Each year hundreds of coyotes are killed in “competitions” throughout Wisconsin. Prizes include cash, guns and hunting equipment. Children, now even toddlers in Wisconsin, are encouraged to participate, and social media pages, including Moondog Madness, show kids posing with assault rifles beside the bloodied bodies of the dogs they killed.
This puts the public at risk, not to mention other animals who may be mistaken during this blood lust “sport.” It is possible that federally protected wolves are using the Wisconsin River corridor to move to Iowa and other states. A person in our community lost dogs that were killed by a coyote hunter.
I hope the citizens of Wisconsin will be outraged to learn that this is coming to our communities. The contests serve no ecological purpose. They are at odds with sound wildlife management. Far from offering any beneficial management purpose, wildlife killing contests simply promote gratuitous violence and the destruction of countless coyotes for no reason. Coyotes help balance nature, and stop chronic wasting disease.
Melissa Smith (Madison, WI)
Friends of the Wisconsin Wolf & Wildlife 
Please respect natural life. Animals bring me joy and hope. Stop killing for the sake of sport.
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Cruel! Only idiots do what you do!!!!
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Assault rifles…that is diabolical and that communities and governments support this shit!
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Stop killing coyotes. They balance the environment. Stop robbing others of enjoying the natural world. Killing will not make you a man! End this greed now!
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Sickening!!
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We need coyotes or God would not have put them here. They belong here and have a right to live free without hunters killing them for no good reason.
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My only argument is with the use of the word “countless” to suggest some great number. I am fairly certain that counting dead coyotes is one of the goals of these idiotic contests. I believe they are well counted, and the numbers are sadly astronomical.
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Hmm, let’s see have any of you ever heard of an annual event that takes place I believe in Texas it’s called the rattle snake round up. That’s where 100’s of rattle snakes are caught or rounded up and used for many different things many are killed. Why aren’t you people up in arms about that? Anyway, do coyotes help balance the environment? Yes they do however, because of us and our encroachment on their range there is less space for the coyote and their prey. To many predators and the prey population suffers. To few predators and the prey population explodes and overruns it’s range. In an untouched environment everything would even out but because of our encroachment if we didn’t do things to control predator and prey populations their deaths would be inevitable and far worse than being shot. God ignorance annoys me.
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