ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The single-engine plane came in low as the seasoned pilot maneuvered to give his gunner a clear shot at a coyote on the ground below. They were on a mission to hunt down predators that had been killing livestock in northeastern New Mexico.
A spotter less than a mile away had his binoculars trained on the coyote. He heard two or three gunshots as the plane passed over its target and through his field of view. Moments later, he heard a crash and looked up to see the plane planted in the ground.
Pilot Kelly Hobbs and his gunner, Shannon “Bubba” Tunnell, were killed. A preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board released late Wednesday says the impact pushed the engine into the cockpit.
No strangers to the risks of aerial gunning missions, the men left the Raton airport just after dawn on June 5. After passing over the edge of a mesa and spotting the coyote, the pilot began to descend. At one point, the plane was flying just 42 feet above the prairie, according to GPS data.
After Tunnell took his shots, Hobbs began to climb to the left. The last reading showed the plane was nearly 100 feet off the ground and its speed had dropped to 62 mph through the turn.
Ranchers across New Mexico are mourning the two men, who were working for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services branch at the time of the crash. Ranchers say they would often turn to Hobbs and Tunnell for help in protecting their cattle and sheep from predators.
“It hit me pretty hard when I heard about it. It was just like a punch in the stomach,” said Candy Ezzell, a state lawmaker who worked with Tunnell just weeks earlier to address coyote problems on her ranch in southern New Mexico.
Funeral services for both men were planned Friday.
Their deaths bring to 12 the number of public employees killed during Wildlife Services
aerial gunning operations in the U.S. since 1979. Many of the aerial missions happen in the West, where sheep and cattle ranchers regularly report problems with predators.
Hundreds of thousands of hours have been logged by Wildlife Services pilots over the decades. Agency officials stand behind their safety record, but environmentalists argue that the costs are too great and the federal government should end aerial gunning. They pointed to the fatalities along with more than 100 crashes and dozens of injuries.
“In no uncertain terms, putting agents into the air so they can gun wildlife from low-flying aircraft is so inherently dangerous and reckless,” said Wendy Keefover of The Humane Society of the United States.
A review of accident investigations shows pilots have flown into power lines, trees and land formations, Keefover said. Some also have flown back into their air turbulence and in several instances, gunners have shot their own aircraft or bullet casings have become lodged in mechanical workings.
The call to halt the practice stretches back to the last deadly crash in 2007 in Utah. At the time, Wildlife Services responded by launching a safety review.
As for the potential of another review, agency spokeswoman Lyndsay Cole said the focus now is on helping investigators determine what caused the latest crash in New Mexico.
The preliminary report states the weather was calm and there was no apparent evidence of any mechanical malfunctions or failures that would have caused engine problems.
Flying low and at relatively slow speed is risky, but Ezzell and other ranchers say aerial gunning operations are invaluable since controlling predators across such large swaths of land can be difficult. Trapping and coyote-calling contests have also come under fire, leaving ranchers with fewer options.
“With folks in the city wanting to end trapping and calling, it has become a real issue for the ag community and has affected the state’s ability to manage wildlife,” said David Sanchez of the Northern New Mexico Stockmen’s Association.
Aerial operations were used by Wildlife Services last year to kill more than 35,000 animals in two dozen states. That included more than 21,000 coyotes.
The agency targets animals that prey on livestock and other wildlife as well as nonnative species that damage crops or cause problems at airports. A total of 2.7 million animals, the majority of them birds, were killed last year.
Exposing the Big Game 
The coyotes they shot had families too.
Folks in the City huh?
Has it ever occured to them that maybe, just maybe, not everyone in the country isn’t an arrogant sadistic self-absorbed environmental parasite thoroughly disgusted by those that are?
Typo: *not everyone in the country is an
Karma/too bad…I feel nothing for these humans…I feel only for the animals already murdered or that will be at the hands of heartless, arrogant greed-driven, ignorant humans…at my age, I’ll feel what I feel and make no excuses…animals and their lives are where my heart lies…I am a misanthrope in my “older” age…living with a rescued dog is all I need now that my beloved husband is dead.
You’re in good company
Thank you for the validation, Jim ☺..I neglected to mention I am vegan and do everything I can (mostly on Twitter) to promote awareness of animal issues. If I can make one person think about an animal issue, sign a petition, donate to an animal cause or save one dog or cat, then I feel I have done something worthwhile. And I certainly appreciate all you do. You are such amazing animal advocate. Role model for sure. I do sometimes comment on your posts on FB. ☺
Thanks for spreading the word and for all your other action (including being vegan).
How sad. Karma all around.
Assholes. Hahahahaha
When I heard that there were two fewer taxpayer-funded hired murderers, I did a little jig! Two down!
“Wildlife Service” (aka, Animal Damage Control), set up decades ago to protect the livestock industry on western lands, not only aerial guns wild animals, but sets flames throwers into coyote pup dens, sets out toxic poisons, which explode if an animal touches it, and uses steel traps everywhere. This barbaric agency is going strong, and we in NM now are up against a new Game & Fish proposal to expand bear hunting, and to include trapping of mountain lions, both species which are struggling due to the impacts of livestock grazing on public lands, and hunting–often these industries are one and the same. Compound 1080, started being used on western public and private lands ubiquitously, with untold death and suffering throughout the food chain–by only using a few drops for each set up. While it was supposedly stopped, many ranchers continue to use it whenever they can (many of these folk had good supplies of it, and only a small amount is needed to poison. Dick Randall (you may see his many wildlife photos of trapped & otherwise slaughtered wild animals), once was a wildlife killer with ADC himself. I got to meet him before he died. He told me how he had “done terrible things to animals on the range”, some things he said he could never mention. But, he did say that many of the agency employees actually “had criminal backgrounds, which fit well for their slaughtering tasks on the range.” Dick Randall quit ADC & want on to become one of the most dedicated activists for wildlife, using his photos and his working experience to expose this terrible, cruel federal agency, which continues killing as I write this.
This agency, Wildlife Services, as it is called today, is one of the major lead players in the Mexican Wolf Reintroduction Program. Yes, This federal wildlife killing agency is basically in charge, thanks to Dave Parsons, “biologist.” David Meech, another one, mentions he is a trapper.
So, this is what wildlife have to deal with out there. I am sick of hearing and seeing otherwise good people, stupidly swallowing word for word, the lies that come out of these “biostitutes, who take credit for “wolf reintroduction.”
http://www.foranimals.org
I am a plant-based eater, but that alone will not stop this massive slaughter, Please, become ACTIVE and work against these game agencies and against federal Wildlife Services in your area. We must stop these agencies because of the billions (not millions) of native coyotes, mountain lions, bears, prairie dogs, wolves, bobcats, lynx and many other innocent wild animals.
Sorry…but these animals have a right to live and their families miss them as well!!!!! Killing innocent animals to appease the Ranchers are just ludicrous!!!!! It’s not right!!!! If mankind would stop messing with nature there would be no problems.Then again…I don’t believe there really is a problem other than “greed”……
++But, he did say that many of the agency employees actually “had criminal backgrounds, which fit well for their slaughtering tasks on the range.++
I don’t doubt it. In order to do this job, you’d have to be lacking in ethics, morals, compassion and be a sociopath. They make me want to vomit, the born-again one too.
Well, all I can say is, I’ll bet there are some coyotes celebrating tonight!!
Since 1979, according to this article, 12 Wildlife Services employees have died while aerial gunning. But, thousands of coyotes & other wildlife (maybe more, since this agency lies about statistics) are senselessly killed. Hardly a comparison, is it?
Well, if 12 aerial gunners are gone, there must be some wildlife that are still alive.
Obviously they are taking note that the “folks in the city” are against trapping and “culling.” These city folks must be the kind who push circuses into removing elephants from the their shows, who complain when wild animals venture into town are shot rather than sedated and removed, and who scare factory farmers into trying to pass ag-gag laws. Some of the rural folk in this part of the country believe the city dwellers are unrealistic in their view of wildlife from lack of experience and distance from wilderness. They may have some point. Nature is not a Walt Disney production. Predator kills are brutal. I feel bad for the fear and pain a deer or elk or baby bison must feel during the chase and the dying. However, wolves and cougars are what they are–no evil intent, no torture intended. Human beings cannot claim such innocence. We have choices. We decide to make the trapped animals suffer even more by setting dogs on them. We decide to poison, to strangle in snares, and to brag about the gut shot. We go to McDonald’s for the products of factory farms, transport trucks, and slaughter houses. And we make unfair fights even more unfair by hunting from planes.
Well, a few more hunters will be missing from the skies, and the rural dwellers are getting the message from the “urban folk.” How we treat animals, I suspect, will be one of the big culture wars of the future.
I used to think that predator kills were brutal, but I no longer do. It pales in comparison to what humans do. It’s nature’s design. Designed to be a quick end. I’ve yet to hear about a wolf throwing a rope around the neck of prey from on horseback with another of his pack, and then riding off into opposite directions to break the neck of and tear apart the creature! Humans are sadists. And the predators do not always win – another of nature’s design. Sick, weak, those who’ve had their day, and yes, the young. It’s designed to keep the population in check. Nature’s design is beautiful. I’ve seen people actually try to kill raptors for killing pigeons, and then turn around and poison the pigeons en masse because they are a nuisance. We cannot apply human ideals to the animal world, especially when we cannot even hold to them ourselves.
That should read ‘keep the populations healthy and in check’.
Tomorrow is the “Game Meeting” (no game for wildlife), and my nephew and I will be there. I no longer accept their game management jargon, and they have absolutely NO credibility, and I hope I will have the chance to tell them that. Your comments, Ida, are well taken, thanks.
Let’s all contact the New Mexico “news” stations and newpapers. They need to know just how many wildlife have been (and are being as we speak), slaughtered: millions, by these folk flying around in planes aerial gunning down coyotes–and any other wild animals they happen to see.
I agree that only human beings are sadistic, can plan ahead to torture, and enjoy the spectacle. And, yes, predation has always been a part of life and evolution. But since we know animals feel pain and fear, just people do, death is not easy in the wilderness, whether an elk caught by wolves or the wolves injured by hooves or antlers. As an observer noted, “there is no boone in nature.”
The only way this story could possibly get better is if the NTSB investigators were to find a .50 caliber bullet had perforated the plane’s engine cowling!
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