Red Lodge Clearinghouse

Predator control program needs light of day, wildlife advocates contend

Federal officials have begun a nationwide review of "predator control" activities on public lands that involve aerial hunting of such livestock killers as coyotes, bears, bobcats, and even bison. While welcoming the investigation, some wildlife advocates nonetheless are calling for closer public scrutiny of the review because they are worried the agency involved is too secretive.

The Wildlife Services Branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service killed more than 1.6 million animals last year, including 318 black bears, 28,203 beavers, two bison, 2,532 bobcats and 87,476 coyotes.

The safety review was prompted by a small plane crash in June that killed two Wildlife Services employees involved in an aerial gunning operation aimed at killing coyotes. Their deaths marked the ninth and tenth fatalities related to the program.

n the wake of the accident, William Clay, the agency's deputy administrator, announced in a Nov. 5 memothat the agency would conduct a nationwide safety review of aerial operations, as well as the agency's explosives, pyrotechnics, firearms, hazardous chemicals, pesticides, watercraft and other activities.

The review is expected to be completed next July, according to agency spokeswoman Carol Bannerman. Bannerman said the agency decided to broaden the safety review beyond its aerial gunning operations because it had been about 10 years since the agency last conducted such a widespread review.

But critics say past reviews have been incomplete and have not resulted in significant changes in the way the agency handles its operations.

"If your newly announced review follows the pattern of past internal reviews by WS, we fear that you will simply continue to perpetuate unnecessary and unwarranted dangers to the public, the environment and to the non-target wildlife that your agency purports to serve," Wendy Keefover Ring, director of the carnivore protection program for Boulder, Colo.-based Sinapu, and Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility in Washington, D.C., said in a Nov. 14 letter to Clay.

In addition to the 10 fatalities, 28 people have been injured in a total of 51 crashes during agency flights, the leaders of the two environmental groups said.

Keefover Ring and Ruch also said that in addition to the aerial program the agency has put the public in danger through its mishandling of dangerous biological agents and highly lethal pesticides.

Two recent audits by USDA's Office of Inspector General faulted the agency for inaccurate inventories, lack of controls against theft and unauthorized sales, and violations of bioterrorism regulations, the groups said.

The agency's traps and techniques also have been linked to inadvertent deaths of large numbers of wild and domestic animals, as well as other environmental harms, they said.

Keefover Ring noted that the agency's aerial gunning program has not gotten any safer since the agency's last safety review. Four people have died in aircraft crashes since the 1998 review.

"Putting the program on hold and doing a safety review doesn't get to the fundamental question of whether we should have federal agents and contractors in low-flying helicopters shooting guns out the window," Keefover Ring said.

Caroline Kennedy, senior director of field conservation for Defenders of Wildlife, said her group generally does not support Wildlife Services' livestock protection program. Aerial gunning is simply the most egregious aspect of that program, she said.

"They continue to use lethal means of controlling coyotes, for the most part, and other predators, and they do this on a preventive rather than corrective basis," Kennedy said. "They just lay traps and snares and poisons and shoot at any predator near a ranch in anticipation that they might cause damage."

'Dangerous to public'

"Most of these [WS activities] are dangerous to the public. It's everything from having your pet dog inadvertently poisoned to the risk of a helicopter dropping from the sky with armed Wildlife Services agents inside it," Ruch said. "We also have broader concerns about having proper controls over poisons that have tremendous terrorist potential for poisoning the water supplies of entire cities that we think should be of concern to everyone who drinks water."

Ruch also expressed concerns that the agency is not being very forthcoming about the review process. In a Nov. 19 letter to Ruch, Clay wrote that the review would be conducted by "parties unaffiliated with WS to ensure the most objective review possible," but he did not provide specific information about the individuals conducting the review.

"In our view, this review is well overdue, but the fact that they're not identifying who the independent reviewers are or indicating what expertise they have makes this less than an open process," Ruch said.

The group's concern is mainly that the public had no participation in the previous safety review and it was not publicly released. Although Sinapu requested those documents pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act in July 2000, they were not forwarded until October 2007 and came incomplete, with a key report missing and 82 pages redacted.

Bannerman said the agency intends to make the findings of the review public, but she did not know whether public comments would be a part of the review.

Despite environmentalists' concerns about the safety of the program, Bannerman noted that the agency provides a public service by removing predatory animals that can harm property and livestock operations.

In fiscal 2004, the agency removed 75,000 coyotes across the country, including 32,408 coyotes killed by aerial gunning. That same year, coyotes killed 230,500 sheep, lamb, cattle and calves, she said.

"Without a comprehensive, effective livestock protection program, including both lethal and non-lethal methods, those numbers would be much higher," Bannerman said.

Bannerman also noted that the agency did take several steps to improve safety after the 1998 review found a lack of standardization in training and oversight. Among other things, she said the agency: