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In
1931, the Animal Damage Control Act was passed by Congress,
authorizing the Federal Government to conduct wildlife damage
control activities. The Act states, "The Secretary
of Agriculture is hereby authorized to promulgate the best
methods of eradication, suppression, or bringing under control
on...areas of public domain or private lands, of wolves,
lions, coyotes, bobcats, prairie dogs,...injurious to agriculture
and animal husbandry, for the protection of stock and other
domestic animals...and to conduct campaigns for the destruction
or control of such animals."
Photo: Dick Randell |
In
1963, a scathing report (the Leopold Report) was published following
a review of the A.D.C. program. Despite the stark criticism
of A.D.C. and the report's emphasis on shifting from lethal
to non-lethal A.D.C. methods, little was done with the findings
of this report and today's Animal Damage Control program differs
very little in its attitude toward and impact on native wildlife.
Since its inception several decades ago, A.D.C. has been transferred
back and forth within Divisions, Departments, etc. of the Federal
Government but now resides within the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS).
A.D.C and its predecessor
programs have been responsible for the demise of all nineteen
of the large mammals in the West, including grizzly bears,
black bears, grey, red, swift and kit foxes, grey wolves,
mountain lions, bobcats, lynx, jaguars, moose, elk, pronghorns,
bighorn sheep, mule deer, whitetail deer, buffalo and coyotes.
Many of the small mammal populations have also been decimated,
particularly prairie dogs and the black-footed ferret.
 |
| Photo: Dick Randell |
What was once an immense
and diverse natural wilderness with native wildlife numbering
in the several millions, the West is now an overmanaged, overgrazed,
arid "wasteland", virtually devoid of all the larger
mammals and smaller wildlife which made the West such a rich
and diverse ecosystem.
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