Conservation groups file suit to block killing of coyote populations in Idaho
In the hopes of stopping what they call a “taxpayer-funded wildlife-killing program” against Idaho’s coyote population, Western conservation groups filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services.
The lawsuit, filed in Idaho’s U.S. District Court, accuses the government of unnecessarily killing thousands of coyotes and other Idaho wildlife without performing up-to-date studies to justify the killings or examine the implications on potential damage to wildlife. Western Watersheds Project is among the three organizations filing suit against the USDA and the Bureau of Land Management.
The killings were carried out primarily at the request of livestock producers, according to the lawsuit.
“Wildlife Services claims to kill coyotes to protect livestock, but science says lethal controls don’t actually reduce livestock losses,” Talasi Brooks, staff attorney for the Western Watersheds Project, said in a news release. “Wildlife Services cannot simply proceed with these futile actions without first addressing this contrary science.”
In the lawsuit, the conservation groups argue that the USDA uses outdated environmental assessments from 1996 and 2002 to base its decisions on killing potential predators on Idaho lands. This is a violation of the National Environmental Policy Act, the groups argue.
The 1996 and 2002 environmental assessments do not consider the effects of coyote killing on a local level, and instead focus on broader regional scales, according to the lawsuit.
“Because the amount of coyote killing from Wildlife Services’ actions adds up to only a small percent of the population in the large analysis areas, the 1996 and 2002 (environmental assessments) assume effects will not be significant, even while admitting that ‘localized populations’ may be targeted,” the lawsuit reads.
The groups say that coyotes primarily prey on smaller mammals, but admit they do sometimes kill livestock. However, they argue that only a specified group is responsible for attacking livestock, and the widespread killing of other coyotes only exacerbates the problem.
One point of focus in the lawsuit is the USDA’s Pocatello supply depot, a facility the groups say produces and manufactures traps and poisons used to kill targeted wildlife. The facility is characterized as “secretive” in the lawsuit.
Citing a 2019 USDA report that has yet to be made publicly available (the most recent report available is for 2018), the conservation groups say that Wildlife Services shot 2,107 Idaho coyotes while in airplanes and 375 on the ground in 2018. They also say 421 coyotes were trapped and killed using foot traps and neck snares. Wildlife officials threw gas into the dens of roughly 21 coyotes in 2018, with the gas cartridges being produced at the Pocatello facility.
USDA wildlife officials came under intense scrutiny in 2017 when a 14-year-old boy from Pocatello was injured and his dog was killed when a M-44 “cyanide bomb” went off near the two. In March, USDA Wildlife Services agreed to ban the use of the M-44 devices.
The program of reducing coyote populations in Idaho is made possible mostly through federal funding. In 2018, roughly 60% of Wildlife Services funding for Idaho came from federal tax dollars, according to the suit.
Western Watersheds Project is one of three named plaintiffs alongside Wildearth Guardians and Predator Defense. In addition to the USDA Wildlife Services, the lawsuit also names the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management as defendants.
The three organizations named in the suit have yet to file a response in court.
