Nancy Hilding

President
Prairie Hills Audubon Society
P.O. Box 788
Black Hawk, SD 57718
January 21st, 2024

SD Senate
Pierre, SD 57501

Dear Senator

Please remove SB 14 from the consent calendar.

Please oppose SB 14 (expand conditional hunting of coyotes from snowmobiles)

SB 14’s web page: https://sdlegislature.gov/Session/Bill/24559

SB 14 would amend SDCL 32-20A-12

Statement of Reasons:

Science shows that indiscriminant killing of coyotes does not reduce coyote populations and in fact
can result in increased livestock depredations. We believe this bill will permit animal cruelty. This is a
bill for the benefit of some hunters (who don’t care about “fair chase”) but not for the benefit of
agriculture.

Due to SDCL 32-20A-12 folks in SD mostly can’t hunt animals from snowmobiles. Most of society
considers chasing and shooting any animal from a vehicle as cruel, and unfair. We assume SD
adopted this prohibition for wildlife habitat security, safe hunting, fair-chase and the prevention of
animal cruelty. In 2011 an exception was made for landowners or lesees to hunt coyote from
stationary snowmobiles. The 2011 exception said coyote must be killed by gun fire and the coyotes
still couldn’t be chased, driven or harassed by snowmobile.

SB 14 seeks to expand coyote hunting to allow guests (invitees) of the landowners/lessee to hunt
coyotes on snowmobile. While the new bill still protects other animals from being chased, driven,
harassed, killed or attempted to be killed from a snowmobile, the new bill removes some of those
protections for coyote hunting (by landowner/lessee & invitees) with a ‘notwithstanding”.
“Notwithstanding” is a formal preposition or adverb that means \"despite the fact or thing
mentioned\".

SB 14 will no longer protect coyotes from being chased or driven by snowmobile of landowner/lessee
or “invitee” guests, but it still protects the coyotes from being harassed by these folk. In the winter,
snowmobiles chasing, driving or herding animals through deep snow and cold can stress/tire them
and separate them from dens, water, food, their colony or young.

How will SD Game, Fish and Parks (SDGFP) discover, identify and arrest folks for coyote
harassment? There is no definition of harassment in Chapter 32-20 definitions section:
https://sdlegislature.gov/Statutes/32-20A-1. In 2021 the SD Legislature did away with “open-fields”
doctrine (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-fields_doctrine), thus making GFP enforcement of our
wildlife laws less likely. How frequently can SDGFP employees even watch snowmobile hunting on
private land, never mind verify/prove “harassment” occurred.
1
During committee testimony, Senator Mehlhaff said the bill was requested by a constituent that was
an outfitter and a sportsman. This bill will benefit some hunters, but not livestock, wildlife or
agricultural businesses.

Research shows that indiscriminant hunting of coyotes does not reduce the coyote populations – it in
fact it may increase them. Unexploited coyote populations are self-regulating based on the availability
of food and habitat and territorial defense by resident family groups. In coyote populations exploited
by humans, coyotes compensate for reductions in population with increasing immigration,
reproduction and pup survival rates. In order to sustain larger litters of pups, breeding adults may be
compelled to seek larger prey. So, removing a specific “conflict” coyote, that is known to prey on
livestock would be a protective action, but removing ones that don’t prey on livestock, may create
dynamics that brings in new coyote(s) and/or creates coyote(s) that do prey on livestock.

The suffering of coyotes resulting from this bill will be pointless or harmful to agriculture & based in
mythology not science. Please kill it.

Sincerely,

Nancy Hilding
President
Prairie Hills Audubon Society

References

Why Killing Coyotes Doesn’t Make Livestock Safer There is no clear evidence that lethal control
works to reduce human-predator conflict. It can even make the problem worse”, Scientific American,
May 2017
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-killing-coyotes-doesn-rsquo-t-make-livestock-safer/

Using coyotes to protect livestock. Wait. What?, Oregon State University, OSU Extension
Service,
https://extension.oregonstate.edu/animals-livestock/sheep-goats/using-coyotes-protect-livestock-wait-
what

Why Killing Coyotes Doesn’t Work, Project Coyote, https://projectcoyote.org/wp-

content/uploads/2020/08/PC_SAB_Coyote-Facts_FINAL_2020_08.pdf

The Findings of Dr. Robert Crabtree, Leading Wildlife Ecologist and Coyote Researcher,
Predator Defense, May 17, 2023
https://www.predatordefense.org/docs/coyotes_Crabtree_research_summary_5-17-2023.pdf