1.3 Million Wild Animals Were Killed By The U.S. Government Last Year To Protect Livestock

According to recent U.S. Department of Agriculture’s reports, over 34 million wild animals were killed in the last ten years.

Most of those animals were wild native animals. The rest was written off as accidental termination of domesticated animals.

More than 1.3 million native, wild animals were killed in 2017 alone!

That figure includes:

• 1,001 Bobcats
  319 mountain lions
  3,827 foxes
  357 gray wolves
  552 black bears
  69,041 coyotes
  23,646 beavers
  15,933 prairie dogs
  675 river otters
  624,845 red-winged blackbirds

Most likely these figures are far from the actual number of animals eliminated since the whistle-blowing former employees of the ironically named “Wildlife Services” program of the USDA have claimed they killed far more animals than they were instructed to report:

While livestock security is its primary care, Wildlife Services also “kills animals for eating flowers and pet food, digging in gardens, frightening people, and other concerns that could easily be addressed using nonviolent methods,” according to wildlife advocacy group Predator Defense.

“That killing is carried out with a vast arsenal of rifles, shotguns, small planes, helicopters, snowmobiles, leg-hold traps, neck snares and sodium cyanide poison,” explains Tom Knudson, a reporter investigating the program for years.

“A list of birds and mammals trapped and poisoned by mistake by Wildlife Services would fill a small field guide: great blue herons, porcupines, river otter, mule deer, pronghorn, snapping turtles, raccoons, family pets, federally protected bald and golden eagles, a wolverine – the list goes on and on.”

“This war on wildlife can’t be tolerated anymore,” attorney for The Center for Biological Diversity Collette Adkins told Newsweek. “This idea of killing wildlife any time there is a conflict is just barbaric.”

The environmental organization has taken the federal government to court over its Wildlife Services program.

“The Department of Agriculture needs to get out of the wildlife-slaughter business,” she added. “There’s just no scientific basis for continuing to shoot, poison and strangle more than a million animals every year. Even pets and endangered species are being killed by mistake, as collateral damage.”

“The barbaric, outdated tactics Wildlife Services uses to destroy America’s animals need to end. Wolves, bears and other carnivores help balance the web of life where they live. Our government needs to end its pointless cycle of violence.”

 

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