Get The Facts:
Feeding Birds — a Q&A
The act of feeding birds in your garden can be surprisingly contentious and controversial.
Much of what is reported is based on intuition, there being very little in the way of actual proof to back up a variety of concerns and assumptions. Furthermore, the act of providing food to attract birds to gardens, yards, parks or elsewhere varies enormously from place to place across the United States and Canada, and from time to time in the calendar year.
Aerial Gunning Fact Sheet
For more information, visit the website of the Coalition to End Aerial Gunning of Wildlife.
The use of fixed-wing aircraft to hunt coyotes from the air began in the early 1920s. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s Wildlife Services (WS) agency (formerly Animal Damage Control (ADC)) uses fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters in its attempts to protect livestock from predation and to boost populations of game species. Employed primarily as a “preventive control” measure to kill coyotes prior to lambing season, aerial gunning has been criticized as ineffective, ethically indefensible, and an enormous waste of taxpayer dollars. The human cost has also been severe, as the dangerous mix of high speed flying and low altitudes has seen at least 22 crashes during the past 16 years, with 7 human fatalities (all since 1996) and 25 injuries (information obtained by AGRO through the Freedom of Information Act).
Ten Fast Facts about Wildlife Control
- Each year, in response to actual or perceived conflicts with wildlife, millions of animals are killed by the federal government and by private wildlife damage control operators. Lethal control efforts are largely inhumane and generally doomed to fail as they don’t address the root causes of conflicts or provide long-lasting solutions.
Ten Fast Facts about Wildlife Protection
- Countless wild animals are displaced by urban sprawl and habitat fragmentation, which sometimes lead to conflicts between people and wildlife.
