Ecos Pan Coyote Hunts
To Protect Antelope

PHOENIX —(AP)— Animal rights activists are upset with the state's authorization of aerial coyote hunts, even though they're supposed to help protect antelope.

"This is inhumane, irresponsible and unjustifiable wildlife management," complained Lisa Markkula, executive director of the Animal Defense League of Arizona. "We want aerial gunning stopped in Arizona. They're leaving orphan pups in dens to starve."

(Never mind that their precious coyotes are leaving lambs and antelope fawns to starve — Ed.)

At the request of the Arizona Game and Fish Department, the federal Wildlife Services agency flew over two areas of state and private cattle-grazing land near Flagstaff in late April, where they killed 67 coyotes.

The hunt was needed and timed to protect pronghorn antelope fawns, Game and Fish officials said.

A month earlier, the agency had criticized a predator shooting contest that hunters also claimed was needed to save pronghorn antelope fawns. Officials said Thursday that, unlike the contest hunt, the aerial hunt was based on scientific evaluation of coyote and antelope populations.

"We can get an almost 400 percent increase in fawn survival if 25 percent of the coyotes in an area are killed just prior to when fawns are (born)," said Dennis Darr, a Game and Fish wildlife program manager in Flagstaff.

Tom Britt, Flagstaff regional supervisor for Game and Fish, acknowledged that some pups may starve and that some of the coyotes shot may have been pregnant.

However, Britt said research showed that three years of aerial gunning from 1981-83 allowed the population of antelope to quadruple in the Anderson Mesa area, one of those involved in the aerial hunt.