The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s taxpayer-funded wildlife killing program, Wildlife Services, has released the number of animals it killed last year: 1.3 million. Among them: 69,041 coyotes; 23,722 beavers; 1,001 bobcats; 2,167 gray foxes; 1,585 red foxes; 552 black bears; 357 gray wolves; 319 cougars; and one federally protected, endangered Mexican gray wolf.
Using public tax dollars, Wildlife Services employs traps, snares, poisons, and aerial guns to slaughter wildlife and undermine public safety. Wildlife Services is so intent on killing millions of animals that it has refused to relent even after the near-death of a teenage boy who accidentally triggered an M-44 “cyanide bomb” on the public lands just behind his home. The boy’s dog died of the poison. Nearly 150 dogs died at the hands of Wildlife Services last year alone.
We’re working to reform the program to be accountable to the public and end its cruel and unnecessary killing of native animals.
Read the press release.
