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Reform the Federal Wildlife Killers

Jamie Rappaport Calrk, Defenders of Wildlife

May 17, 2012

Wildlife Services is the federal government's top wildlife-killing agency.

Their methods are brutal: poisons, traps, snares, aerial gunning. And their toll is simply astounding. Each year, Wildlife Services kills more than 100,000 animals.

Please speak out now to help reform Wildlife Services from the federal government's top wildlife killers to a program that can truly resolve wildlife conflicts.

Wildlife Services -- a program under the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- is tasked with resolving conflicts between people and wildlife. But an outdated kill-first mentality has become so engrained at the agency that they too often appear to be at war with wildlife, particularly in the West.

According to a recent exposé by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tom Knudson¹, this federal program has killed millions of animals including coyotes, birds and other wildlife since 2000.

Hundreds of wolves have fallen victim to Wildlife Services' deadly methods -- including 14 wolves gunned down from above Idaho's Clearwater National Forest to artificially boost game populations.

Write Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack now and urge him to reform Wildlife Services.

Wildlife Services' killing methods are often expensive, ineffective and can cause more problems than they solve.

Eliminating key predators like wolves and mountain lions in an area can cause severe imbalances in local ecosystems -- increasing disease and even starvation in prey animals. Culling coyotes can actually lead to smarter and more abundant populations that can cause even more conflicts with people.²

And Wildlife Services' deadly tools have killed tens of thousands of animals by mistake over the past decade -- including family pets and federally protected wildlife.

Take action now. Tell Secretary Vilsack to reform Wildlife Services from a "kill-first" program to one that prefers non-lethal solutions that can more effectively resolve wildlife conflicts.

The problem with Wildlife Services is simple: The federal program relies too heavily on lethal tools to resolve conflicts with wildlife.

The solution for Wildlife Services is simple as well: Stop the kill-first mentality -- and focus on using proven non-lethal deterrents to effectively resolve conflicts between people and wildlife.

Please take action today.