This document provides background information and summarizes the debate over eliminating budgetary support for the USDA's predator control. The links to the left will lead you to public documents that we have found.
From the time
Americans first began to ranch, there have been problems with predators from
the wild attacking and killing livestock, especially sheep and cows. Despite
all our modern sophistication, the problem endures. Coyotes and wolves in
particular present a threat to livestock, and in some areas mountain lions,
bears, bobcats, and foxes are also a problem. If even a small part of a herd
is destroyed by predators, those casualties can represent the difference between
profit and loss for a rancher. In response to these problems Congress enacted
the Animal Damage Control Act in 1931 and the program continues today.
While ranchers
may regard the elimination of predators a necessary business practice, there
are those who believe such procedures are barbaric and represent the worst
instincts of mankind. Those concerned with the humane treatment of animals
are angry that federal tax dollars are spent by the Department of Agriculture
to kill wildlife deemed to be a pest. They're incensed at what they see as
cruelty in some of the means of predator control. One lobbyist working for
humane treatment of animals described some of these practices:
[The government] also set up steel traps, which [are] a metal device with two steel jaws, and an animal steps into the trap and presumably it catches the leg and the animal is held there, sometimes 12, 24, or 48 hours, and they are caught there trying to escape the trap, sometimes twisting off or even chewing their leg to escape the grip. They also set up poisons mainly to target coyotes, but can poison any animal that happens to come across this spring-activated ejector device which delivers the poison.
The other side
of the issue attracts equally strong feelings. A coalition of agriculture
and hunting groups emphatically supports government programs designed to minimize
predator populations near ranching properties. A lobbyist for a hunters' organization
said of the arguments made by animal rights proponents: "These are rantings
by whackos." Criticizing the legislation proposed by the animal groups,
she said, "This is part of a bigger picture involving the animal rights
agenda: anti-hunting, anti-fishing, anti-pet ownership."
In the 106th
Congress animal rights groups like the Humane Society of the United States,
the American Humane Association, and the Animal League, worked with congressional
allies in an effort to reduce the Department of Agriculture appropriation
for predator control. They chose the appropriations process because they had
much less chance of passing a statute encompassing their goals. An appropriation
for the Department of Agriculture has to pass, otherwise it must shut down.
By reducing the appropriation for predator control, they could effectively
limit the program.
As in the past,
however, those pushing to restrict the predator control appropriation lost,
this time by a vote of 228-170. The animal rights groups pledged to continue
the fight but they were no more successful in the next Congress.