US wildlife agency killed 1.6 million animals in 2006

18/11/2007 00:00:00 October 2007. U.S. wildlife agents killed more than 1.6 million animals last year, including a record number of endangered wolves and more than a million birds, because of threats to livestock, crops and air travel, according to a recent report. The number was slightly down on 2005, when 1.7 million animals were killed. But killings increased for several carnivore species including coyotes, foxes, and gray wolves. Environmental groups seized on the figures to renew their call for the elimination of Wildlife Services, a division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture that removes animals at the request of the livestock industry, government agencies and others.

A Wildlife Services spokeswoman described the agency as providing a crucial function, by protecting livestock producers from economic losses and air travellers from harm. Increasingly the agency's shooting, trapping and poisoning operations involve non-native, or ‘invasive,’ species such as European starlings, a bird that is attracted to feed lots, where they defecate in cattle feed.

Wildlife Services reported almost 64,000 cases of animals damaging or threatening to damage property or natural resources in 2006. (Imagine that, an animal damaging a natural resource, otherwise known as eating it? Ed note.) Those ranged from beavers girdling trees and coyotes killing sheep, to bird strikes on aircraft and woodpeckers damaging buildings.

Wildlife Services also employs non-lethal tactics. Last year, it dispersed more than 24 million animals congregating around locations such as farms and airports by scaring them away with pyrotechnics, propane cannons and other methods.

More than 87,000 coyotes were killed by the federal government nationwide in 2006, the most since 2001. Aerial gunning proves deadly for wildlife agents
Shooting predatory animals from aircraft, (aerial gunning), is a $100 million a year federal program operated by Wildlife Services, an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. However shooting wildlife from the air is proving highly dangerous for the wildlife agents. Since 1979, the federal program has experienced a total of 51 accidents that resulted in 10 fatalities and 28 injuries.

On June 1, two Wildlife Services agents died when their plane crashed during an aerial gunning trip in Wayne County, Utah.
On July 30, South Dakota game agents crashed an airplane during a coyote hunt. The agents walked away from the accident but one suffered a head injury requiring 56 stitches.

Now the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department is reconsidering using airplanes to hunt coyotes in light of this and other accidents.

106 Crashes
In 106 plane or helicopter crashes, pilots have flown into power lines, trees and land formations. In some instances, gunners have shot their own aircraft or bullet casings have become lodged in the cabin’s mechanical workings.

‘Chasing animals from low-flying aircraft is so inherently dangerous that it should be stopped before any more public servants die,’ said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, one of the groups calling for a federal ban on aerial gunning.

‘In addition to aerial gunning, our entire public wildlife extermination arsenal sorely needs to be re-examined,’ he said.
In 2005, Wildlife Services killed 34,056 animals by aerial gunning, including badgers.