Gov. Hochul, it's time to end wildlife killing contests in NY

The New York State Legislature has passed a bipartisan bill outlawing wildlife killing contests. Gov. Kathy Hochul should sign it.

If you have never heard of a wildlife killing contest, you are in the majority. Picture this:

A pickup truck pulls into a lot filling-up with people in camouflage gear. The driver and a partner unload dozens of dead crows and arrange them on the ground. They spell-out “43” in  crow bodies, kneel to either side, with rifles in hand, and smile for a picture to be posted online. More trucks arrive and the proud displays of dead crows continue. When the counting, picture-taking and celebrations conclude, hundreds of crow corpses are hauled to the local dump.

Most competitions are for the greatest number killed, but contestants know the cash and prizes will be awarded to only a few. They are also there for the entertainment value of killing mass numbers of “the smartest of New York State’s native birds, along with ravens," as wildlife rehabilitator and author Suzie Gilbert describes the state’s crows. "They problem solve, play tricks on each other, and have close-knit and long-lasting extended family relationships.”

Rabbits, squirrels, foxes, bobcats and coyotes can also be contest targets. A broad loophole in the environmental conservation law allows this brutal carnage. The governor's signature will close the loophole.

New York wildlife is a natural resource, held in trust by the state for the benefit of all the people — a seminal principle of law we teach our students in Pace University’s Animal Advocacy Clinic. When they learned bills banning the contests languished in the Legislature for nearly 20 years, they were appalled that, during their lifetimes, tens of thousands of wild animals had been legally killed and dumped like garbage. They gathered a 520-signature petition which they hand-delivered to bill sponsors Assemblymember Deborah Glick and state Sen. Timothy Kennedy as part of an Albany lobbying drive led by the Humane Society.

For decades, pro-contest forces have employed myths and falsehoods to prevent bills from advancing. For example, this year, local organizations enlisted Safari Club International to help defeat the measure. Operating from Washington, D.C., SCI uses its outsize influence to curb wildlife protection laws worldwide, enabling such practices as stuffing elephant legs for sale as end tables.

SCI and kindred New York organizations attempt to disguise themselves as environmentally friendly. A May 18 memo to the Legislature articulates their leading argument, praising “competitions in which certain animals, deemed to be overly abundant in the local area, are harvested . . . [to manage] varmint species that can create problems for humans, wildlife, and livestock.”

No reputable scientist or official has ever sanctioned a wildlife killing contest as a conservation tool because an animal was designated “overly abundant" or a “varmint” by a contest organizer, such as a tavern in Wyoming County, New York. The idea is absurd on its face. In fact, the state Department of Environmental Conservation has stated it neither condones nor sponsors hunting contests.

In fact, if wildlife killing contests are held for the purpose of controlling so-called "varmints" or “nuisance species” they are breaking state law, unless every participant has been granted a permit to do so. The Environmental Conservation Law requires a person to apply for a permit before killing or taking nuisance wildlife species, including bobcat, coyote, fox, rabbit, and squirrel. Crows may only be killed as a nuisance when they “cause serious injuries to agricultural or horticultural crops,” or “cause a health hazard or structural damage, or to protect state or federally threatened or endangered species.” However, nonlethal methods must first be attempted.

There is no record of a wildlife killing contest complying with this provision of law.

Wildlife killing contests that masquerade as “conservation management strategies” violate sound ecological principles, such as predator-prey relationships. For example, population ecologists have long observed that removal of large numbers of coyotes in a specific area, can cause an overabundance of food sources. That food is consumed by the few remaining coyotes, which increases female coyote egg production, causing larger litters and even more coyotes the following year.

Wildlife conservation should be left to experts, not contest organizers.

Three years ago, our clinic students successfully wrote and lobbied a new law that ended the use of elephants in circuses and other entertainment. They were motivated by the senseless cruelty to which the animals were subjected, and the abuse of ecological and ethical values they hold dear. The students, voters all, view wildlife killing contests the same way — animal abuse for profit and entertainment, nothing more. As one contest participant told Suzie Gilbert in 2014, it is "no different than keeping track of the score at any football, baseball or basketball game. The higher the score, the better you feel.”

On behalf of a new generation of voters, and all inheritors of the state’s natural resources, Hochul must sign into law the bill outlawing wildlife killing contests.

Michelle Land is clinical associate professor and director of the Animal Policy Project in the Environmental Studies and Science Department at Pace University. John Cronin is director of the Center for Technology, Policy and the Environment at Pace’s Seidenberg School for Computer Science and Information Systems.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: NYS hunting contests must end