The Saturday 18 February Washington Times ran a feature on A4 titled
"Chicago coyotes adapt to city life". Today there are an estimated 2,000
coyotes in Chicago while 50 years ago there were none.  The only problem
noted in the article is the "residents who suspected that coyotes were
attacking cats or small dogs".  No mention is made of coyotes killing large
dogs (up to and including German shepherds in Colorado) or attacking
children in Massachusetts.

The piece goes on to tell us "Coyotes were rarely seen within the city
limits of Chicago, population 2.9 million, for most of the 20th century
because of U.S. government eradication programs that were ended in the 1970's
amid budget cuts".  Whoa, there's a whopper!

Throughout the 20th century coyotes were confined to the western US prairies
and western mountains.  They were trapped, shot, poisoned, and generally
discouraged to protect livestock, wildlife from deer to pronghorn antelope
to maintain huntable herds, and pets and other animals in and around rural
communities where there were large Federal land ownerships.  Saying that was
"ended" "amid budget cuts" is like saying hunters are being harassed because
of environmental concerns.  In each case there is a myriad of ruthless
organizations whose avowed purpose is the elimination of these activities in
order to impose the imagined standards of a politically active urban few on
others.  In the case of "ending" coyote control in the 1970's, the truth is
stranger and more repugnant than this current fiction.

In a nutshell, the animal rights radicals (Defenders of Wildlife, Humane
Society of the United States, et al) began a vicious and slanted campaign in
the 70's to force "the government" to stop controlling coyotes.  The head of
the program (in the US Fish and Wildlife Service) had to retire as he was
harassed and lied about until his health began to fail.  By the 1980's and
90's what was left of the program was transferred to the US Department of
Agriculture as the US Fish and Wildlife Service pursued the mantle of chief
government savior or plants, animals, land, and urban myths.  Today the
animal damage control program is miniscule, the tools available are severely
restricted, the Director of US Fish and Wildlife Service when $45 to $60
million was stolen from State hunting and fishing funds in the 90's is a top
officer in the Defenders of Wildlife, and the Defenders of Wildlife is the
premiere "partner" in the US Fish and Wildlife Service wolf program
(responsible for and in charge of approving who "gets" compensation when
wolves kill and damage private property). In case this cast of characters
sounds familiar to you, they are the ones fostering all the big lies over
and over about how wolves aren't a danger to humans and how wolves (much
bigger, more dangerous, and more destructive than coyotes) don't depress big
game populations.  "Budget cuts" my patoot!

Finally, the coyote propaganda tells us "Coyotes aren't all bad for city
dwellers.  They can prevent overpopulation of deer, Canada geese, rats, and
squirrels.  In Chicago, coyotes have reduced damage to golf courses from
grazing deer, burrowing rodents, and defecating geese, according to wildlife
officials."  Really?

Bites or attacks from coyotes (I will bet there are many such incidents
though the article is mute on this point) are far worse problems than
"overpopulation of deer".  The Canada geese are ignored (no research is
conducted on their human health, water and soil quality, or human activity
impacts) by Federal managers but it is convenient to justify the lack of
control or management of coyotes in an urban setting using their
questionable impacts on geese.  Evidently one unmanaged problem wildlife
population justifies another. "Burrowing rodents" (i.e. rats to most of us)
are not amenable to any real control due to the few rats that coyotes take.
In fact it is likely that the marginal harvest of rats by coyotes
strengthens the populations by (like hunters) keeping it below carrying
capacity of its habitat and thereby stimulating health and reproduction.

Chicago, like New York City and Los Angeles the other cities mentioned in
the article, politically controls Illinois just as New York City controls
New York state and Los Angeles controls California.  All three of these
cities are animal rights "dens" and are responsible for the draconian gun
laws in these states and the incremental movement of species (mountain lions
in California, otters in Illinois, etc.) from managed species to
"untouchable" ("endangered", "threatened", "keystone", "native", "indicator",
etc., etc.) critters, much like cows in India.  All three cities are well
known for their anti-hunting and anti-gun agendas as well as anti-trapping
and anti-logging and anti-ranching, in fact anti-everything rural agendas.

The article concludes with the kindly anthropomorphism that coyotes "will
snatch house pets".  Not true.  Burglars "snatch" valuables, pickpockets
"snatch" wallets, and shoplifters "snatch" goods, each of which can be
recovered.  Coyotes will kill and eat your house pet and are a danger to
your children and occasionally adults (particularly unarmed adults).

Chicagoans deserve a coyote control program and readers of the Times deserve
factual and not emotional descriptions of such important matters.

NOTE: Yet another example of the absurdity of modern environment/government
bungling and misinformation is found on page D6 of the same edition of the
Times.  Titled "Midway Atoll hides from casual visitor" it describes how
"Veterans of Midway Island" and others "say the Fish and Wildlife Service is
thwarting efforts to bring back regular flights in favor of protecting
wildlife.  It's the environmentalists against the Navy veterans.  And right
now the Fish and Wildlife Service has all the cards in their hands and the
veterans have nothing."

Midway became a National Wildlife Refuge around 1998.  The choice was either
it became a Refuge or a National Park.  Veteran groups favored the Park
alternative because they feared (rightly) that the US Fish and Wildlife
Service would be hostile to public visits.  Assuming that the Park Service
would be friendly to visitors or would not work to close the place down too
was an equally false assumption as well in my experience.

Anyway, although the US Fish and Wildlife Service denied any such intention
to restrict visitors the article goes on, "Between 1997 and 2001 the atoll
received 1,500 to 2,000 tourists and other visitors each year.  Public
flights to Midway ended in 2002, when the US Fish and Wildlife Service's
sole tourist operator pulled out, citing its difficulty making a profit on
trips to the remote islands."  Even if you could somehow get to the island
(as many veterans want to do) you would find "only one beach open to
visitors.  The others are reserved for the endangered Hawaiian monk seal."

Today "four Federal employees and fewer than 50 additional staff members",
work at "keeping tabs on the health of albatross pairs, which mate for life,
and ripping the life out of the scourge of the northwestern Hawaiian
Islands, the cute but invasive flower verbesina."

So the next time you shake your head about forced wolf reintroduction or
endangered jumping mice or your tax bill or government duplicity about
wildlife, remember Midway.  Veterans who served their country on the site of
a famous battle can't visit or hold reunions.  Even if they get there,
beaches are closed to them because seals may want to use them.  Think about
what it costs 24/7 of your tax money to keep public land closed, monitor
albatross health (a widespread and populous bird), and pull up plants that
some professor says shouldn't be where it survives.

Midway would be abused increasingly whether the US Fish and Wildlife Service
or the National Park Service managed it.  It should be under the Department
of Defense.  They should get enough money each year to keep some bachelor or
bachelorette or some older couple out there (like the old lighthouse
service).  They could keep an eye on the place and radio the US Fish and
Wildlife Service if any albatross get sick or to report how much of the land
mass is being swallowed by invasive flowers.  This would provide for the
environment and allow veterans and others to enjoy the place.  Oh, and if
the seals and albatrosses are still around after the battle and WWII uses of
the island, they should be able to survive until a vet can be sent out from
Hawaii for a sick albatross or a can of broadleaf spray can be dropped for
the latest invasive species invasion.

One last irony.  The legal purpose of the Midway Atoll National Wildlife
Refuge (from President Clinton's Executive Order) reads, "for the benefit of
the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, in performing its activities".
So take that you veterans and the rest of you.  They are just doing what
benefits themselves.  This explains why Executive Orders are so popular
among bureaucrats and the "Living Document" crowd.  Like Kings and
uncontrolled Supreme Courts, when Presidential fiats are proclaimed, the
public good or the public interest is the first thing to go and the last
thing to ever benefit.

Jim Beers
19 February 2006

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