Utah’s coyote bounty program perked ears of hunters and conservationists alike when it was passed in September 2012. Concerns about similarities between coyotes and protected wolf populations are giving some people cause to think the law itself could be in danger of extermination.
In December, a hunter killed a female gray wolf near Beaver after mistaking it for a coyote. The case of mistaken identity was the first documented killing of a gray wolf in Utah by a hunter since the animal was reintroduced into Yellowstone and Idaho in the 1990s.
Wildlife advocacy and conservation groups reacted to the killing as further evidence the state’s coyote bounty program is ineffectual and damaging to wolf preservation efforts, although state wildlife officials disagree with this position.
Leslie McFarlane, the mammal coordinator for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, said the Utah doesn’t believe mistaking wolves for coyotes to be directly connected to wolf recovery because coyotes are much smaller and tend to have a different coloration than wolves.
Mcfarlane also said Utah is not a part of the gray wolf’s critical recovery area, and so wolf recovery in the state as it relates to coyote management is a non-issue.
“Not to say that gray wolves and coyotes don’t have similar look-alike issues, but the facts in North Carolina were such that there was a lot of documented take in association with mistaken identity,” said Tara Zuardo, an attorney for the Animal Welfare Institute.
In 2013, AWI joined two other animal advocacy groups in a lawsuit against North Carolina's Wildlife Resources Commission after it voted to allow coyote hunting at night.
The three groups succeeded in convincing US District Court Terrence Boyle to ban night hunting in 5 counties where the highly endangered red wolf resides.
Could Utah’s coyote bounty program face the same kind of judicial scrutiny and changes as North Carolina’s plan?
Zuardo said red wolves bear a closer resemblance to coyotes than their gray counterparts, which made a difference in the lawsuit’s success, but more important was the long-term documentation of hunters taking red wolves as a consequence of mistaking them for coyotes.
“You had actually had that mistaken identity issue called in and confirmed, and it’s this kind of pattern and evidence of take that I think was really convincing to the judge,” she said.
She added that if Utah continues to see mistaken gray wolf kills, its Predator Control Program may face a lawsuit of its own.
“If you look at Utah’s coyote bounty program, I would say that’s pretty much the same thing as encouraging people to go out and kill an animal that’s arguably a look-alike. What you’re missing right now in Utah is just that documented mistaken identity,” she said.