Coyote Hunting Contest Prompts Wyomingites To Weigh Pros, Cons Of Events

Coyote hunting contests are common in Wyoming and across the West – but an explosion of controversy over an event in Sublette County has forced reflection over whether the hunts are necessary, or good for Wyoming’s image. 

Wyoming Wildlife Advocates Executive Director Kristin Combs told Cowboy State Daily that the contests are harmful.

“This (coyote hunting contest) is not helping. It’s not doing anything, it’s just a matter of people going out and trying to find and kill as many animals as they can,” she said.

Zachary Key, an avid hunter and trapper from La Barge — who has participated in past contests — has a different view. 

As he sees it, hunting contests during late winter and early spring give big game herds a sorely-needed break from predation by coyotes. 

“These big game animals have everything stacked against them,” he said. 

And hunting contests “take one of the 20 things that are trying to kill them out of the element,” Key added. 

Outrage Over Sublette County Contest

Controversy erupted over the “Song Dog Shootout” coyote hunting contest, scheduled for Saturday and Sunday in Sublette County. 

An organizer of the event told Cowboy State Daily that she and other locals had been flooded with angry calls and messages, including death threats. 

Event organizers say the outrage was sparked by the false assumption that the Song Dog Shootout was called as an anniversary “celebration” of the torture and killing of a wolf in the Sublette County town of Daniel on Feb. 29, 2024. 

Opponents of the Song Dog Shootout said that even if it has no ties to the wolf killing, the event further damages the reputations of Sublette County and Wyoming.

Hunts Have No Real Effect

Killing coyotes has the opposite effect of what people are trying to achieve in thinning their numbers out, Combs said.

“The science is very clear. Killing them just makes them breed more” and leaves more food and other resources for the survivors, she said. 

Coyotes seem to have a built-in instinct to just have more and larger litters of pups, in response to many of them being killed, Combs said.

If coyotes are killing people’s chicken flocks, for example, the answer it to build better, more protective chicken coops, Combs said.

“’People say that coyotes hunting contests are protecting livestock. It doesn’t do that. Or, protecting deer and elk, it doesn’t do that. Why are they out there? It’s just gratuitous violence,” she said. 

“They say, ‘We’re saving deer by killing coyotes.’ No you’re not, because research has indicated it’s a short-term solution” and the coyotes just come back in greater numbers, Combs said. 

It’s possible to co-exist with coyotes, she added. 

If a coyote establishes territory on somebody’s land, the landowner should consider leaving it alone. That’s because the coyote might drive other coyotes away. And killing it could just open the door for those other coyotes to come piling in, she said. 

As an example, she noted the instance of a landowner near Riverton who didn’t shoot a coyote that he spotted among his small flock of sheep, because it wasn’t attacking any of the sheep. 

That coyote ended up guarding the sheep from other coyotes, she said. 

Combs has been a leading voice in calling for predator management reform in the wake of the Daniel wolf killing. 

Dealing with predators only by killing them is becoming outdated and continues to be a blight on Wyoming’s reputation, she said. 

“At some point we need to turn away from trying to solve the problem by killing and figure out what we can do to discourage these animals from coming too close to livestock,” she said.

The Break That Deer Need

Key is passionate about conserving the prized the Wyoming Range mule deer herd, which spends winters in the low country near La Barge. 

After the herd suffered devastating losses during the brutal winter of 2022-2023, Key organized the “Let A Deer Walk”” program, encouraging other hunters to turn their 2023 deer season hunting tags for a chance to win prizes. 

Late winter and early spring are a bad time for deer, elk and antelope, Key said. 

The animals’ body weights and energy levels are down after struggling against cold and snow. And the time for females to give birth to young is just around the corner. 

Once female elk, deer and antelope start having fawns and calves, coyotes can move in and feast on the young, Key said.

That’s why late February and early March are the perfect time to schedule coyote hunting contests, he said. 

He realizes, as Combs noted, that the hunts might knock the coyote population back only temporarily. 

But if that temporary reduction in coyotes is timed right, it can give big game herds just the break they need to get through the last of winter and safely give birth to their young, Key said.

Even with the coyotes thinned out, the game herds face many other threats, such as disease, other predators like bears, or getting hit and killed by vehicles while trying to migrate across highways, he said.

He also disagrees with the idea that coyote hunting contests are spree killing for fun or done out of hatred toward coyotes. 

The hunting is ethical, and it’s not unusual for the number of coyotes that get away to greatly outnumber those that are killed, Key said. 

He likened the social aspect of coyote hunting contests to fishing derbies. 

“It’s more about getting the community together,” he said.

He added that he doesn’t like the animosity that’s sprouted up around predator hunting, and wildlife management in general.

“At the end of the day, we all need to come together and understand that we all care about the wildlife. I think we need to be classy,” he said. 

Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.