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SHOULD COYOTE COMPETITIONS BE BANNED?
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ublished reports say Evergreen State wildlife overseers “are considering” a ban on hunting competitions, especially for coyotes. Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission member Barbara Baker was quoted by the Spokane Spokesman-Review contending, “Sometimes we have to do something for social reasons and this is one of them, in my mind. This is the kind of thing that gives hunters a bad name.” Is it really? The newspaper article noted research showing coyote competitions “have nearly no lasting impact on coyote populations.” But if eliminating hundreds of coyotes saves some deer and elk from at least temporary predation, isn’t the effort worth it? (Gun prohibitionists use the same rationale to justify gun control proposals, remember.) Helping some species by conking coyotes seems like a good idea to lots of people. Some states have already banned or restricted coyote contests. Beaver State lawmakers were trying to as well. Before
the legislature closed shop for the year without holding a final vote, an amended bill would have prevented nonprofits like the Oregon Hunters Association from awarding raffle prizes based on how many coyotes that participants killed. In Washington, the commission is tentatively scheduled to talk about it again
in June, at a meeting in Yakima. There’s something else. Predator management/control shouldn’t be governed by “social reasons.” While I’m not personally interested in competing in coyote contests, I am interested in reducing predation on deer and elk. –DW
A presentation to the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission illustrates recent years’ relative rarity of coyote competition permits granted by state wildlife managers, who consider the contests to have no biological impact on the population of mesopredators. (WDFW)
tools and then through increasingly fine grades of sandpaper, to be finished with a combination of linseed oil and tung oil, but only after he had “whiskered” the wood by dampening the surface. Whiskering involved passing the wood over a warm burner on his wife’s stove to raise tiny slivers to be polished off with sandpaper so fine I could feel no grit. The finished product was simply awesome. Then the family moved to a different city, and only the memory remained. So, when a guy approached me at a gun show offering to swap this rifle for a well-used .38 Special revolver I was desperately trying to be rid of, it took about five seconds to shake hands. A gunsmith pal head spaced it and said it was spot-on. Retiring to the range, first with factory ammunition and later with my carefully weighed handloads, I’ve found this rifle to be nicely accurate. It has put down blacktail, whitetail and mule deer bucks. All one-shot kills, through the ticker on downhill shots; the .257 Roberts did its job decisively. 128 Northwest Sportsman
APRIL 2020 | nwsportsmanmag.com