The Complicated Subject of Predator Killing Contests

New York is the 10th state to ban predator killing contests. Should others follow?

By Robert Annis
Conservation
Sep 26, 2024

Participants in the January 2020 West Texas Big Bobcat Contest wait in line to weigh their quarry.

THE IMAGES FOUND ON THE INTERNET CAN BE HARD TO SHAKE: dead, bloody coyotes stacked in piles like cordwood, surrounded by a grinning crowd dressed in camouflage. Once the photos are taken, the animal carcasses are often discarded in dumpsters—a common aftermath of predator killing contests, where species such as bobcats and coyotes are killed not for their pelt or meat, but for sport.

Proponents say predator killing contests are needed to manage wildlife that interfere with livestock or beneficial native species. Critics say it’s an unnecessarily brutal practice that can end up producing even more predatory behavior. In the middle are the experts responsible for managing wildlife populations and human expectations.

While 84 percent of Americans agree with hunting for meat, according to the Council to Advance Hunting and the Shooting Sports, 14 percent support killing contests, per a 2022 Remington Research Group poll. Proposed federal legislation outlawing contests was introduced to Congress in 2022 but didn’t progress.

When a New York ban takes effect in November, it will be the 10th state to outlaw predator killing contests. Other states, including New Jersey and Illinois, are considering similar prohibitions. Elsewhere, competitions like Indiana’s Coyote Showdown and the West Texas Big Bobcat Contest are going strong. (Organizers of these contests did not respond to requests for comment.)

There is no single definition of a killing contest, and not all contests involve coyotes, bobcats or other predators. Many—for targets such as geese, antelope and turkeys—raise money for charity and require hunters to keep their meat, with traditional bag limits in effect. Others are designed to eradicate invasive wildlife—management efforts that otherwise could fall on state game officers.

Predator killing contests differ in that they’re largely unregulated, frequently with no limits and sometimes with no hunting licenses required. The goal of these events often is to kill as many (or the largest, the most females or the youngest) of a given animal as possible in a set period—say, 24 hours—for entertainment, with no use for the quarry. Jeremy Harrison, organizer of the West Texas Big Bobcat Contest, told the local media outlet NewsWest9 in 2018 that “the price of food would be insane if nobody controlled predators. … You wouldn’t be able to raise any lamb or [goat] crop.”

Gordon Batcheller, a certified wildlife biologist and fellow of The Wildlife Society, believes the debate over contest extremes takes away from the greater issue: locals who feel they don’t have a say in how predatory species are managed. “Allowing large carnivores in the landscape and offering no solutions when a conflict inevitably occurs is going to create a divide,” he says.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, coyotes kill more than 300,000 head of cattle, sheep and goats annually, while federal management efforts killed 60,000 coyotes, a species native to much of North America, in 2022.

Contest organizers’ intentions “may have come from a good place,” says Christine Wilkinson, a conservation biologist, carnivore ecologist and postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, “but there’s not a lot of evidence suggesting the contests actually do help keep predator populations down or protect livestock.”

Instead, slaughtering coyotes could leave ranchers worse off, according to Renee Seacor, carnivore conservation director at the nonprofit Project Coyote. She says the loss of adult coyotes “often leads to more breeding pairs and larger litters, with newly vacant territories quickly recolonized.” Impacted coyote groups tend to have less experienced kits that haven’t learned appropriate hunting behaviors and are more likely to prey on livestock, according to Seacor. Plus, removing too many predators from an ecosystem can lead to surges in other wildlife than can cause other problems.

Predator killing contests also raise ethical concerns. “Humans empathize with the suffering of other sentient beings and don’t want to see animals killed in games for cash and prizes or their lives to be wantonly wasted,” says Katie Stennes, senior wildlife protection program manager for the Humane Society of the United States. She and others argue predator contests don’t align with long-held hunting ethics, such as that of fair chase. “[Some] participants use electronic calling devices that mimic the sounds of prey animals or dependent young in distress to lure animals in for an easy kill,” she says. “Even their fur [can be] rendered useless … by high-powered rifles.”

Many hunting advocates agree that predator killing contests, in particular, cast the sport in a negative light at a time when the number of hunters nationwide continues to decline. The issue is complicated, say some wildlife experts and advocates, including the National Wildlife Federation and The Wildlife Society. While the latter issued a 2020 statement on killing contests, NWF, whose policies are voted on by its 52 affiliates, hasn’t taken an official position.

One fear is that outlawing predator killing contests could lead to prohibitions on other killing contests, such as those targeting invasive species. “If you let feral hogs and nutria proliferate in nonnative environments, you’re causing massive problems throughout that ecosystem,” says Aaron Kindle, director of sporting advocacy for NWF. In 2022 nationwide, USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service lethally removed 136,791 feral swine, an invasive that has devastated endangered native species from piping plovers to sea turtles.

Some killing contests—and state hunting rules—require hunters and anglers to kill invasive catches. A contest in Texas for the Eurasian collared-dove was designed to yield research on the invasive birds, while the South Florida Water Management District is a partner in the Florida Python Challenge. (Read more about pythons.)

All contests—predator or otherwise, according to Batcheller and Kindle—should be rooted in science and ethically managed, limit wanton waste, adhere to principles of fair chase, and follow local and state rules, which brings the issue full circle. Because all known contests are held either in accordance with or in the absence of state laws, some say it’s the unregulated contests that give the sport a bad name.

As Kindle, Batcheller and Wilkinson all agree, the best way to approach predator management may be with conversations rather than outright bans. “Communities deserve to be engaged with and not talked down to or told what to do,” Wilkinson says. “Meaningfully engaging with folks living alongside wildlife will help promote lasting nonlethal measures toward coexistence.”

Robert Annis is an outdoor writer based in Indiana.