ANIMAL DAMAGE CONTROL

Wildlife Fact Sheet #1

ANIMAL DAMAGE CONTROL

"The image at once fascinates and repels. Severed heads of 11 mountain lions stacked beneath a tree. They are one-fourth of the 44 lions trapped and killed in Arizona last year by professional hunters working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in a little-known nationwide program called Animal Damage Control (ADC)."

So began a U.S. News & World Report expose of the federal government's most wasteful program -- most wasteful of life, that is. At a cost of $30 million dollars of taxpayer money, ADC hunters and trappers annually kill nearly 5 million animals, including blackbirds, starlings, cormorants, coyotes, prairie dogs, mountain lions, bears, beavers, deer, raccoons, gophers, squirrels, and many more. Its cruel, outmoded policies have virtually no biological basis. Its tactics are shocking and barbaric. Some of the most commonly employed examples include:

Trapping and snaring with excruciating devices such as the steel jaw leghold trap.
"Denning" of pups, usually coyote (i.e., forcing them from their dens by hooking, gassing, or other methods, and clubbing them to death).
Aerial hunting from helicopters and airplanes.
Using sheep collars containing Compound 1080, an extremely lethal poison that causes extended convulsions and suffering prior to death.
Spraying a chemical detergent on roosting birds, sometimes numbering in the hundreds of thousands, that destroys the insulating properties of their feathers and leads to death by freezing.
Using M-44, an explosive device often baited with sodium cyanide powder that explodes in an animal's mouth when bitten.
Chasing mountain lions and other predators with dogs and shooting them out of trees at point blank range.

In 1931 Congress established the federal Animal Damage Control program and animal control became institutionalized at the federal level within the Department of Interior (in the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service). Sheep ranchers and other livestock interests convinced Congress to pass the legislation, which calls for "campaigns for the destruction"... of "animals injurious to agriculture, horticulture, forestry, animal husbandry, wild game animals, furbearing animals, and birds." In December, 1985, as a result of pressure from Western members, Congress amended the Appropriation Bill to transfer the ADC program to the Department of Agriculture, thereby putting predator control into the hands of an agency wedded to the livestock industry.

Today ADC exemplifies bureaucracy out of control. Relying on brutal, archaic management practices, the program is a misdirected attempt to resolve animal/human conflicts. With a misguided focus on killing, ADC does not promote long-term resolution of conflicts, but often worsens them. And it completely fails to address the ecological imbalance it creates by destroying integral parts of native ecosystems.

State cruelty statutes, fish and game regulations, and other animal protective legislation does not apply to ADC. As a result, its agents have a free hand at carrying out their "war on wildlife."

With a budget of $37,721,683 in 1988, ADC hunters and trappers killed 483,935 mammals and a staggering 4,470,769 birds. Yet ADC has been unsuccessful in "managing" populations deemed "nuisances" by farmers, ranchers, trappers, and other special interest groups for which it structures its predator control programs. The figures vary from year to year, but ADC's kill remains high, especially if incidental kills (e.g. orphaned offspring, poisons affecting animals further up the food chain, etc.) are accounted for.

Incredibly, the cost of ADC is higher than the cost of damage allegedly caused by its animal victims. In 1988, for example:

California spent $3,267,098 to kill 20,378 animals with a confirmed loss to agriculture of $1,121,978.
Montana spent $1.25 million for 23 ADC employees to kill 5,830 animals which were reported to have destroyed $235,567 in property and livestock.
Wyoming spent $1.36 million for 32 people to kill 7,474 animals which reportedly destroyed $334,706 in property and livestock.

Economically, ADC is a fiasco for taxpayers. Its budget for 1988 totalled $24.7 million, (which does not include $13,021,317 from federal and other cooperators), yet total confirmed losses were only $6.8 million.

The Resilient Coyote

One of the mammals most persecuted by the ADC is the coyote. Upwards of 10 million coyotes have been shot, trapped, clubbed, burned to death, or poisoned. In 1988 ADC agents killed 76,000 coyotes, primarily in Western states.

Yet the coyote has not only survived, but has been one of the very few animals to expand its range. As ecologist/animal behaviorist John Alcock explains, "the reasons for the coyote's adaptability revolve around the animal's exceptional intelligence, omnivorous life-style, and reproductive flexibility. Occupying many habitats and surviving on a great variety of food has led to an evolved intelligence in coyotes which they pit against `canicidal' humans."

Like most species, the coyote adjusts it population for density and environmental factors. In areas where coyotes are shot, trapped, and poisoned, females produce an average of 8 to 9 pups, compared to 2 to 3 when the population is protected. Thus, where humans kill coyotes, survivors increase reproduction to fill the void. It's an exercise in futility, but wonderful job security for the ADC!

Former ADC agent Dick Randall states, "the theory behind predator control is if you kill lots of predators, especially coyotes, foxes, mountain lions and bears, then cows and sheep can sleep in peace. It's time we recognize this philosophy has never worked and never will."

Coyote control, like other forms of animal damage control, can be replaced with non-lethal alternatives. One option is to compensate farmers for confirmed losses. Other alternatives include fencing, livestock management, taste aversion techniques, and placement of certain species in common areas. Livestock management can lessen the need for other protective mechanisms. Routine inspection of animals, removal of dead, avoiding the grazing of young in predator-prone areas, and night corralling all help minimize predation. Taste aversion techniques successfully prevent losses, and are used throughout the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. Placing burros, llamas, and certain types of dogs with livestock animals also prevents losses.

Since coyote density cannot be shown to bear a relationship to livestock predation, the intensive coyote eradication efforts of the ADC clearly are counter-productive. ADC has slaughtered 750,000 coyotes since 1972 at a cost of $117 million. The result: the resilient coyote, being density dependent, has compensated for all population losses and today stands at approximately the same level as in 1972.

Conclusion

ADC represents an immense drain of taxpayer dollars to cover the losses of very few citizens. Ranchers suffering livestock losses graze their animals on publicly owned land at very cheap rates. Thus, American taxpayers are subsidizing grazing for "welfare" ranchers who demand that they further subsidize, at enormous cost, the destruction of predators killing relatively small numbers of their livestock. The demands ignore the suffering of ADC's victims and the vital ecological role that species play in their habitats.

The ADC program should redirect its focus to wildlife preservation while mitigating wildlife/human conflicts. More laws, time, money, and effort need to be focused on non-lethal ways to resolve problems resulting from human encroachment on wildlife.

What You Can Do

Write your U.S. representative and senators and demand that ADC's budget be redirected toward non-lethal controls. Send letters to:

Senator _____
U.S. Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510

The Honorable _____
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

Wildlife Fact Sheet #1