win a prize.  Humane advocates are outraged and call the hunting and trapping of the animals as cruel and absolutely inhumane. The challenge begins in March and goes to the end of August; the winner of the challenge will receive a free lifetime hunting license. On the organization’s website, the details are explained. No guidelines as to the humane killing or trapping of the animals are mentioned:

“Each coyote killed, up to five (5) a month per hunter/trapper, will earn an entry into a monthly drawing for a lifetime license (or equal credit for purchase of hunting/fishing licenses)*.

Currently, scientific research suggests that removal of coyotes during the spring and summer is the most advantageous time to reduce the impact of predation on native wildlife. We want to encourage coyote removal efforts during this critical period.”

For the last ten years, the Atlanta Coyote Project has been documenting and tracking coyotes in the Atlanta area and contend the hunt coincides with pup-rearing season where both the male and female are involved in raising and feeding their offspring. If the killing is initiated and both parents are killed, the puppies will all starve to death or be attacked by other predators. According to the Atlanta Coyote Project’s Facebook, the state agency’s mission is to “sustain, enhance, protect and conserve Georgia’s natural, historic and cultural resources” and to sponsor such a program is reprehensible. Although  the Coyote Challenge  refers to coyotes as “non-native predators,” and experts agree the animals are relatively recent immigrants into the southeastern United States, coyotes have come to the area  because humans have killed all of the native wolves.

“Killing predators leads to unintended ecological consequences. Past efforts to eradicate wolves have clearly shown this,” state the organization.

In addition, the Atlanta Coyote Project states the following:

“Hard data showing that coyotes significantly impact the populations of other wildlife species is scant to nonexistent. Recent studies in South Carolina concluded that the negative impact of coyotes on deer populations is minimal (Kilgo et al., 2016). Secondly, we do not believe that coyote “removal” will reduce the population long-term. More than likely, it will lead to an INCREASE in coyote numbers over time as competition is reduced and a resurgence occurs. To see the ineffectiveness of lethal control as a wildlife management strategy, one needs to look no further than the estimated 70,000 coyotes that are killed each year by the USDA’s Wildlife Services.”

The Atlanta Coyote Project is working with state legislators to ban this type of hunting challenge, which they say other states have done. For more information or to contact the Georgia  Department of Natural Resources, click here.

(Photo courtesy of Atlanta Coyote Project)

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Click here to read about another coyote recently removed and killed  from a restaurant in New Orleans. Animal advocates were outraged.

 


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19 COMMENTS

  1. I shudder to think the dogs that will be “mistakenly” killed because someone is thinking they are shooting a coyote!The Georgia Department of Natural Resources should be ashamed of themselves coming up with this travesty! There is enough killing going on without them making this a “contest”! I hope that the Atlanta Coyote Project is able to get this shut down and bring these idiots to their senses! Just when I think I have heard it all, something like this comes to light! What is wrong with humanity?

  2. Here we go another idiotic idea brought to you by human beings! Yes step right up open season has been declared on another animal who goes out of its way not to interact with humans! Then to make it even more fun let’s kill the parents because then the pups will starve to death or be eaten by some other predator! Well I would like to think this is a joke! I know it’s not! So hey how about this! You know what population has gotten out of hand and needs to be thinned out! I’ll give you a hint! Ready? They walk up rite and make stupid contests for morons to enter! Give up? Humans let’s have a contest for humans you can trap or kill up to 5 a month! And the contest runs thru August who ever ends up killing the most wins the grand prize! That’s right less moronic humans!

  3. Oh Wow; A murdering contest! This shouldn’t surprise me but it does! It’s repulsive. Humans are glorifying hunting just to hunt and it’s horrifying to me. I feel so detached from some of the human race when I see things like this. Let alone, the Korean dog meat cruelty and trade . It’s a nightmare for us animal lovers. I feel so powerless. SIGH> UGH. what next?

  4. Sick bastards. Not only out to slaughter coyotes, but to let offspring die horrible, suffering deaths. Monsters! How do we fix this? Make it stop!

  5. I agree a hundred percent with Kathleen Drude.Let’s turn this around and let hunters and the stupid stupid stupid stupid idiots who came up with this idea be hunted down to get rid of stupid idiots.But first let them starve for a few months before we turn the coyotes on them so they can feel what the pups feel.What the hell is wrong with these idiots.Someone must have dropped them on their heads when they were born and fucked up their brains because they surely are walking idiots with no brains or compassion.Worthless cowards.

  6. OK Georgia you have proven your ignorance once again – letting idiots hunt down coyotes for NO REASON WHATSOEVER shows that this state has the intelligence of a box of rocks. You are allowing any redneck idiot with a gun kill these animals and leave their offspring to die – what part of cruelty don’t you understand?

  7. Please stop this killing of coyotes. It is horribly cruel . To say it is so young wildlife has a better chance to live is such a smoke screen. Jaw traps are legal and hunting season is always near, it is so humans have more to kill. I think the human race has developed a sickness. It makes me so sad

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