● “There are things that people from a social standpoint have a difficulty with, and commissioners listened to that.” —Kurt Davis, Arizona Game and Fish Commissioner; June 11, 2019i
● Mike Finley, chair of the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission: “Killing large numbers of predators as part of an organized contest or competition is inconsistent with sound, science- based wildlife management and antithetical to the concepts of sportsmanship and fair chase.”ii
● Michael Sutton, former president of the California Fish and Game Commission: “Awarding prizes for wildlife killing contests is both unethical and inconsistent with our current understanding of natural systems. Such contests are an anachronism and have no place in modern wildlife management.”iii
● Ray Powell, former New Mexico Commissioner of State Lands: “The non-specific, indiscriminate killing methods used in this commercial and unrestricted coyote killing contest are not about hunting or sound land management. These contests are about…
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Exposing the Big Game 
Nate Pamplin, big shot at Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife had this to say at a Commission meeting in May, 2014: (Excerpts that fairly represent his total statement. This Mouse had a court reporter transcribe the official recording)
“The WAC also contains a statement that the hunting contests, which may adversely affect wildlife resources, will be denied. So kind of the conservation value is incorporated, both in the RCW and reflected in the WAC.
“Typically, we issue about five hunting contest permits per year; all of them are for coyotes. The rationale for folks that are pursuing contests — and fully recognize that there’s a lot of people that might not understand or agree with hunting contests, but folks participate. Whether it’s the camaraderie of hunting and sharing experiences, to just off-season — you know, most folks are pretty geared towards big game hunting. And coyote hunting in the winter in particular is a way to kind of stay in the field and keep your marksmanship and hunting skills sharp, as well as some folks have indicated that they’re wanting to try to reduce the coyote population to benefit ungulates.
“Currently — just in setting contests aside, we currently have coyotes classified — or, well, they’re unclassified wildlife, so you can hunt them with a big game or a small game license, and the season’s open year round with no bag limit. So we’re not seeing any type of population-level impact associated with the hunting contests. Last year, of the permits issued, a total of 829 coyotes were reported harvested in those handful of contests.”
Then, in the spirit of the NAMWC that wildlife belongs to all, is an international resource, and is held in the public trust, he reminded the commissioners that outsiders were interfering in the enjoyment of practicing marksmanship on coyotes:
“The Center for Biological Diversity had done essentially an e-mail campaign, started up here a week or so ago. As of Monday we’ve received over 2,000 e-mail messages, but on the first day of the campaign, we received 540 messages. Just kind of give you an indication: About 12 came from addresses that we could tell were within Washington state. Of those 540, about 200 were within the United States, and the rest were out of country.”
The Evergreen State is not so green when it comes to wildlife “management,” apparently.
Yet most (if not all) allow year round unlimited killing of coyotes; the game agencies hate the idea of contests only because it gives hunting a bad image in the public eye, nothing more.