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Friday, June 22, 2012
The Deadliest Dozen Counties in the American West
Report Maps Wildlife Services' Killing Fields
Contact: Wendy Keefover (303) 573-4898 x 1162
Denver, Colo. WildEarth Guardians today released The
Deadliest Dozen Counties in the American West, which documents where the federal government has killed the most mammalian
carnivores (including bears, bobcats, coyotes, cougars, foxes, and wolves) in
the West over an 11-year period. Wildlife Services, a program of the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, uses aerial and ground gunning, poisons, traps,
snares, and hounds to execute an anachronistic and wasteful agenda. The
agency’s activities harm wildlife, the environment, wildlife recreationists,
and taxpayers, while it purports to benefit a few, privileged agricultural
interests.
“It’s a
desperate situation for wildlife that live in certain districts, especially
Elko County, Nevada, which is the deadliest county in the West,” stated Wendy
Keefover, Director of Carnivore Protection for WildEarth Guardians.
Wildlife
Services, mandated to protect agribusiness (both domestic livestock and crops)
from wildlife, also kills native carnivores with the goal of reducing predation
on wild ungulates at the behest of some hunting organizations. During the
period 1998 to 2008, Nevada’s Elko County (with a kill count of 17,805),
Oregon’s Malheur County (11,099), Wyoming’s Carbon County (10,260), and
California’s Kern County (9,639) were the deadliest counties in the West, while
the States of Wyoming and Nevada have the most deadly dozen counties, with 5
and 3 counties, respectively.
Wildlife
Services reported killing the most carnivores in the States of Montana
(94,114), Wyoming (82,547), and California (76,110) between 1998-2008 (the
majority of which were coyotes). While the States of Colorado (with a body
count of 31,338), Arizona (10,018), and Washington (6,771) had the lowest kills
of mammalian carnivores in the West between 1998 to 2008.
“Congress
shouldn’t hesitate another moment to axe Wildlife Services’ budget,” emphasized
Keefover. “Wildlife Services depletes our coffers and devastates our wildlife
with completely unscientific and unethical intent.”
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View
the Deadliest Dozen report.
Read
about WildEarth Guardians’ legal challenge to Wildlife Services’
wildlife-killing
programs.
View
the latest data and information regarding Wildlife Services.
View related WildEarth Guardians’
reports:
War
on Wildlife: The U.S. Department of Agriculture's
"Wildlife Services": A
Report to President Barack Obama and Congress
Northern
Rocky Mountain Wolves:A Public Policy Process Failure: How Two Special Interest
Groups Hijacked Wolf Conservation in America
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