HUNTER GAMES: How killing wildlife in the United States became a ‘game’
Coyotes, foxes, and bobcats, animals essential to the health of our ecosystem, have long been persecuted because of misconceptions used as an excuse to kill them for fun and bragging rights.
RENE EBERSOLE: The United States is the only country in the world where wild animals are killed by the tens of thousands strictly for prizes and entertainment, according to the Humane Society of the United States. It estimates that before the coronavirus pandemic, there were more than 400 contests annually, accounting for an estimated 60,000 dead animals each year. Texas alone holds at least 60 contests annually.
Many competitions offer an array of wildlife to shoot, from raccoons, squirrels, rabbits, and groundhogs to foxes, bobcats, stingrays, and crows. Coyotes, widely considered a nuisance animal across the country, are the most popular target. (Some states hold contests intended to reduce invasive wildlife, such as Burmese pythons in Florida, feral hogs in Texas, and nutria in Louisiana)…
The first documented wildlife-killing contest in the U.S. is believed to have been held by a group of ranchers in Chandler, Arizona, in 1957. The most lucrative of today’s contests is the West Texas Big Bobcat, held three times a year, in January, February, and March. This January, a three-person team of participants won the first-place prize—$43,720—for a 32.5-pound bobcat. (For the cat to qualify, the team also had to kill five foxes or coyotes.) More than 1,700 teams competed in the 2022 contests combined, providing a total payout of almost $400,000…
Most wildlife killing contests… are solely for sport. Hunters defend the competitions, online or in person, on grounds that participants aren’t breaking any laws — it’s widely legal to kill many predatory species, including foxes, bobcats, and coyotes, often without limits. And if it’s legal to kill them, they say, what’s the harm in holding a killing contest? A coyote’s “headed for the dirt anyways,” one hunter wrote on Facebook…
The contests are increasingly controversial, criticized as blood sport. So far, eight states—Arizona, California, Colorado, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Vermont, and Washington have outlawed the contests under pressure from conservation and animal welfare groups. Calls for a national ban got louder after a 2020 undercover investigation by the Humane Society revealed the emergence of killing tournaments through members-only Facebook groups, raising questions about whether online contests violate state wildlife and gambling laws. In early April, Congressman Stephen Cohen, a Democrat from Tennessee, and 15 co-sponsors introduced a bill to ban contests on all public lands.
In past years, award-winning coyotes at the contest in the Catskills, co-hosted by the Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs of Sullivan County and the White Sulphur Springs Volunteer Fire Department, weighed in at around 50 pounds. One of the first two coyotes Kautz shot this year registered 48.65 pounds. “It’s a big dog,” he says, though previous contests have taught him to temper his enthusiasm. “I always get beat by a few ounces. I hope I don’t get beat this year”…
Back in February 2020, an undercover investigator with the Humane Society attended the Sullivan County coyote hunt and reported finding dead coyotes in the firehouse’s dumpster, including a large female that had been pregnant with a litter of pups.
In the wake of such investigations and the 2021 release of Wildlife Killing Contests, a graphic documentary produced by National Geographic Explorer Filipe DeAndrade, participants have become extremely wary of covert activists lurking in the crowd. Some hunters I meet question whether I’m a “legit” journalist writing for National Geographic. One man confronts me in the fire station saying I’m probably working undercover for PETA—People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals…
A Humane Society investigator, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, recently made a surprising discovery online. In early 2020, as in-person wildlife-killing contests were being canceled to prevent the spread of COVID-19, hunters formed several members-only Facebook groups to provide a socially distanced alternative. Group members pay a fee, usually between $30 and a hundred dollars, to register for 24- to 48-hour contests in which they aim to shoot the biggest and most animals of a designated species for cash prizes ranging from hundreds to thousands of dollars.
Contestants are required to submit a video showing themselves saying a pre-established code word or phrase and jiggling their limp prey, confirming that the animal was newly killed because rigor mortis hadn’t set in. In contests for the heaviest kill, the videos must show the animals’ mouths and anuses to prove they aren’t stuffed with rocks. Administrators collect and distribute prize money through PayPal, instructing contestants to select “sending to a friend” to avoid scrutiny.
“Our investigation showed online killing-contest groups include thousands of individuals representing almost every state in the country—some where killing contests are prohibited, and many where they are not,” says Humane Society president Block. “Federal legislation is necessary to clearly and uniformly end these vicious competitions nationwide.”
Regulation and law enforcement are complicated at the state level, she says, but the federal government has clear authority to police interstate commerce. In February 2021, the Humane Society took the investigator’s findings to Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel. The organization reported that a Facebook group called Coyote Nation, created in March 2020 by a Michigan resident named Cody Lee Showalter, 35, is the largest and most significant of the online killing-contest groups detected so far. According to the group’s Facebook page, it has 3,200 members.
In a letter to Nessel, the Humane Society details how Coyote Nation’s competitions occur on a near-weekly basis, with cash prizes of as much as $8,000 and member demand for expanded contests, including for foxes, raccoons, and competitions for kids. The society also lays out what it alleges are the relevant legal violations in the state, including case law that illustrates the broad scope of the state’s gambling and private lottery statutes. A spokesperson for the attorney general said the matter is under review.
Without discussing Coyote Nation specifically, Jen Ridings, Facebook’s policy communications manager, says the company’s rules prohibit online gambling and gaming involving money without the prior consent of the social media giant. But she noted that hunting, along with fishing, is exempt from policies forbidding people from promoting acts of physical harm against animals on the platform.
Coyote Nation’s Showalter declined to be interviewed and changed the name of his group to CN after being contacted by National Geographic. “Please do not discuss anything to do with our group,” he wrote on Facebook. “We have not had any issues with anti-hunters yet and I would like to keep it that way….What we do here brings the hunting community together for some honest competition, that was why we started it and that is why it’s still going strong today”…
“Wildlife-killing contests serve no legitimate purpose,” says Kitty Block, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the U.S. “Coyotes, foxes, and bobcats—animals essential to the health of our ecosystem—have long been persecuted because of misconceptions used as an excuse to kill them for fun and bragging rights. This cannot be allowed in a civilized society where our wildlife serve a critical environmental role”. SOURCE…
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