A petition to ban the controversial practice of coyote hunting contests in Nevada failed again before the state’s Board of Wildlife Commissioners on Friday. Reno Public Radio’s Julia Ritchey was there and has more.
The commission voted 5-2 to deny the petition after nearly three hours of emotional testimony from both sides of the issue.
“The defenseless beautiful animal was hunted down and brutally shot in the head,” said one speaker supporting the ban. “The coyote stumbled around not knowing what had happened… twitched and jumped for some time as though it was being electrocuted.”
“I’d like to invite any one of these people out here to come with me during calving season and watch coyotes rip apart calves,” said a speaker opposed to the ban. “If they could watch this, I really think it would kind of change their opinion on coyotes.”
Don Molde presented the petition on behalf of the Nevada Wildlife Alliance, one of a handful of wildlife organizations represented at the meeting held at Truckee Meadows Community College.
“The biggest reason is that these contests, which are done in a party atmosphere — kill as many animals as you can on a Saturday and the let’s have a party about it — all of this indicates a profound lack of respect for the animals killed by the participants,” he says. “And we think that is the biggest reason not to do this.”
This was the second time this year that wildlife advocates had introduced the petition seeking the restriction on contests – the last one failed in March.
Cory Lytle with the Lincoln County Advisory Board says the petition was overly broad and comes down to a rural versus urban divide.
“We have a huge cultural and social difference with regard to this type of petition,” he says. “I grew up in rural Nevada where it was commonplace to go hunt coyotes. Personally, I don’t take part in these contests … but I also don’t want to tell somebody they can’t go do something.”
Commission Chairman Jeremy Drew says he voted no because he felt regulations would be ineffective.
“We’ve tried to deal with controversial topics through a regulatory process in the past, and it’s been very difficult to get both sides to come to the table and try to find a consensus-based approach,” he says. “Just because we’re not moving forward with a regulatory process, doesn’t mean it closes the avenue to continued dialogue on the matter.”
Coyotes are an unprotected species in Nevada and its populations are not managed by the department of wildlife, which means we still don’t have a count on them.
So far only California has banned coyote hunting competitions, but advocates say they will continue to press the issue in the legislature.
