23 Apr “Bounties don’t work, so I’m implementing a bounty”

Experts say a bounty won’t lessen human encounters with aggressive coyotes, and might make matters worse. They base this conclusion, in part, on experience in Nova Scotia, where a $50 bounty in the 1980s failed to reduce coyote numbers.

They say it on the Department of Natural Resources website—or they used to, until inconvenient scientific information was expunged just in time for Minister John MacDonell’s flight from evidence-based decision making.

John MacDonell

The Winston Smiths assigned to expunge the historical record missed a few spots. They failed to delete wildlife director Barry Sabean’s 1989 and 1991 declarations that “The $50 bounty [worth $109 today] in Nova Scotia from November 1982 to June 1986 did little, if anything, to slow their population growth.” They left in place a March 2010 news release quoting DNR wildlife biologist Mike Smith as saying, “Bounties have been tried across North America, however they have always been unsuccessful in reducing coyote populations. A bounty was initiated in Nova Scotia in 1982 and was removed in 1986 when it was determined to have no impact on population.”

Poor Mr. Smith was dragged out yesterday to support his minister’s theory that trapping would somehow make surviving coyotes more wary and less likely to interact with humans. The only other support for this crackpot notion came from the trappers who will receive the $20 bounty.

Dalhousie University animal behavior expert Simon Gadbois points out that a dead coyote cannot instill fear in fellow pack members, but a frightened coyote might. He suggests the province consider rubber bullets as a way to condition coyotes to avoid humans.

The problem is that as their numbers fall, coyotes have more frequent litters and larger litters. So culling adults can have the ironic result of increasing overall numbers.

The minister’s excuse for doing something he knows won’t work? People are upset.

Of course they are. Folksinger Taylor Mitchell suffered a gruesome death last fall in a freak attack by a rogue coyote. The incident has heightened public sensibilities to the point that every coyote sighting is elevated to a “close call”—and to front-page prominence. People who know nothing about wildlife, let alone coyote population dynamics, demand action, and slaughtering coyotes is the first thing that comes to mind.

It. Won’t. Work.

This is another case of: “Something must be done.” “This is something.” “Therefore we will do this .”

Forced to chose between decisions based on evidence, and pandering to sincere but ignorant constituents, MacDonell went with ignorance.