{"id":290881,"date":"2017-02-17T08:48:33","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T15:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=290881"},"modified":"2017-02-17T08:48:33","modified_gmt":"2017-02-17T15:48:33","slug":"senate-committee-oks-bill-to-end-coyote-killing-contests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2017\/02\/senate-committee-oks-bill-to-end-coyote-killing-contests\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate committee OKs bill to end coyote-killing contests"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_56542\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-56542\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-771x504.jpg\" alt=\"A statue outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.\" width=\"771\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-771x504.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-336x220.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-768x502.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-1170x764.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A statue outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The state Senate Conservation Committee approved a ban <span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_1084207345\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Monday<\/span><\/span> on coyote-killing contests in New Mexico after hearing from advocates, who called the contests barbaric, and opponents, who argued the competitions are a way to reduce coyote killings of livestock.<\/p>\n<p>The bipartisan bill, sponsored by Sen. Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, and Sen. Mark Moores, R-Albuquerque, moves next to the Senate Judiciary Committee.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.santafenewmexican.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a>. NMPolitics.net is paying for the rights to publish articles about the 2017\u00a0legislative session from the newspaper. Help us cover the cost by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/donate\/\" target=\"_blank\">making a donation to NMPolitics.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Similar legislation was approved in the Senate in 2015 but died in the House.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Pat Woods of Broadview, the top Republican on the Senate Conservation Committee, voted against the legislation, <a href=\"https:\/\/nmlegis.gov\/Legislation\/Legislation?Chamber=S&amp;LegType=B&amp;LegNo=268&amp;year=17\" target=\"_blank\">Senate Bill 268<\/a>. He said he received a call from a rancher in McCalister who reported he had lost 200 lambs since the beginning of the year to coyotes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And as to the coyote-calling contests being barbaric, wildlife are barbaric,&#8221; Woods said. &#8220;It&#8217;s an eat or be eaten world.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Supporters refer to the contests as calling contests, not killing contests, because hunters use various sounds to draw in and attract curious coyotes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It takes a lot of skill to lure a coyote in,&#8221; Kyle Jackson with the New Mexico Conservation Officers Association said as he waited outside the committee room to testify. &#8220;They are smart animals. They&#8217;re survivors.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Jackson said his group, which represents game wardens, opposes the ban in part because &#8220;coyotes are a prolific species. Unchecked they prove fairly detrimental on livestock. The calling contests are a way for the public to help mitigate those populations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He said a recent study in the Valles Caldera National Preserve found that the no. 1 predator killing elk calves was black bears. The second was coyotes.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Opponents also said the bill would open the door for more legislation to stop the hunting of all species.<\/p>\n<p>Supporters of the bill called the contests, which offer a reward to the hunter who kills the most coyotes, not only barbaric, but irrational.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Nathan Small, D-Las Cruces, who spoke from the audience in favor of the bill, said the contests negatively reflect on sportsmen like himself.<\/p>\n<p>Outside the committee room, Garrett VeneKlasen, executive director of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, agreed with Small. &#8220;I don&#8217;t have a problem with hunting coyotes and calling, but I have a problem with the way the public perceives what we do,&#8221; VeneKlasen said. &#8220;We have to be respectful and discrete.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>People sponsoring the coyote-calling contests are commercializing it. &#8220;The hype around the contests is a great way for the people who sponsor these to get attention. They don&#8217;t realize the damage it is doing to the greater sportsmen community with the public,&#8221; VeneKlasen said.<\/p>\n<p>He said he was only speaking for himself. The federation is taking no official stand on the bill since it has members both in favor and opposed.<\/p>\n<p>Carnivore conservation biologist David Parsons, an expert witness who spoke before the Senate Conservation Committee at the sponsors&#8217; request, said science doesn&#8217;t back up the argument that the killing contests help reduce coyote populations.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Turns out predators do a better job of controlling their own numbers than they do when we shoot them,&#8221; said Parsons, who gave the committee a letter signed by 35 wildlife biologists opposing the coyote-killing contests.<\/p>\n<p>Studies have shown coyote packs not broken up by hunters have fewer females breeding and at an older age. &#8220;And fewer of the pups survive,&#8221; Parsons said. &#8220;If you break that up, suddenly 90 percent of the females breed and at a younger age. More of their pups survive because they are in recolonization mode. It&#8217;s a key point of science to this issue.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Killing them whacks them back for awhile, but <span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_1084207346\"><span class=\"aQJ\">in two years<\/span><\/span> they are back and sometimes more of them,&#8221; said Parsons, who retired from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.<\/p>\n<p>Some ranchers are trying effective non-lethal means of co-existing with coyotes, he said, including bringing cows off the open range into pens before they calve, using guard animals to protect them and using range riders to herd livestock.<\/p>\n<p><em>Contact Staci Matlock at (505) 986-3044 or <a href=\"mailto:smatlock@sfnewmexican.com\">smatlock@sfnewmexican.com<\/a>. Follow her on Twitter <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/@StaciMatlock\" target=\"_blank\">@StaciMatlock<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Similar legislation was approved in the Senate in 2015 but died in the House.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3329,3341,147,107],"class_list":["post-290881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2017-legislative-session","tag-animal-rights","tag-environment","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}