Predator management

DEFINITION: Efforts to control, maintain, and sometimes reintroduce wild populations of predatory species without presenting undue risk to people, domestic livestock, other wildlife, or ecosystems

Predator management involves weighing the needs of humans and their domesticated animals against the intrinsic value of predators that are assuming their natural place in the ecosystem. This aspect of wildlife management is a great source of controversy among conservationists, hunters, ranchers, and animal rights activists.

Humans have always competed with their fellow members of the animal kingdom for food and survival. This competition intensified with the advent of ranching, where large herds of domesticated animals pose a ready food source for wild predators, particularly wolves and coyotes. For much of human history, the concept of predator management has been limited to killing on sight. Well into the twentieth century, predators were seen as “nuisance animals” with no intrinsic value to the and, as such, were trapped, snared, shot, and poisoned. In some cases, this overzealous action against natural predators led to a explosion among prey species, which in turn resulted in degradation.

Some people in remote areas of the United States, including Native Americans, rely on big-game animals for food and economic survival. However, the primary reason for protecting nonendangered big-game species from predators is to ensure that hunters have something to shoot during hunting season. Many hunters liken themselves to large predators with regard to their place in the food chain. The difference is that, while natural predators bring down the old and the injured, hunters seek only prime specimens, which weakens the gene pool of the game animals instead of supporting natural selection.

Practices in the United States

The US Congress began providing predator-control assistance to ranchers in 1915, though it did not become a federal obligation until the Animal Damage Control Act of 1931. Still in effect, this act authorizes government agents to kill thousands of predators every year. The act has been amended several times, such as a provision added in 1991 to take action against the introduction of brown tree snakes. In an attempt to combat negative publicity, in 1997, Animal Damage Control, the federal program charged with managing these predators, was renamed Wildlife Services. This program is run by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). In 2021, 1.76 million animals were slaughtered. Most of the slaughter of these so-called nuisance animals occurs in the western states in the name of livestock protection. According to the nonprofit organization Project Coyote, the US government spent 124 million dollars to kill predators in the United States in 2022.

In 2017, coyotes were deemed responsible for 28 percent of sheep losses and 36 percent of lamb losses. In 2022, the American Sheep Industry Association reported that wildlife like coyotes caused 12.8 billion dollars in damage each year to property, agriculture, and natural resources. These adaptive creatures, once described by writer Mark Twain as “a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton, with a gray wolf-skin stretched over it,” now inhabit Canada, Mexico, and every state except Hawaii. Wolves are also a problem for ranchers, and their 1995 reintroduction into Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming remains a controversial issue. However, wolves in the food chain has had some positive effects on the park's wildlife. For example, because elk must keep moving to avoid becoming prey to wolves, they are not devouring the willow trees, which have become an abundent food source for beavers and other animals, boosting their populations.

Large-scale predator kills continued in the United States into the 1990s. Wolves and other large predators are still killed in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest to protect big-game animals such as moose, elk, and caribou. In 1994 Alaskan governor Tony Knowles halted the state’s wolf-kill program after a nationwide television broadcast showed trapped wolves suffering in snares. While wildlife groups enthusiastically endorsed the move, hunters claimed that the state had bowed to outside pressure. Subsequent political shifts have led to policies authorizing lethal predator control against the state’s wolves and bears. Such practices are an ongoing source of controversy, particularly the state’s exploitation of a loophole in the Federal Airborne Hunting Act of 1971 that results in private citizens being allowed to conduct aerial hunting in the name of wildlife management. Another practice in Alaska that draws outrage from animal rights activists is the gassing of wolf pups in their dens. Another controversial method of management using poisons is M-44s, bait, that when bitten, shoots pellets of cyanide into animals' mouths. Their use allegedly endangers other wild species and domestic animals. Organizations such as the American Society of Mammologists have repeatedly expressed concern that Alaska’s predator-control programs fail to meet scientific standards for sound wildlife management.

Nonlethal Methods and Implications

Not all solutions to predator problems are lethal. Live capture and relocation is another option—provided that there is a suitable habitat available and the animal has not become a nuisance killer. The problem with relocation is that some of these animals have become accustomed to humans and the easy meals that come from living in their company. This is especially a problem with black bears, which are true omnivores that are just as willing to forage through backyards and cans as through their natural habitats.

Sterilization, by either surgical or chemical means, is another viable option. Surgical sterilization is especially effective in the case of wolves. As a result of the hierarchical nature of their society, only the dominant (or alpha) pair of wolves in each pack mate and bear pups, so only two animals from each pack need to be sterilized to prevent the group from breeding. Another effective, if unusual, method of protecting livestock is the use of guard animals such as donkeys or llamas. This method is particularly effective against coyotes, which instinctively fear anything new in their environment.

While challenging, managing predators within a framework of environmental cooperation is the ideal approach. During the late 1970s, after a century of wide-scale hunting had left the Mexican wolf on the brink of extinction, the United States and Mexico established a binational captive-breeding program. In 1998, of captive-bred Mexican wolves began within the Blue Range Wolf Recovery Area in the American Southwest. A total of ninety-two individual wolves were released over the next decade. Reintroduction, as well as and managing the reintroduced predators, is a multiagency effort involving the US Forest Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, USDA-APHIS Wildlife Services, the Arizona Game and Fish Department, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, and the White Mountain Apache Tribe. Although the Mexican wolf is an endangered subspecies of gray wolf, the reintroduced population has been designated “nonessential experimental” to provide more flexibility in controlling the animals in case of livestock depredations or nuisance behavior. Ranchers are permitted to kill Mexican wolves on private or tribal land only if the predators are discovered in the act of attacking livestock, and the kill must be reported immediately thereafter. A recovery plan approved in 1982 includes a compensation fund to reimburse ranchers for losses and incentives that reward landowners when pups are born on private property.

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