State halts war on coyotes
07/16/2003
By: Associated Press
(Albuquerque-AP) -- The state Game and Fish Department
has ended a four-year program to reduce the coyote
population.
The department has been paying contract trappers to
kill coyotes in five parts of the state in an effort
to improve the mule deer population.
The program resulted in the deaths of more than 1,200
coyotes.
Game and Fish Department deer biologist Barry Hale
says the program didn’t have the results he had hoped
for.
Hale says Mule deer numbers across the West have been
dropping since the late 1960s.
Some studies have shown that predator control can
improve deer herds, but it appears habitat loss and
drought are the main reasons the deer population is
shrinking in New Mexico.
The program cost nearly $290,000.
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights
Reserved.)
this has to be true..
