Gov't Employees Kill Mountain Lions for Sport, Gov't Fires Whistleblower

The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility announced last week that "a federal agent who reported that his colleagues had illegally used government airplanes to hunt mountain lions was fired in retaliation." What we have here is not even an friend to animals reporting the killings, but a fellow hunter. The U.S. government hires hunters to kill incredible numbers of free-living animals every year, mostly on behalf of ranchers who don't want the hassle of competing with predators (who must kill to eat and survive) over who gets to kill domesticated animals or of dealing with animals whom they consider just a general nuisance.

Indeed, the press release from PEER explains,

Wildlife Services has also drawn growing opposition from conservation, taxpayer and humane groups who see the agency as a misguided, ineffective subsidy for agribusiness. Each year, Wildlife Services kills approximately 87,000 coyotes as part of an annual wildlife take of more than 2 million animals.

I would argue, of course, that we don't just "see" the agency this way--this describes precisely what it is.

So back to the case at hand: what exactly happened?

Gary Strader worked for Wildlife Services, an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as a hunter and tracker, principally of coyotes, out of the agency’s Ely, Nevada office. His job was abruptly eliminated after he reported both to his regional office, as well as the FBI, that his agency co-workers had –

• Illegally shot as many as five mountain lions from government airplanes. These actions constitute a felony under the Airborne Hunting Act, as well as violating Nevada state hunting laws; and
• Filed false statements to cover up the offenses.

Mountain lions are difficult to track overland in rugged Nevada terrain. Federal employees in search of trophies (the heads were removed but the animals were not pelted) took the easier course of spotting and shooting mountain lions from the air.

But should we really be surprised by this story? I would assume such killing-for-fun happens often. The government hires professional hunters. This isn't the sort of career you just fall into or a job you take because there's nothing left out there, and you're in desperate need of a paycheck. People who kill professionally do so because they enjoy it, or at best, they're not bothered by it. So should it really be surprising that people the government hires to unnecessarily kill animals use their position to kill even more animals than they're authorized to kill, and in ways they're not authorized to?

Wildlife are killed for people's animal-based diets and clothing, for their convenience, and for their enjoyment every day. This isn't an anomaly.

Please read more (much, much more) here: The USDA's War on Wildlife.

Related posts on this blog:

• Killing the Lions to Save the Deer--To Kill the Deer
• Worst Case for Wolves--And How You May Be Playing a Part
• How Much Ranchers Really Care About Their Animals
• Thousands of Starlings Killed, to Assist the Killing of Cattle & Chickens

Image: The heads of a group of mountain lions killed in the late 1980s by Wildlife Services (then Animal Damage Control), photographed by an Arizona Game and Fish employee. Info and photo courtesy Predator Defense.