First the bad news–New Coyote Derby in announced in Montana
Then the terrific News! Bill to Ban Coyote Killing Contests in New Mexico Passes First Hurdle Today!
Today SB 253, a bill sponsored by New Mexico Senator Mark Moores and Representative Jeff Steinborn to ban coyote killing contests passed out of com…mittee with a vote of 6-3.
This contest-hunt ban effort is work that WildEarth Guardians is doing with coalition partners Animal Protection Voters, @Southwest Environmental Center, and others who are committed to improving treatment of wildlife in New Mexico through changes in state legislation.
Exposing the Big Game 
Coyotes: Good for and Natural Part of Wildlife Ecology Stupid (s)
Cattle, Bison, Hares & Coyotes Ecology: Utah State University Research sheds light on wildlife and cattle on public rangeland (Henry Mountains) in Utah. Ranchers were complaining about competing with bison for grass when it was hares that ate twice as much grass as bison; and guess what controls the hare population, coyotes. Ranchers brightly concluded that the state should stop killing coyotes. But it is ranchers encroaching on wildlife with grazing permits then complaining about wildlife competing with them. Ranchers on public land should not complain about wildlife or displace it, or ask wildlife services to kill wildlife for them. Ranchers have this sense of entitlement and sense of specialness, like hunters and trappers, and very little understanding of wildlife ecology. The wildlife agencies also need to focus on ecology and their “management” mentality of working for hunters and ranchers.
http://missoulian.com/news/state-and-regional/utah-study-jackrabbits-bigger-problem-for-cattle-than-bison/article
http://billingsgazette.com/lifestyles/recreation/utah-study-jackrabbits-bigger-problem-for-cattle-than-bison/article
Coyote and Wolf Jihad, Trophy Hunting, Trapping, Game Farming, Animal Farming (AKA Ranching)
Utah has hired professional shooters to kill coyotes and have killed over 7000. And coyote killing and wolf killing contests have occurred in ID and are proposed for Montana and elsewhere. It seems like a violation of public trust for state and wildlife agencies and BLM and national forests to be allowing, condoning, mass killing of wildlife for entertainment or to drive down populations which is probably counter productive. Idaho and New Mexico and other states have had killing contests of wolves and coyotes. It seems that the federal agencies and state agencies are out of control and out of sync with the general public and are just working for ranchers, farmers, hunters and trappers. What do contests like this say about the human race? Major elements of us are as barbaric as ever. It does show that major elements of the human population are, my opinion, subhuman. Looking at what humans are doing to animals around the world and to the environment points to the Anthropocine Extinction. Half the world’s mammals have disappeared in the past 40 years animal farming, aka ranching, continues encroachment at an alarming rate eating up more and more wilderness. It is an absurd concept that man has “created God” in his own image and elevates himself above the rest of the animals on earth and puts himself at the center of the universe. Mankind is a disease of the Earth.
ARGH!
Reblogged this on Coalition for American Wildbirds.
The New Mexico bill is limited to the point where it would hardly benefit coyotes. Prize hunts for coyotes would be banned, but otherwise coyotes remain completely without protection, subject to being killed by anyone at any time for any reason. Instead of using the public outcry over contest hunts to begin to protect coyotes, APV, WildEarth Guardians et. al. have chose to support this limited bill which opens with the following paean to hunters:
“LEGISLATIVE FINDINGS.–The legislature
finds that it would benefit the state to retain its tradition
of nonfrivolous hunting by eliminating the practice of
coyote-killing contests in concert with long-standing
conservation guidelines for hunters and anglers.”