FYI:
[link]This is a disgrace.
Edit: I decided I needed to email the Chamber of Commerce.
To whom it may concern,
I am writing in regards to the upcoming contest to kill coyotes at Bent Rod Sports. It is absolutely shameful and completely unnecessary. Coyotes have density-dependent reproduction, and when the population is stressed, females whelp more pups. It is very likely that this hunt will increase the local coyote population. I am familiar with wildlife management techniques, so I understand that hunting is a huge boon to a local economy, but there is no reason to be hunting an animal that is by all accounts intelligent, particularly when such predator control has been proven ineffective.
Idaho has some of the best wildlife viewing in the country. As a biologist and photographer I had been looking forward to traveling throughout the region to observe and photograph the scenery and its inhabitants. Unfortunately I have decided that spending money on such a trip is only going to further activities like this. I spend part of my summers in northwestern Colorado and was planning a trip, but I certainly will not visit a town that condones this. I hope the people of Challis will reconsider attending such a hunt.
Sincerely,--
Within 15 minutes I had received a reply that said, "Your opposition to the Coyote Hunt is noted."

Devious Comments
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Floridana Alaskiana.
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Im working on providing additional resources to send our anger about this situation to such as the idaho fish and game and idaho state parks the BLM and the USFS, There has got to be a law somewhere about not making a profit over public property, which a coyote on public lands would be, your letter you sent them is fantastic and should be forwarded to many agencys.
If you ever get a chance, it may be worth reading Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac. It was published in the early 1950s and I'm sure a lot of it will bore you, but his ideas, especially his "land ethic" is great.
Here's one essay: [link]
I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer. And perhaps with better cause, for while a buck pulled down by wolves can be replaced in two or three years, a range pulled down by too many deer may fail of replacement in as many decades. So also with cows. The cowman who cleans his range of wolves does not realize that he is taking over the wolf's job of trimming the herd to fit the range. He has not learned to think like a mountain. Hence we have dustbowls, and rivers washing the future into the sea.
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Ill have to get ahold of the book, it actually sounds very interesting.
You should reply, "Your delicate dismissal is also noted."
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Floridana Alaskiana.
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Well, let me know if I can help with the journal. I just took a natural resource econ class and a wildlife management class that covered the economics of hunting, conservation, etc.
An example - it's kind of crazy how much money people spend on wildlife in the US. In 2006 hunters spent $22,691,144,000 ($1,814/hunter/year), fisherman spent $40,640,921,000 ($1,357/fisherman/year), and wildlife watchers spent $44,694,768,000 ($798/person/year).
Philosophically, I like Leopold's land ethic, but there's no getting around assigning monetary value to natural resources, and there are some classic papers that deal with natural resource valuation, like Boulding's "The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth" [link])# . Here are some other links to valuation overviews: [link] [link]
Good God I'm a dork. Hopefully some of these are helpful!
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Hey: is it me or does Bobby Jindal actually sound like Kenneth from 30 Rock? Did you see that?
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Floridana Alaskiana.
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