There is no science-based rationale for the ruthless and gruesome wildlife killing contests that are held all across Michigan, in which participants compete for cash and prizes for killing the most coyotes, foxes and bobcats as possible. When contestants come to turn in their carcasses, the beautiful animals, reduced to rotting corpses, are piled in pickup trucks, weighed and hung upside down to be counted. After the winning contestants receive their prizes and the celebration ends, the massacred animals may sometimes be sold for their fur, or simply discarded like trash.

This barbaric carnage serves no conservation purpose; it does not reduce conflicts with livestock, nor does it mean more deer or turkeys for hunters. Research done by Carter Niemeyer, a biologist who worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services, and Robert Crabtree, president and founder of Yellowstone Ecological Research Center…