Coyote Hunt In Oregon

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced last week that it would allow limited coyote hunting next year on the Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge in Oregon starting Jan. 31.

Animal rights groups immediately said they would go to court to stop the hunt.

Under the refuge plan, about 35 hunters will be granted tags through a lottery in order to remove about 50 coyotes from antelope fawning areas to boost the survival of young antelope.

Brooks Fahy, executive director of the Predator Defense Institute, said coyote numbers are already falling naturally as a result of a decline of their predominate prey, jackrabbits and other rodents. As the coyote numbers have been declining, fawn survival has been rising.

“They are trying to create artificially high numbers for viewing and hunting opportunities,” said Fahy, whose group is filing the lawsuit.

The decision to open limited hunting was based on a two-year study that found coyotes responsible for nearly all fawn mortality, said refuge manager Mike Nunn.

But Fahy said the hunt could backfire. Under a process called compensatory mortality, killing coyotes will open a void in the food chain that will prompt more females to breed and increase the survival of coyote pups, Fahy said. That means the coyotes must kill more prey to feed the pups. That could result in an increase in the overall coyote population.

The hunt will take place only this winter. Afterward, biologists will evaluate its effectiveness. There will be no coyote hunting on the nearby Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge, so fawn survival between the two refuges can be compared.

Nunn said he did not expect the coyote population to rebound under the compensatory mortality principle, because the hunt would remove only 10 percent to 15 percent of the more than 400 coyotes on the refuge.

Fish and Wildlife decided to go with a public recreational hunt because so much controversy was raised two years ago by a proposal to use government hunters shooting from airplanes to kill the coyotes, Nunn said.

The Hart Mountain and Sheldon refuges support about 5,200 antelope, down from a peak of about 7,200 animals in 1990. About 1,300 of those are considered the Hart Mountain herd.