Wildlife Conservation in Wyoming

Excerpt from Wildlife Conservation in Wyoming: Oversight Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans of the Committee on Resources, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourth Congress, Second Session; April 10, 1996, Gillette, Wy According to the National Agricultural Statistic Service, preda tors accounted for percent of all losses for both sheep and lambs. The leading cause was coyotes at percent of the total, followed by wild dogs, which is an emerging problem in Wyoming, with percent and mountain lions, cougars and pumas at percent. I always say pumas but I am told that is not right. In 1990, sheep and goat producers lost an estimated million due to predation. In 1991, cattle producers losses to predators were more than million. Coyotes alone caused million in sheep losses and million in goat losses. I believe the cattle losses were million nationwide. Well, certainly that is not the kind of money we can afford in this economy today and in our state, to just allow to be, you know, wasted, if, in fact, waste is the right word to use. The problem is, of course, the livestock, the sheep, the goats, the cattle are owned by people. They are their pri vate property and yet because of regulations by the Federal Gov ernment and by other agencies, people are not allowed to protect their private property many times. In the western United States, coyotes have proven consistently to be the most deadly to sheep and lambs and their populations have steadily been increasing - that of coyotes, I mean. Coyotes have also proven to be very adaptable, and while some non-lethal methods of predator control such as strobe lights and sirens work well in the short-term, coyotes quickly learn these methods will not harm them. Truman Julian will probably be able to tell you more about that. But predation problems are not unique to the coyote, particularly in Wyoming. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.