Sponsors of a monthlong coyote hunting contest planned for February canceled the event. Series11 sporting goods store and the Weston Rod & Gun Club in southern Vermont cited a lack of interest in a posting on social media.
Meanwhile a different coyote hunting contest, for the weekend of February 10 and 11, is being sponsored by the Green Mountain Houndsmen Club in Franklin County, according to Protect Our Wildlife, a Stowe-based nonprofit.
The Stowe organization is one of several animal rights groups pressing Vermont lawmakers and state Fish & Wildlife Commissioner Louis Porter to ban coyote hunts on the grounds that they promote senseless killing of animals that no one wants to eat.
Green Mountain Animal Defenders circulated a petition to ban coyote hunting in Vermont and called the Series11 planned hunt a “killing spree.” The petition, on change.org, had attracted almost 8,000 signatures as of Thursday afternoon, although many of those were from people who live outside Vermont.
Opponents of coyote hunting contests have also asked Vermont landowners to post their property to prohibit all hunting as a way to pressure the state to take action against the coyote contests.
Series11 sells guns and other goods in Londonderry. A message posted on the store’s Facebook page Wednesday said the hunt was canceled due to lack of participants. The decision had nothing to do with pressure from activists, according to the posts on the page.
A man who answered the phone at Series11 Thursday said only four people signed up. He declined to give his name and reemphasized that protests against the hunt played no role in the cancellation.
Supporters of the hunts say they reduce coyote attacks on Vermont’s deer herd and help keep the thriving coyote population from spilling into residential areas where the animals sometimes prey on cats and dogs or scare people.
Vermont has an open season on coyotes, meaning they can be hunted anytime.
Critics say that’s cruel and that coyotes are often killed in a particularly brutal fashion, including being clubbed. “I don’t think there is any animal that is treated more terribly than coyotes,” said Brenna Galdenzi, president of Protect Our Wildlife. “There is a deep hatred for these animals by hunters and they are just treated without mercy.”
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Humans are the ultimate wasteful killers. I am not against hunting if you eat the meat, but these brutal coyote hunting contests have got to end. It is absolutely barbaric to slaughter these coyotes (and wolves, and other predators)-some will say for management, but in truth its because they enjoy killing. The science is out there and easy to find-predator hunts like coyote contests are counterproductive in managing both predator and their prey populations.
Coyotes are one of the most persecuted predators-and these hunts are absolutely counter productive. Coyote populations when hunted respond with larger litters, more females breeding, and killing some members in a pack will cause them to scatter and colonize more areas to form new packs, and often are MORE likely to kill livestock when their numbers are managed with hunting (this happens in wolves too). Maybe its humans and their livestock that need actual management (especially with studies showing that non-lethal strategies actually work better at protecting livestock long-term, but that doesnt give hunters the instant gratification of killing wildlife does it?)
Its promising to see at least one killing contest end. Any steps taken towards ending this backwards-thinking idiotic practice is a step in the right direction!
As a real hunter I’m disgusted by those who kill animals they don’t intend to eat, out of ignorance, fear, and irrational hatred, leaving wanton waste. Coyotes wouldn’t even be here if the same psychopathic mindset of the coyote ‘hunters’ hadn’t already been used on our wonderful wolves. Both canids ensure a healthy deer herd, and both ‘manage’ their own populations in relation to prey availability. Wolves and coyotes are vital to curbing CWD when it hits VT, and keeping ungulate herds in top condition.
Modern human hunters take out the biggest, strongest, healthiest bucks instead of going for smaller, younger deer, and leaving the biggest to breed. This isn’t proper deer herd management. Modern humans also don’t seem to be regulating their out of control population, which is affecting every species on the planet with a 6th mass extinction…blaming coyotes or any species for ecosystem deficiencies is beyond the pot calling the kettle black. I’d like to hear what Fish & Wildlife is doing to restore our heritage top predator, the wolf, to VT’s ecosystems while there’s a ‘open season’ on their strange cousins from the west.
Coyote contests are nothing short of barbaric and are ecologically dangerous. There are so many reasons to ban them! First of all, the typical rationale for these killing fests is that coyotes harm the deer herd. That is completely false. Even the VT Fish and Wildlife Department state emphatically on their website that coyotes have no impact on the VT deer herd. Livestock and pet predation is the other reason given for the desire to exterminate one of our top predators. But multiple studies have demonstrated, again and again, that hunting coyotes does not control their population or aggression toward livestock. In fact, and this is also supported by VT F&W, hunting tends to result in greater coyote numbers and greater aggression toward non-native prey. Coyotes have evolved to react to the stress of being hunted by adapting their reproductive cycles to protect pack survival. If the breeding/hunting alpha pair is killed, sub-adults in the pack will start to reproduce at a younger age and with larger litters. There is abundant evidence that killing coyotes has little impact on livestock predation and may in fact cause it to escalate. Coyotes are extremely important to our environment and play many roles in balancing ecosystems. It is past the time for co-existence, the proven effective means for controlling coyote numbers and behavior, to be the norm. They control the abundant rodent population, assist in tick control ( VT has the 2nd highest rate of Lyme disease in the country last year), clean carrion from our woods (most deer consumed by coyotes are already dead!), and disperse native seeds, among other benefits. There is no place in a civilized world for killing contests. They need to be banned.
The science does not support what those who are for the hunt are saying. Coyotes and predators keep the deer herds MORE healthy, they keep rodent populations in check, and they are a vital part of the ecosystem. It is horrid that our Fish and Wildlife board does not take a stand against these contests and the indiscriminate killing of coyotes.
The comments made by those “hunters” who favor needless killing and wanton waste only reinforce the beliefs of many Vermonters who feel that open season on any animal, and killing contests, only serve the need of those that want to “target practice” all year long on our wildlife. Making a stew from an animal does not justify, to most well-educated animal advocates and moral Vermonters, the need to have a contest where hundreds of animals could be killed included young pups and mothers. As per the Fish and Wildlife Department, coyotes have little, if any, impact on the thriving deer herd. The excuses that keep surfacing to continue this needless, inhumane practice are becoming ridiculous.
Coyote hunting is unnecessary and is only supported by those who dont understand coyote behavior and biology. When hunted heavily they reproduce more. Even Vermonts fish and wildlife dept says they have a negligible impact on the deer population. I only wish the keepers of our wildlife would respect coyotes for the value they bring to our ecosystem and educate our youth responsibly so they respect coyotes.
Coyote-killing contests have no place in Vermont’s hunting or conservation culture. I look forward to the time when they aren’t an option to begin with. True hunters and conservationists value these predators and embrace their vital role in Vermont’s fields and forests. I also look forward to the day when the myths living within some in Vermont’s hunting community (“coyote populations must be managed by thinning the population”, “coyotes reduce the deer population”–both patently false) are uprooted in favor of far more effective coexistence strategies. Vermont Fish and Wildlife Board already has dispelled these two myths on their website, but policy needs to follow suit.
Since coyotes and foxes, prey on the RODENTS that carry the ‘deer ticks’, that spread Lyme disease and which are decimating Vermont’s moose population, these ‘Thrill-Kill’ thereby only promote the spread of Lyme disease among all Vermonters and tourists visiting our state. There’s no reason that the F&W Board needs to cater and enable a small subculture, that revels in these ‘blood-fests’, against the Will of the Majority of Vermonters. I’m very glad to see at least one of these sadistic ‘contests’ ended.
GOOD! Predator killing contests serve no purpose! They are nothing but bloodsports. Science has shown again and again that mass killing coyotes only causes the remaining coyotes to reproduce even more, resulting in a larger coyote population the following spring. There are NO scientific articles or research studies showing killing contests help reduce coyote population.
The sheer level of disrespect hunters show towards these animals is appalling, and don’t let them fool you into thinking they eat these animals either. 9 times out of 10 they are thrown away like trash.
Coyotes are not harming the deer population as they also will have you believe, they are not harming any wild game species… granted they are keeping game species populations in check (where hunters will work to INFLATE game species so that they can kill more of them).
Hunters lie. They don’t listen to science. Hunting is NOT conservation. They only kill to kill, especially in these killing contests. I hope the cancellation of this contest encourages others to fight against wildlife abuse and brutality.
In October, Mrs. Galdenzi and her husband both took to Front Page Forum exhorting folks to post their land over deer hunting as well. Not only did they indicate that deer hunting was a terrible thing, they offered to supply posters. The simple fact of the matter is that Mrs. Galdenzi, a vegan, is opposed to any and all utilization of not only wildlife, but animals in general. That’s fine for her, but marginalizing and working to ostracize fellow community members in an attempt to force them into the same choices she makes is fundamentally wrong.
She has repeatedly and openly stated that sporting conservationists (hunters and trappers), are a minority and therefore their interests are insignificant. We don’t accept this treatment of our LGBT community, our developmentally delayed community, or any of our myriad ethnic communities. I challenge anyone to give me a single rational reason that we should accept her attempts at bullying the hunting and trapping community.
Hunters and trappers are multidimensional members of your communities. They are teachers, doctors, students, mothers; and they deserve the same consideration as every other lifestyle receives for their contributions. Perhaps instead of blindly judging based on the propaganda of an agenda driven organization, folks should go speak with outdoorspeople and learn about the heritage, camaraderie, and connection with the land that draws them outside.