I have just been informed that the US Fish and Wildlife Service will be killing coyotes to avoid predadtion of translocated desert tortoise from the Ft. Irwin Army Training Center expansion in the California Desert near Barstow. I am concerned that FWS is taking too many matters into their own hands. Coyotes are native mammals and predators that keep ecosystems in check. The failures of desert tortiose translocation project do not justify the slaughter of native animals. I have worked as a desert tortoise biologist on a translocation project. There is always a high mortality of animals that are translocated.

While the tortoise is a threatened animal, translocation of the tortoise will always create new opportunities for predators. Perhaps the Fish and Wildlife service should be more concerned with presrerving habitats for tortoises rather than moving them for development projects and exterminating native predators.

Please send the US Fish and Wildlife Service a comment and ask them:

I would like to know how the coyotes will be killed. Will poison be used? Traps? Aerial gunning?

Will there be a comment period? If any environmental assessments come out, I would like to be able to comment. If not, as a taxpayer and federal land owner, I would like to submit this comment as an objection to this un-needed slaughter. Insist on an alternative to slaughter of native animals.

Comments can be sent to jeannie_stafford@fws.gov.

Or:

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Nevada Fish & Wildlife Office
1340 Financial Blvd., Suite 234
Reno, Nevada 89502
(775) 861-6300


Thank you

Article can be found here: www.lvrj.com/news/17938904.html