Most people who know of the United States Department of Agriculture Animal Damage Control/ Wildlife Services program (ADC) think of it as primarily a livestock protection agency. In 1996, (the most recent year for which statistics are available), ADC reported spending $671,947 to kill 7,494 predators (black bears, coyotes, badgers, bobcats, foxes and mountain lions) in the State of Oregon.

In recent years, as federal budgets have become tighter and ADC has come under increased scrutiny and attack for its traditional activities, this agency has begun looking for new ways to justify and fund its operations. Sadly, ADC has found fertile ground in the urban/ suburban environment. This article attempts to document the increasing frequency with which ADC has been bringing their leg-hold traps, body and neck snares, and sodium cyanide devices, along with a mountain of misinformation, to the Portland metropolitan area.

In and around Portland, Animal Damage Control has sought contracts to conduct predator eradication for a variety of local communities and agencies. In the tri-county area, they have obtained ongoing contracts to work in Clackamas and Washington Counties, and tried, but failed, to acquire a similar contract to work in Multnomah County in 1996. They present themselves as "wildlife experts" equipped to educate the public about how to coexist with wildlife and to resolve urban wildlife problems when they occur. The reality, sadly, has been something quite different.

Rather than educating the public about how to coexist with wildlife, ADC has, instead, exploited the general public's fears, frustrations and misperceptions regarding wildlife and particularly predator species. No one is debating the fact that there is a genuine need to educate the public about the "dos" and "don'ts" of coexisting with wildlife. Conversely, instead of focusing on ways to minimize conflict (removing potential attractants, housing pets indoors, etc.) ADC has, instead, met these concerns with fear-mongering.

Examples in the print media abound. In a March 25, 1996 The Oregonian article, ADC regional supervisor Rod Krischke suggested that "people need to be aware that small children are the size of (coyote) prey." A 1996 Gresham Outlook article had Krischke again discussing the risks coyotes pose to children and then discussing attacks in the wild areas of Canada. In an August 1998 The Oregonian article Dave Williams, Oregon Director of ADC, suggested that when pets vanish without a trace "it is more probable that they were killed by a coyote or a raccoon than a Buick."

The fact is that coyotes will take cats and small dogs, but they are a minor threat among many more prominent risks faced by free-roaming pets (cars, poisons, disease, other free-roaming pets, etc.). The risk of coyote attacks on humans is incredibly small. Spiders, goats and jellyfish account for more injuries in the United States each year than do coyotes. There has never been a documented killing of a human by a coyote in Oregon. In fact, there is only one human death attributed to coyotes over the course of the entire history of the United States.

ADC has used legitimate requests from the general public for information regarding predators as a springboard to gain access to the ears of local politicians. Rather than offering common sense solutions to problems and sound biological information to alleviate unfounded concerns, ADC instead has encouraged members of the general public to lobby local politicians to hire ADC to eradicate local predator populations. After all is said and done, ADC claims that it was the community that came to them, rather than the other way around.

Two 1996 articles, one in the Southwest Connection and the other in The Oregonian, serve as cases in point. In the Southwest Connection article, ADC regional supervisor, Rod Krischke, offers ADC's phone number and then pointedly states that ADC has a coyote extermination program but its "hands are tied because the county doesn't fund the program."

In The Oregonian article, Krischke again gives his number, suggesting that small children are the size of coyote prey, and states that it would require $50,000 to contract with ADC to resolve the coyote problems in Multnomah County.

The good news is that in communities in which there has been public involvement in the development of local predator management policy, the decision has invariably been made to focus on education and coexistence rather than funding the ineffective, expensive and inhumane activities of ADC. Three recent situations serve as case studies:
Case Study 1: Portland International Airport

In October of 1995, a member of the general public walking her dog in a field adjacent to Portland International Airport discovered leg-hold traps set by Animal Damage Control to capture coyotes that had been digging under airport fencing and running onto runways. A large public outcry ensued and the Port of Portland, which manages the airport, responded by creating a new Wildlife Management Specialist position and convening a citizen's advisory panel to help develop a more acceptable and humane policy. They were also concerned that after paying ADC to capture and destroy 10 coyotes, the problem of coyotes on the runway continued to occur. ADC was asked to draft an environmental assessment that would take into account these concerns.

ADC submitted a draft environmental assessment in January of 1996. The assessment stated "the diversity of habitat surrounding the airport and the abundance of wildlife promotes wildlife conflicts.... Effective techniques would include the use of firearms and pyrotechnics to scare birds...lethal shooting of target birds entering aircraft safety zones, and trapping and euthanizing overabundant target species, such as coyotes, starlings, crows, gulls and raccoons that pose immediate hazards to aviation. ADC would also have available body or neck snares, leg-hold traps, calling and shooting, or the M-44 sodium-cyanide device."

The Port of Portland promptly hired a private consultant to develop and implement a different plan. The installation of ground fencing alleviated the coyote problem and no coyotes have been destroyed since the Port ceased to contract with ADC.
Case Study 2: Multnomah County
In 1996, Multnomah County Animal Control, under intense pressure from ADC to contract with them, decided to hire an independent biologist named Allan May to access whether a need really existed. May's report, "Urban Coyotes in Multnomah County Ecosystems," came to five important conclusions:

1. Coyotes, while they did prey on cats, pose a minimal risk to humans
2. Previous attempts elsewhere to eliminate coyotes had been ineffective and extremely expensive.
3. Domestic animals would be placed at risk by current coyote eradication methods.
4. The majority of people reporting coyote sightings either had a favorable (61 percent) or neutral (26 percent) view on these animals.
5. Education and research are fundamentally important in "reducing encounters...in urban environments... (and to) lessen the misperceptions associated with their existence."

The report was instrumental in Multnomah County's decision to focus on education rather than elimination. ADC was not awarded a contract.
Case Study 3: Lake Oswego

During the spring and summer of 1997, residents near Southwood Park in Lake Oswego, a suburb of Portland, had several sightings of coyotes and noted the disappearance of several cats. One resident noted potentially aggressive behavior exhibited by one coyote. However, this resident failed to show up to testify at public hearings and the account was of dubious quality. In an unannounced hearing, ADC suggested that the coyotes presented a high risk to humans. Police Chief Les Youngbar, under the advice of ADC, was quoted in the local paper stating that "the risk of having a small child or an adult with a pet on a leash attacked appears to be a real possibility." ADC lobbied for, and was hired by, the Lake Oswego City Council to eradicate coyotes in Southwood Park using neck snares.

An outcry by the citizens of Lake Oswego forced the city council to revisit the issue at their September meeting. An editorial in the Lake Oswego paper just prior to this meeting stated that humans "have very little to fear from coyotes," and suggested that studying the number of people killed by coyotes was equivalent to "studying the likelihood of rhinos ramming Oregonians...It doesn't happen." The editorial went on to question the expense, effectiveness and risk to humans and pets inherent in neck snaring coyotes and requested a "solution with moderation."

Well over 100 coyote supporters, but just a handful of people in favor of eradication, attended the September hearing. At this hearing, employees Jeff Brent and Mark Lytle testified twice that dogs caught in neck snares typically would not struggle and would not be injured. Despite the dictates of common sense, ADC director David Williams would stand by this statement. In a letter to Brooks Fahy of the Predator Defense Institute dated October 29, 1997, Mr. Williams writes, "when a pet does stray into a snare, it is our experience that it does not fight and is fine when released." We now know from documents obtained from ADC under the Freedom of Information Act that during the very same time period that ADC made these statements, the two agents that testified in Lake Oswego were also setting traps at a ranch in Estacada. Eight dogs were captured in these traps and three of them died.

Brent and Lytle also twice insisted in their testimony that ADC could document "many" and "several" instances in the Portland area in which pets being walked on leashes by their owners had been aggressively attacked by coyotes. However, when pressed on this issue by members of Audubon Society of Portland and Predator Defense Institute, ADC could not document a single instance in which this had actually occurred.

Happily, common sense won the day in Lake Oswego. The City Council voted unanimously to focus on education rather than eradication. Lake Oswego Mayor Bill Klammer was quoted in the Lake Oswego paper as stating, "I made a dire mistake at the previous council meeting. After spending time reading and learning about these animals, I am firmly convinced that coexistence is the only answer."

Unfortunately, not all local situations have turned out so well. In many cases, ADC is hired quietly and goes about their business unnoticed until somebody stumbles upon their activities or something goes dramatically wrong. In West Linn, ADC was hired in 1996, and killed 10 coyotes before it was reported in the mass media. Today, West Linn has a community service officer that deals with their wildlife issues.

Officer Deets stated in a recent conversation that when she was first hired, she spoke personally with Mark Lytle of Animal Damage Control. She was put off by both his suggestion that she use what she considered to be "inhumane" neck snares, and by his advice that she set the traps as secretly as possible in places where the general public would not find out about them. She has ceased working with ADC altogether.

A particularly gruesome ADC project occurred in the town of Estacada. From documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, we know that between October of 1990 and September of 1997, ADC agents visited one sheep ranch in Estacada a staggering 281 times. In order to compensate this landowner for a documented $2,730 in sheep losses to predation, ADC used neck snares, leg-hold traps and M-44 sodium cyanide devices to deliberately destroy 2 bobcats, 55 coyotes and 1 mountain lion. ADC also unintentionally caught and killed 1 black bear, 1 crow, and three dogs. Five more dogs were trapped, but survived and were released. A neighbor, while out looking for his own dogs, was drawn to the site by the stench of rotting flesh and discovered the operation. He found a still living Golden Retriever puppy dangling by its neck from one of the neck snares.

In this instance, ADC failed to adequately notify the neighbors in the vicinity of the operation of their activities. They also failed to adequately notify local hospitals of their use of sodium-cyanide poison. Notification of both neighbors and local hospitals is required in these situations. In their attempts to remove evidence of their activities prior to arrival of the local media, they accidentally left several traps behind, and when the traps later were discovered, the ADC claimed that the livestock had moved them. Their activities clearly contradicted a March 25, 1995 The Oregonian article in which ADC regional supervisor Rod Krischke claimed that his agency "avoids the poisons and traps that kill many animals," as well as the ADC's previous claims that dogs caught in their snares would not be harmed.

Do not assume that your community is immune to the activities of Animal Damage Control*. As ADC comes under increasing attack and budgets are tightened, the need to both justify and fund their continued existence will grow more acute. Urban areas provide a hotbed of wildlife misperceptions and a viable funding base. Many urban governments lack wildlife expertise and will defer blindly to ADC. Despite the off-the-record concerns of many within the state and federal fish and wildlife agencies, there are protocols and agreements in place to channel concerns about problem wildlife to ADC.

The solution is vigilance. Learn what the wildlife policies are in your local community. If wildlife problems arise, know that there are resources available to help. In many cases the "problems" are nothing more than misperceptions. In many other cases, there are humane, biologically sound, common sense solutions that are easy to implement. In a few cases, outside expertise will be required. The Audubon Society of Portland Wildlife Care Center (503.292.0304) can refer you to the available local resources. If you would like to find out more information about the activities of the ADC in Oregon and across the nation, the Eugene-based Predator Defense Institute (541.937.4261) is an excellent resource.

*Please note that Animal Damage Control is a federal agency and is part of the US Department of Agriculture. It should not be confused with our local county animal control agencies, which serve a very different community service. Also please note that Animal Damage Control has recently begun calling itself "Wildlife Services."

The original source for this article is the Audubon Society of Portland Oregon. Any questions or comments about the content should be addressed to that organization.

Web link: https://www.audubonportland.org/wil.....es/damage.html