R
Reactor
Guest
I found this on another forum and I thought that I would post it.
"Peay is once again engaging in populist tripe and emotions in order to increase his and SFW's influence going into the upcoming legislative session. I think he's also wanting to win back the money from former supporters who have abandoned him.
Most everyone agrees that coyotes kill fawns and, likely, a few larger deer, and there's good evidence of coyote predation in some areas actually being a limiting factor in deer populations. The same is true of cougar predation.
Peay's claim of being able to double deer herds in two to four years, however, is absolute, total crap. It's utterly ludicrous ? even for him! Even if we manage to eliminate coyotes, there's no convincing scientific data that predicts a large effect on overall deer numbers. Furthermore, even if that data existed, there's no practical way to greatly reduce coyote numbers short of reviving widespread poisoning, which is prohibited by federal regulation.
For over a hundred years this and other western states attempted to eradicate coyotes with little success ? and much of that period was during a time where poison bait was legal and used extensively by government trappers. With this in mind, just what is Peay proposing as his "major funding and efforts" to significantly reduce coyote numbers. A fee increase, I assume. Well, coincidentally (or not) the state legislative session is coming up, so before anybody has time to think about this and see the flaws, he wants to ram through some legislation that isn't supported by the biological evidence. In other words, typical Peay crap.
So let's say he lobbies successfully for that fee increase or reallocation of funds, just how does that money get spent? What are the practical steps to kill tens of thousands of coyotes? Giant bounties? A small army of professional hunters flying around in helicopters? Hijacking DWR employees? Is there any evidence whatsoever that this approach will be successful in reducing coyote numbers? No, there is no evidence that pouring money into coyote control will actually result in significant coyote population decreases. The biologists at the DWR have stated repeatedly that it does little good to kill coyotes except during specific times of the year when pairing and litter production can be affected.
Peay is an arrogant and self-aggrandizing bag of wind whose expertise lies not in biology but in raising money, promoting himself and influencing people through rhetoric and pandering to public emotion. The guy's the equivalent of a southern televangelist who works the crowd by guaranteeing to cure the sick with a slap to the forehead followed up by a plea for a sizable donation. Science doesn't matter. Evidence doesn't matter. What matters is stirring up the audience, then proclaiming himself as the savior.
Is this really how we want wildlife policy in this state to be determined? Instead of listening to professional biologists who have dedicated their lives to researching and understanding the complex interwoven relationships between habitat, predator and prey, we defer instead to a pompous windbag whose main goal seems to be enriching himself, expanding his enormous ego, peddling influence, growing big antlers by increasing buck-to-doe ratios, cherry picking science to serve his agenda, magically eliminating coyotes and lurching from one idea to the next before the evidence is in from the previous strategy."
Here is the link: http://utahwildlife.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40010&start=10
"Peay is once again engaging in populist tripe and emotions in order to increase his and SFW's influence going into the upcoming legislative session. I think he's also wanting to win back the money from former supporters who have abandoned him.
Most everyone agrees that coyotes kill fawns and, likely, a few larger deer, and there's good evidence of coyote predation in some areas actually being a limiting factor in deer populations. The same is true of cougar predation.
Peay's claim of being able to double deer herds in two to four years, however, is absolute, total crap. It's utterly ludicrous ? even for him! Even if we manage to eliminate coyotes, there's no convincing scientific data that predicts a large effect on overall deer numbers. Furthermore, even if that data existed, there's no practical way to greatly reduce coyote numbers short of reviving widespread poisoning, which is prohibited by federal regulation.
For over a hundred years this and other western states attempted to eradicate coyotes with little success ? and much of that period was during a time where poison bait was legal and used extensively by government trappers. With this in mind, just what is Peay proposing as his "major funding and efforts" to significantly reduce coyote numbers. A fee increase, I assume. Well, coincidentally (or not) the state legislative session is coming up, so before anybody has time to think about this and see the flaws, he wants to ram through some legislation that isn't supported by the biological evidence. In other words, typical Peay crap.
So let's say he lobbies successfully for that fee increase or reallocation of funds, just how does that money get spent? What are the practical steps to kill tens of thousands of coyotes? Giant bounties? A small army of professional hunters flying around in helicopters? Hijacking DWR employees? Is there any evidence whatsoever that this approach will be successful in reducing coyote numbers? No, there is no evidence that pouring money into coyote control will actually result in significant coyote population decreases. The biologists at the DWR have stated repeatedly that it does little good to kill coyotes except during specific times of the year when pairing and litter production can be affected.
Peay is an arrogant and self-aggrandizing bag of wind whose expertise lies not in biology but in raising money, promoting himself and influencing people through rhetoric and pandering to public emotion. The guy's the equivalent of a southern televangelist who works the crowd by guaranteeing to cure the sick with a slap to the forehead followed up by a plea for a sizable donation. Science doesn't matter. Evidence doesn't matter. What matters is stirring up the audience, then proclaiming himself as the savior.
Is this really how we want wildlife policy in this state to be determined? Instead of listening to professional biologists who have dedicated their lives to researching and understanding the complex interwoven relationships between habitat, predator and prey, we defer instead to a pompous windbag whose main goal seems to be enriching himself, expanding his enormous ego, peddling influence, growing big antlers by increasing buck-to-doe ratios, cherry picking science to serve his agenda, magically eliminating coyotes and lurching from one idea to the next before the evidence is in from the previous strategy."
Here is the link: http://utahwildlife.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40010&start=10
