Counties put a bounty on coyotes Each county appropriated $7,500
and established programs which will run through May 1, when
newborn calves and lambs are no longer easy meals for coyotes.
According to Baca County Commissioner Charlie Wait, the program
is working well. "We're not trying to eradicate coyotes, just
control the bad ones. It's only when they get to running
together six or seven to a pack that they start to do some
damage," he says. "There's still a world of coyotes in Baca
County." But state wildlife officials and environmental
activists say ranchers who kill coyotes may be shooting
themselves in the foot. "If you disrupt a pack that's learned to
live around livestock without causing damage, then you open the
niche up to new coyotes who may be more of a threat," says Mike
Smith of the Sierra Club's Rocky Mountain chapter. Smith
believes the "19th century body-count mentality" stems from a
misguided need for visible, measurable results. He suggests more
effective methods of controlling livestock pr