The Indiana Natural Resources Commission unanimously agreed to a partial ban on selling coyotes to wildlife penning operations, where they are used as live bait and torn apart by hunting dogs.

Indiana NRC chief Bryan Poynter noted that the rule set a precedent for them in the amount of input from the public. Of the 1,900 comments on the proposed ban, the overwhelming majority were in support of the rule, with many advocating a year-round ban.

A New Kind of Animal Fighting

The appalling practice of wildlife penning begins when coyotes are caught in the steel jaws of a leghold trap and suffer excruciating pain. The traps can tear flesh, cut tendons and ligaments and break bones, and a trapped animal often chews or twists the limb caught in the trap in an effort to escape.

The coyotes are removed from the traps and packed into cages with other injured animals. A fall 2007 sting operation revealed that coyote trappers in Indiana ship coyotes hundreds of miles in cramped cages without food or water. Some animals die on the trip; those who survive are purchased by owners of wildlife enclosures.

In these enclosures, hounds chase the fenced wildlife for scored trials that sometimes last for days. Packs of dogs terrorize, chase down and kill many of the coyotes, who succumb to exhaustion, having little to no opportunity for refuge inside the fenced-off area.

Implications beyond Indiana

The new ban applies to seven months of the year, allowing the trafficking of coyotes for wildlife penning operations only during the state's regular March 15 to Oct. 15 coyote hunting season. The ban is significant because it will protect animals not only in Indiana but also in many other states in the southeastern U.S.

Coyotes are commonly trapped in Indiana and shipped to out of state wildlife pens where they meet a gruesome demise at the jaws of dogs. Now, with the lack of Indiana coyotes, and with other states cracking down on this kind of wildlife trafficking, these cruel wildlife penning operations in other states will almost certainly dwindle in size and decline in numbers.

These cruel contests take place most weekends and lead to a constant demand for more wildlife. Just one competitive pen in North Carolina stocked 404 coyotes in 2006 and then the very next year stocked another 404 coyotes, not to mention hundreds of foxes.

One wildlife official remarked, "The commercial operations are making thousands of dollars a weekend, and at the end of that weekend everything in there is usually dead."

Risk of Disease

"The Humane Society of the United States applauds the Department of Natural Resources and the Natural Resources Commission for moving to protect Indiana wildlife from a brutal end within a captive wildlife pen," said Anne Sterling, Indiana state director for The HSUS. "The legislature should now act to stop the sale of coyotes destined for these abusive enclosures year-round."

In its recommendation report, the NRC hearing officer stated that the DNR and commission would be remiss in its duty to protect wildlife if they continued to allow sales of coyotes in a climate that allows a few "to inhumanely treat and indiscriminately allow the torturous killing of coyotes." Studies have found that transporting live wild animals for penning purposes has directly led to the spread of rabies and other diseases dangerous to wildlife, pets and even people--regardless of the time of year.

Source: The Humane Society of the United States

Photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service