Best use of Tax Payer money?

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Best use of Tax Payer money?

Post by Shags1 » Thu Jan 26, 2012 9:56 pm

I have another thought for everyone. The other day, (Sunday) while I was at work, I had the opportunity to witness a type of coyote population control that I haven't seen before. I have heard of it being done, but this was my first actual sighting. I witnessed a helicopter flying low and slow and shooting at something. I asked a friend, that use to work part time for the DWR how often they flew locally. His reply was that it wasn't the DWR, but the Dept. of Agriculture. Hmmm.... So I had the thought of, how much does it cost to put the bird in the air for 8-10 hours, pay a guy (or two, I guess, one to fly and one to shoot) on a Sunday (at 1 1/2 or 2X their regular hourly wage), plus ammo (I didn't find the dead dog where I saw them shooting, btw), and why the heck can't I be invited to participate if it's my hard earned money paying for it? Surely, there has to be better ways (more financially responsible) ways to control the coyote population. Trapping is one that comes to mind. Bounty is another. What say ye?

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Re: Best use of Tax Payer money?

Post by Coyote LJ » Fri Jan 27, 2012 7:52 am

Realize, ever since the Nixon administration banned the use of compound 1080 and the feds took over coyote control on public lands, there have been millions of dollars spent on studies to determine the most cost effective way to control coyote populations. It's a subject on which there are thousands of pages of professional research study that can be referenced. The opinions I express below are formed partly from having read many such studies.

Bounty is worthless to control a coyote population. In fact, no study has ever found a bounty system to be even marginally efective at reducing any coyote population anywhere, ever. Bounties are political pandering with no scientific basis to show any effectiveness at achieving the desired goal. Simply put, bounties accomplish nothing but political agenda. They have no impact on coyote populations whatsoever. That is just in terms of general coyote population control.

But when it comes to removing a single, specific coyote or pair of coyotes causing damage (loss to producers), bounty is worse than just utterly worthless, it can be harmful. Removing problem coyotes isn't amateur hour. Go in there and try to call them and fail to kill them and you might have just made them so much harder to kill that they end up costing the producer thousands more in damage before they finally get dead.

Anyway... There are, as always, a lot of variables to be considered. But when conditions are favorable for it, air gunning has been proven to be the most cost effective means of controlling coyote populations and/or removing specific animals to handle damage complaints. Note - this is when conditions are favorable for air gunning. Sometimes, snares, calling, steel, M-44's etc. are the more efficient, cost effective approach. It just depends on the situation and what is trying to be accomplished. But when it's the right situation, you'll spend less tax dollars per dead coyote, or more importantly less tax dollars per dollar of producer damage prevented, by air gunning than by any other currrently legal available method.

They use an airplane to gun coyotes most of the time, the chopper is more specialized and usually only used in terrain or circumstances that prevent an airplane being used safely.

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Re: Best use of Tax Payer money?

Post by one hunting fool » Fri Jan 27, 2012 11:45 am

no disrespect coyote but the bounty system is ineffective because the bounty is to low. if the bounty was moved to $50.00 then it would be worth the gas it takes to get out and call them. As it is I only call for fun now. I shoot 3 to 4 yotes a time and leave them where they lie. Pelts are not much better than $20 and not worth as much with big holes in them and cutting ears and taking them to the dept of ag is not worth the gas. but if I where getting $50.00 that turns an $80.00 day to a $200.00. I have a rancher friend that rents a chopper to get his yotes under control and he told me once it averaged $12.69 per minute. Seems like the Dept of Ag could try a $50.00 bounty and see how it works
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Re: Best use of Tax Payer money?

Post by Coyote LJ » Fri Jan 27, 2012 12:52 pm

Historically, there have been MUCH higher amounts than $50 in todays money offered. None of them have ever worked. Ever. Remember, we are talking about coyotes here. Not wolves.

Just how many additional coyotes do we think might be killed because of a $50 bounty? An actual number. How many?

Is that number enough to make a difference?

To control a coyote population requires killing at least 70% of them, multiple years in a row. Some models suggest it takes killing 80%. But I've never seen a study that came up with less than 70%. Kill less than 70% of them and the survivors produce enough pups that there are just as many coyotes in the spring as there were the year before you killed any. Worse, even if you succeed in reducing (conrolling) a coyote population by killing more than 70% of them more than two years in a row, studies show that as soon as you stop killing them at that rate, it takes only 3 to 5 years before they are back at pre control levels. This is not my opinion. There have been numerous, well thought out, exhaustive studies that have all substantiated this. Like I said earlier, coyotes are perhaps the most studied animal in North America with most of those studies looking at ways to effectively control the population. This stuff if known...

Just ain't no way, no how, a bounty system is ever going to make that happen. For that matter, there isn't any way that recreational calling will ever make that happen.

But lets use some solid numbers, see how they shake out... Nobody knows how many coyotes there are in Utah. Estimates put the number at anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 though. Let's call it 80,000.

Take a million dollars (as proposed) at $50 a pop for bounty. Even if every dime of that went to actually killing coyotes that would not have been killed othwerise, that is only 20,000 coyotes. That is 25% of the population. Guess what? You can kill 25% year after year after year after year without ever having ANY impact on the population. There will be just as many each spring as there would have been if you had killed none.

And THAT is assuming you actually get 20,000 coyotes killed IN UTAH for your million dollars. Which, I guarantee you won't happen. We, the tax payers of Utah, will be shelling out $50 a pop for coyotes killed from all over the dang place. Nevada and Wyoming especially. I know there are guys already, right now, selling NV and WY ears at $20 a pop to Utah counties. I even know of two guys who have been saving their ears this winter hoping the $50 thing comes true. They are going to make a killing if it does, but almost NONE of the coyotes they'll be getting $50 for were even killed in Utah.

It is a fact that bounty systems have always been abused by fraud. Making the prize $50 is going to make it way too attractive to way too many guys. Even if the counties require full bodies turned in or take other measures, the crooks will be two steps ahead of them every time. It's just too easy.

And there are an awful lot of guys who are already killing them, that aren't being counted now, that will start turning them in at $50 a pop. Those aren't additional kills, they are happening already. But the $50 is going to start going towards them now.

So, we know that an awful lot of the million dollars in bounty money would go to paying for legitimate Utah coyotes already being killed anyway. They'll just be worth turning in now. And we know that a lot of coyotes from either outside of Utah, or at least from outside the county paying the bounty. How many of the 20,000 total possible we can subtract as already being killed anyway or for fraud, I don't know. But I bet it's at least half? My own opinion, is it will be closer to like 90%.

Because... Yes, I totally agree that a $50 bounty will get a LOT more guys out there trying to kill coyotes for what they see as easy money. I'm sure of that. But... I've been hunting coyotes in this state for a long time. I know a lot of guys that have been. We are already killing as many as we can. Because it's what we do. We enjoy it. But I guarantee you, turning a bunch of "easy money" guys loose out there, is going to make things a LOT tougher on those of us who were out there hunting them already. I really see no possible way that a $50 bounty won't make it significantly harder for me. So, I'll be killing less, for sure. And so will all the regular coyote hunters I know. Not complaining mind you, just stating the facts as I see 'em.

Same time, from my experience, I don't see the "easy money" guys having much luck either.

Anyone who has spen ttime hunting coyotes knows that they are extremely adaptable and respond quickly to any changes in their environment. But they respond especially fast to hunting pressure. The more guys trying to get them the more educated and difficult to call those coyotes are going to get.

Bottom line... Recreational calling has no impact on coyote populations and even if you could somehow double or triple the number of coyotes killed by us recreational callers we would still be far, far short of controlling the population.

But bounties are popular and politically acceptable especially in rural areas.

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Re: Best use of Tax Payer money?

Post by one hunting fool » Fri Jan 27, 2012 4:17 pm

I know that yotes are smart and that it makes it harder to hunt when they are getting educated by everyone who thinks that they can make a rabbit squell out of their elk call. But I also know that moneyis a big motivator in all things and upping the bounty will have the same effect as $1250 an hour chopper time. Not to mention the wage of your shooters, and everything else that goes into air hunting. I also know that at $50.00 not only the inexperianced yote hunter will come out to play but the highly experianced will also. Do you know the average Kill per hour in a helo? my rancher friend says its about 6-8 really good I think but not at $1250 an hour. That makes your yotes at 20,000 a year $3,125,000 if they get 8 a year. give the other 2million to trappers and lets get this population manageable.
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Re: Best use of Tax Payer money?

Post by castnshoot » Fri Jan 27, 2012 4:19 pm

Texas just put some real profit in the preditor control game. These guys can now take paying clients up which is a win, win for everybody. Kind of like shooting Jack Rabbits out of the back of moving truck, but 10 times funner.

It is only good for privet property, but who know what the future holds. I see one of the local helicopter companies in Saint Gorge is advertising these trips clear over in Texas, so there must be some money in it.

Why not Utah? Privet for profit will always do a much better job than government.
http://www.marlindemocrat.com/news/arti ... 002e0.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiHmYsyVniE
http://www.wildhoghunters.com/content/4 ... icing.html

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Re: Best use of Tax Payer money?

Post by Coyote LJ » Fri Jan 27, 2012 5:31 pm

one hunting fool wrote:my rancher friend says its about 6-8 really good I think but not at $1250 an hour. That makes your yotes at 20,000 a year $3,125,000 if they get 8 a year. give the other 2million to trappers and lets get this population manageable.
Ask your rancher friend if he thinks the problem he is now willing to pay $1250 an hour to solve would be helped at all by offering the locals $50 a coyote instead.

I'm just purely guessing that he's not stupid and is willing to pay that much because it makes the most economic sense for solving his problem?

I'm not suggesting the coyote population in the entire state be controlled by professionals. I'm suggesting that it simply can't be done and that the bounty, like every other bounty that has ever been payed on coyotes will have absolutely zero effect on the coyote population.

Heck, back when a prime coyote fur was worth $100 and a brand new pickup truck only cost $5000 you had guys calling and trapping and snaring and poisoning and shooting them from the air and running them with hounds and chasing them with snow mobiles and just generally every swinging dick in the state killing them at every possible opportunity for several years. Did it even make a scratch in the population? Nope...

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Re: Best use of Tax Payer money?

Post by castnshoot » Fri Jan 27, 2012 5:49 pm

Dave, any thoughts on the Law they just passed in Texas ?

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Re: Best use of Tax Payer money?

Post by one hunting fool » Fri Jan 27, 2012 7:59 pm

he wouldn't have to pay if more hunters wherer hunting the animals. and back when every swinging dick hunted and killed every yote they found we had better upland hunting. I think it did make a scratch in the population. I never saw a yote growing you unless it was dead or they where in a spot light. Now I hear them everywhere see them everytime I am out in the early am in the fields. I am with you professionals should control them with every means possible. Hunters, choppers, trappers, bounties.
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Re: Best use of Tax Payer money?

Post by Shags1 » Fri Jan 27, 2012 10:22 pm

OK, if fraud is such a concern, how do the folks that put on competitions get around it? I've heard a few different rules about testing for rigor, and body temps, and different things, so why couldn't similar measures be taken to keep people a little more honest? I've never entered a contest, but I know there are some big ones, and I would guess they aren't won with fraudulent kills. And one hunting fool, whats the number to your friend, I'll help him with his problem for a lot less then $13.00 a minute. lol

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