# Yote tourny



## KRAKMT (Oct 24, 2005)

Here is an article about a yote tourny. Antis don't think it is very nice. Would prefer that ranchers built better fences. 
I really like the last part- kinda sick of people banning hunting and then having the government pay someone to thin the animals when the population explodes.

Humane Society critical of coyote killing contest 
By CLAIR JOHNSON
Of The Gazette Staff

An annual coyote killing contest set for this weekend in Fallon County will go on despite objections from a national animal protection group that the event is unethical.

The Humane Society of the United States, headquartered in Washington, D.C., sent a letter to the Baker Chamber of Commerce, a sponsor of the event, expressing its dismay over the sponsorship. The contest exhibits "a blatant disregard for wildlife and the integrity of ecosystems,'' the society said.

Casey Pheiffer, of the Humane Society, asked the chamber to cancel the event, saying that sponsoring "this reprehensible event may result in a negative view of Baker by the general public.''

Carla Rustad, chamber president, and Karen Leibee, an organizer, said the event will not be canceled.

Rustad said she did not receive the society's letter but that "everybody is entitled to their own opinion."

"They don't live in this area," Rustad said. "They don't deal with the same things these people deal with.''

It was unclear why Rustad may not have received the letter, which was dated Dec. 22.

"We have way too many coyotes,'' Leibee said. "What we're trying to do is control them, not eliminate them.''

The event, called the "Coyote Calling Contest - Coyote Hunt,'' runs from 7 p.m. today to 2 p.m. Sunday. Sign-up and a rules meeting will be held at the Plevna Bar in Plevna. Two- or three-person teams then will hunt coyotes with landowner permission.

According to the rules, snow machines and airplanes are prohibited. So is alcohol. Entry fees will be added to a $1,000 purse that will go to the four teams with the most coyotes. Participants can keep the carcasses or sell them to a buyer for the fur.

The contest has been held for several years, Leibee said. Last year, 96 people participated and shot about 55 coyotes, she said.

Pheiffer's letter said the argument that the killing contest reduces coyote problems with farm animals and deer is based on faulty assumptions. Despite widespread extermination programs by the federal and local governments, coyotes continue to thrive, Pheiffer said.

Heidi Prescott, the Humane Society's senior vice president of campaigns, said this week that the effect of killing contests is the opposite of reducing animal populations. Studies have shown that coyotes can respond to lethal control by breeding at a younger age, she said.

Livestock guard animals and high fencing have proved effective in reducing livestock kills by coyotes, the society said. Removing livestock carcasses and sheltering sick or injured animals also prevents coyotes from preying on livestock.

And contest kills, Pheiffer said, are "inherently unethical'' and "desensitize individuals by making the act of killing secondary to the objective of winning a prize.''

Coyotes are called by using a distress call and are shot when they come to investigate the sound, Prescott said. "It's not hunting,'' she said. "The nature of killing animals in a contest format is definitely something hunters and nonhunters alike find reprehensible."

Contest kills are a priority of the society, which keeps a database of such events around the country, Prescott said. The society heard about the Fallon County event from one of its members in Montana, she said.

"I have to say this is a new experience for us - finding a Chamber of Commerce that is promoting such a cruel activity,'' Prescott said. Such events typically are sponsored by gun clubs or other organizations, she said.

The Baker Chamber of Commerce has helped sponsor the event every year, Rustad said. "It brings people to the community.'' The event is part tourism and part predator control, she said.

"We do have an overabundance of coyotes. Coyotes are a problem for livestock owners,'' she said.

The event began a few years ago because the community was having problems with coyotes, Leibee said. The state was going to send in a trapper with a helicopter and then tax residents, she said. So the community held a meeting and decided to control coyotes through a contest, she said.

The event is conducted with landowner permission, and a game warden attends the rules meeting, Leibee said.

Many places have calling contests, which allow both sportsmen and the town to take part, Leibee said.

"We are a rural, isolated area,'' Leibee said. Landowners do have dogs to protect livestock, but that's not the total answer to predator problems, she said. And it is impractical and expensive to install big fences in such a vast area, she said.

The Chamber of Commerce, which depends on ranchers and farmers to keep businesses going, sponsors the event to help ranchers protect their livelihood, Leibee said. More than a dozen other businesses also sponsor the contest.


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## gandergrinder (Mar 10, 2002)

What I find interesting with most of these groups and with many groups in general is they are often more interested in perpetuating their group than they are about actually accomplishing the goals of the people they aim to represent. How many groups accomplish their goals and then dissolve themselves. Doesn't happen.

The problem with the humane society is they view the individual animal as more important than the health of the overall population. From a biological standpoint this is completely absurd. Why don't they try to put some habitat on the ground so there are more little animals running around. Logic escapes some people.



> Pheiffer's letter said the argument that the killing contest reduces coyote problems with farm animals and deer is based on faulty assumptions. Despite widespread extermination programs by the federal and local governments, coyotes continue to thrive, Pheiffer said.


Govt. extermination programs on a large scale have not gone on for years and they were very effective when they were implimented. Look at the coyote, the grizzly bear and the wolf as evidence.

The humane society is nothing more than a group that uses propaganda to reach its goals. They should be called the Puppet Masters of America. Of all the groups that I would like to see go away. The humane society is number one on my list.


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## DJRooster (Nov 4, 2002)

I think there is a tourney in Lamoure tommorow, Sat but I don't know a contact or any other details.


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## sierra03 (Jan 27, 2005)

I was pheasant hunting in the area and there were alot of coyote hunters. I wonder why that wasnt posted in the fox and coyote forum. Maybe are they trying to keep this local, or what? It is really hard to get inside the mind of an anti. They think everything would be hunky dori if all hunting was banned. But they just dont want to even listen to us tell them about animal starvation and diesease. Not to mention what our vehicles would look like if ND didnt deer hunt. Ok they have pretty much ruined the fur trading business, but their next mission will never get big enough. :sniper: ----------------> :evil:


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## KRAKMT (Oct 24, 2005)

I posted it in Hot Topics because the news paper story was on Friday of the tourny- Wish it would have listed the entry fee- buddys would have headed over.

"They think everything would be hunky dori if all hunting was banned."

And that if man wasn't arround they would all talk to each other and go on adventures together.

I will see how many coyotes were harvested.


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