Unsettling predator control tactics dangerous to protected animals and wilderness visitors
Several environmental groups have joined in a lawsuit alleging that federal agencies are wrongfully killing predators on public lands to protect livestock across the Mountain West.
The suit was filed on May 27th in a federal court in New Mexico by WildEarth Guardians, the Western Watershed Project, and Wilderness Watch. It argues that the killing of predators like coyotes, wolves, bears, and mountain lions in wilderness areas violates the 1964 Wilderness Act – even if the elimination of predators is meant to protect livestock.
“What Congress did not do was allow predator control on behalf of private grazing operations,” said Jennifer Schwartz, an attorney representing the environmental groups.
The Act states certain remnants of the American landscape would remain “untrammeled” and free from commercial exploitation according to Schwartz.
For more than a century, the United States has subsidized the killing of wolves, coyotes, mountain lions, and bears in the name of protecting livestock, said Schwartz. And today, much of that work is carried out by Wildlife Services, a little-known program within the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is a defendant in the suit.
The lawsuit aims to halt federal predator control operations in wilderness areas across the Tenth Circuit, which includes New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.
Additional defendants in the case include the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management.
