The history of predator control in the West is fascinating...

Over the past couple years I've compiled quite a nice collection of official government reports from the Bureau of Biological Survey, precursor to both the US Fish and Wildlife Service {USF&WS} and also to the US Dept of Agriculture/Animal Plant Health Inspection Service/Wildlife Services. The latter {USDA/APHIS/WS} is currently involved in problem animal control all over the USA. For example, our wolf control director here in Idaho spent 8 years shooting deer in Chicago city parks to the tune of 1,200 head. He also did a stint in Afghanistan last year controlling jackals and birds that were damaging US combat aircraft on a remote airstrip. These guys are the ones who do the government aerial gunning of coyotes and wolves here in Idaho and IMO are one of the last truly service-oriented government departments in America. They have no enforcement authority but simply provide a service to stockmen and others who are experiencing depredation or problems with wildlife that cannot be controlled by other means.

Also, unlike the radical, rogue, freak environmentalist, land-grabbing, rights-depriving and oppressive US Fish and Wildlife Service, an agency that should be disbanded, the USDA/APHIS/WS provides services to state wildlife agencies when those agencies have problems with species protected by the ESA.

Anyway, the BBS was tasked in 1915 with waging war against coyotes and wolves on Federal lands, a task assigned them after many years of pleading by stockmen, wildlife lovers, hunters, state wildlife agences, and others to reduce coyote and wolf numbers due to disease spread {especially rabies}, stock depredation and game annihilation caused by coyotes and wolves.

The story of this war has never truly been told. It is fascinating. While freak environmentalist groups have attacked it as one more example of American White Man bloodlust run amuck, the true story details the protection of wildlife, the foundation for modern, successful wildlife management throughout the West, and the establishment of productive landscapes throughout the region.

The individual stories of trapping, shooting and even poisoning {bait station establishment, logistics, technique evolution, etc} are absolutely fascinating for all outdoorsmen and others who appreciate the difficulties involved in trapping and destroying woods canids and other problem predators. There is no more difficult hunting. Those who call a few coyotes in the desert have little idea how diffuclt these animals are to kill in rough, timbered, mountainous terrain as we have here. The woodscraft demanded to routinely trap or shoot them takes creativity and a lot of time to devlop, and frequently is site-specific, making challenges for those who covered vast areas of the state conducting their work. We have an extensive road system now they never had, and we have vehicles, means of transport and Google Earth, all advantages they never dreamed of.

These were no weekend warriors. These fellows lived a lonely, remote, hard and strenuous existence, often never seeing some of the end results {game population recovery and growth takes years} of work they performed. Through mind-frying heat, brutal and crushing cold, they struggled on. In the end they established the foundation for stable, manageable and vibrant elk, deer and moose populations, not to mention the more rare animals such as sheep and mountain goats as well as the manageable large predator species like mountain lion and bear. We have had much to thank them for and must not forget the benefit they provided, the blessing they gave generations.

Great stuff.

I've also secured the Idaho state annual reports from 1899 to 1930 and 1938-1940 which also reinforce the absolute need for hard predator control in order to maintain big game populations.

Yes, folks, we need it back and we need it BACK BAD! The current, "eco-duped" generation seems to think there is a free lunch awaiting them; huntable populations of big game without the need for predator control. The facts belie this absurdity. "Modern concepts of "ecosystem management" in the West downplay the need for predator control, instead granting equal value status to predators as to big game. Reality is that it is hard to control predators. Not impossible, but hard. Too hard for the modern game biologist? Too hard for the modern hunter? I wonder...

A challenge to all the Westerners reading this;

Give up the TV and the couch and get out during the winter and spring and KILL PREDATORS.

How about this; kill two coyotes for every deer, elk or moose you shoot during the hunting season.

Deal?