Animal Friends Advocate Violent Death For Deer

Group: Use coyotes, not hunters to cut deer population


Published: Tuesday, October 19, 2010
DailyLocal.com

VALLEY FORGE — An animal-rights group that opposes the use of hunters to cut the deer population in Valley Forge National Historical Park wants officials to consider using coyotes instead.

The Pennsylvania chapter of Friends of Animals opposes a plan to use sharpshooters to eliminate more than 80 percent of the park's deer in the next four years. Last year, the group filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the hunts.

Now, the group has started a campaign called the Coyote Coexistence Initiative. The group wants park officials to consider encouraging natural predators rather than shooting the deer.

Park officials say the proposal wouldn't work.

Friends of Animals says it will seek an injunction to stop a hunt planned for next month. According the Friends of Animals' Web site, attempts to control coyote populations through trapping and killing have been futile and "an ethically and scientifically sound strategy that focuses on empowering people to respect coyotes" is preferable.

"Education and outreach designed to inform the public about the role of feeding in coyote attacks is an integral part of coexistence programs already in place and those currently being developed," the group's Web site says. "Coyote education campaigns can demonstrate practical ways to avoid unwanted incidents — by, for example, making coyote deterrents using household items."     Read More

Let’s see if I can get this straight.  The Friends of Animals group would rather have predators chasing and harassing a deer until it finally dies a very slow and painful death than have sharpshooters quickly harvest the deer and use the meat to feed the homeless.  With friends like that who needs enemies??  Not only would this be a tremendous waste of resources, but it would also lead to an eventual problem with coyotes as well.  With their plan, what happens to the coyotes if and when they would lower the deer population?  They either start starving to death or die off from disease.  It’s another great example of people with no knowledge or experience dealing with managing natural resources trying to make recommendations that cause more harm than good. 

Coyote Hunting

Wily in the pursuit of coyotes
By Joe Mozingo
January 27, 2009

Jimmie Rizzo puts a lump of chaw in his lip and picks his way into a ravine below a home in Redlands. Through a wrought-iron fence, a French bulldog named Phoebe yips, snorts and wheezes in her rhinestone collar. Rizzo tells her to shut up. He's here to help.

For years, coyotes have fed on pets in this hilltop neighborhood. When residents complain to the county, the county calls Rizzo.

The trapper, born and raised in the hardwood forests of the Mississippi Delta, specializes in California's big predators: coyotes, bears and mountain lions.

Bear and lion problems make news. Coyotes make business. Rizzo spends about 80% of his time tracking, trapping and putting down wild canids from Pacific Palisades to Twentynine Palms.

His services are at once widely sought and controversial, reflecting suburbia's conflicted relationship with its wildlife. Read More

You will notice how lightly HSUS is treading on this subject. They need to keep suburban residents sending in donations, so they aren’t very eager to make a big deal about this. Now if this involved livestock, they would be shouting from the mountaintops about the evils of trapping coyotes. I guess they are smart enough not to bite the hand that feeds them, even if a coyote has to die in the process.