Thanks to the Salt Lake Tribune for your editorial denouncing Utah’s $50 bounty on coyotes. The bounty program should be repealed by the state Legislature in its next session. From the corruption the bounty system engenders to the waste of taxpayer dollars, the bounty is inexcusable. People have been trying to kill off coyotes for over a century. One might think that we as a society would have figured out by now that extermination programs don’t work because coyotes increase their reproduction to compensate.
At a deeper level, the coyote bounty reflects the corruption infecting our state’s wildlife policy due to the undue influence of hunting and agricultural industry lobbies. As long as we allow those two special interests to control wildlife policy in Utah, the public interest, science and ethics will continue to be ignored to our detriment.
Ask legislative candidates if they are willing to abolish the coyote bounty as well as the egregious coyote-killing contests.
Bob Brister, Salt Lake City