Two wildlife groups, Wildlife Damage Review, from Tucson, Arizona, and the Predator Project, from Bozeman, Montana, asked the Thoreau Institute to audit ADC's program. This audit examines ADC's budget in general and focuses in particular on the funds it spends controlling coyotes and other livestock predators. The principle findings include:
The only reason that the program continues is political: ADC is pork barrel. Although ADC's constituency is tiny--fewer than 30,000 ranchers enjoy most of the benefits of the livestock program--Congress finds it easier to maintain wasteful programs than to cut any of them, no matter how tiny the constituency.
Shutting down the ADC program would save federal taxpayers $36 million each year. While this would increase costs to the people who benefit from the program, the increases would merely transfer costs from taxpayers who receive negligible benefits to those who ought to be paying for it. Moreover, most of the program's beneficiaries would spend less, do different things, and often do less environmentally harmful things, than ADC is doing today.
While ADC represents a tiny portion of the federal budget, programs like ADC do enormous fiscal and environmental damage. Congress should immediately terminate federal funding to ADC and similar programs, letting them live or die based on state or local resources.
ADC traces its history to an 1885 USDA survey asking farmers about crop damage by birds. In 1896, when USDA's Division of Biological Survey was created, one of its missions was "to educate farmers about birds and mammals . . . so that the destruction of useful species might be prevented." In other words, USDA's goal was to protect wildlife, not to destroy it.
Under the U.S. Constitution, wildlife are owned by the states, and control of wildlife would be a matter between the states and private individuals. But the designation of large federal reserves, particularly the national forests which were actively used by ranchers for livestock grazing, got the federal government involved.
In 1905, after the national forests were transferred from the Department of Interior to the Department of Agriculture, the new Forest Service began working with the Biological Survey to find ways to control wolves and coyotes. The Forest Service was beginning to charge fees for livestock grazing on national forests, and ranchers objected to paying fees when their cattle and sheep were killed by wildlife.
In 1914, under pressure from ranchers, Congress appropriated the first funds dedicated to "experiments and demonstrations of predator control." These appropriations expanded during World War I in an effort to increase meat production.
After the war, USDA started an "Eradication Methods Laboratory" in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This was moved to Denver in 1921 and, after several name changes, became known as the Denver Wildlife Research Center.
Predator control was controversial as early as 1930, when the American Society of Mammalogists stated its opposition to ADC. This, however, only led Congress to pass the Animal Damage Control Act of 1931, This law directed the Secretary of Agriculture to:
The law's wording also makes clear that eradication was acceptable to most people, even if some scientists objected to it. The Biological Survey soon eradicated wolves from nearly every state in the Union. Coyotes, which multiplied much more rapidly than wolves, proved more difficult.
In 1939, President Roosevelt consolidated all federal wildlife programs, including the Biological Survey, in the Department of the Interior under the new Fish and Wildlife Service. This agency continued predator control campaigns with little controversy until the 1960s, when pesticides and toxic chemicals became an important issue.
In 1963, Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall commissioned a Predator and Rodent Control Committee headed by Starker Leopold. The committee's 1964 report charged the ADC program with indiscriminate, nonselective, and excessive predator control. This led to a reduction in predator control practices, including leghold traps as well as poisons.
Controversy continued with publication in 1971 of a popular book titled Slaughter the Animals, Poison the Earth. The book, by well-known outdoor writer Jack Olsen, criticized predator control efforts in general and focused on the ADC program in detail.[2] Perhaps in response, Secretary of the Interior Walter Hickel appointed a new predator control committee that same year. The committee's 1972 report recommended restrictions on the use of poisons and favored teaching landowners how to control predators over direct control by federal agents. This led President Nixon to ban the use of poisons for predator control.
In 1975, President Ford amended Nixon's order to allow the use of sodium cyanide in a device called an M-44, which shoot the chemical into an animal's mouth when triggered by an animal eating a bait. The ADC program continued to kill predators with other methods as well, predominantly leghold traps and aerial shooting.
In 1979, Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus issued a new policy emphasizing nonlethal controls of predators. The policy also banned further research on 1080, a chemical that had been banned by Nixon's policy but that the Fish and Wildlife Service continued to study in the hope that the ban would be rescinded.
Andrus' policy was strongly opposed by ranchers, and the ranchers were supported by western senators and representatives who held pubic hearings hostile to the policy. As a result, in 1980 Congress asked the president to consider transferring ADC back to the Department of Agriculture.
The election of Ronald Reagan led to major policy changes. Soon after taking office Secretary of the Interior James Watt rescinded Andrus' policy and President Reagan revoked Nixon's executive order. Rather than transfer ADC to the Department of Agriculture, however, the leaders of Reagan's privatization initiatives wanted to take it out of the federal government altogether. This idea got no further than proposals to privatize the national forests.
In 1985, a letter from 20 senators asked Reagan to move ADC into the Department of Agriculture. The move was made through legislation in 1986, and ADC was made a part of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Congress followed this move with a major boost in ADC's budget. However, much of that increase went to projects other than protecting livestock.
One of ADC's responses to criticism has been to expand its original mission of protecting livestock from predators to include such things as protection of crops from blackbirds, roads and structures from beaver dams, airports and aircraft from geese, and endangered Aleutian Canada geese from Arctic foxes. While ADC highlights these activities in its reports to Congress and the public, most of the program's resources are still spent killing livestock predators.
ADC's federal funding is supplemented by operational funds from state and local governments as well as other entities such as stockgrowers associations. These funds are called "cooperative contributions" and totaled to nearly $17 million in 1992.
ADC's general procedure is supposed to be to wait until someone reports property or other damage by wildlife. Perhaps a sheep rancher finds lambs killed by coyotes. After verifying that wildlife were responsible for the damage, ADC determines the best way to address the problem.
This may be to try to scare away the wildlife--perhaps with guard dogs in the case of coyotes, or loud noises in the case of birds--relocate the wildlife, or to kill it. Wildlife may be killed by poison using M-44s; by shooting from the air or ground; by trapping; or a variety of other ways.
Environmentalists continue to criticize the ADC program for several reasons. Popular wisdom views animals in general and predators in particular differently today than in 1931. The idea of "eradicating" any species seems abhorrent. Where predators were once considered pests, they are now thought of as a natural and even essential part of the ecosystem.
Some ranchers, for example, now say that they can live with coyotes. In fact, since coyotes mostly eat rodents, not sheep, farmers say that leaving the coyotes alone helps reduce rodent problems on their land. Dayton Hyde, an Oregon rancher and author of Don Coyote--his story of living with coyotes on his land--worries that ADC efforts will kill coyotes that don't attack livestock, creating opportunities for coyotes that do eat livestock to move onto his land.[3]
In a more general sense, environmentalists fear that many of the predators killed by ADC are not the ones who might be guilty of eating livestock. When shooting coyotes from a helicopter or airplane, ADC employees have no way of knowing which ones kill lambs and which ones live exclusively on rodents. People find this lack of discrimination more objectionable today than they did 60 years ago. Leghold traps and M-44s are even less discriminating than guns, and people worry that poisons and traps may harm their own dogs or other pets.
An even more telling argument is that ADC's methods don't work very well. On the one hand, federal and state ADC programs succeeded in exterminating wolves, grizzly bears, and other predators from many states that might otherwise still have populations of such animals. On the other hand, livestock predation continues by the wily old coyote, and despite all the millions that ADC has spent, its own internal documents indicate that the problem is getting worse.
Even if the ADC program worked and it could do so without hurting non-target animals, people question why a federal program that benefits only a few is really necessary. Some 40 percent of ADC's operational budget, and presumably a similar share of its research budget, is spent protecting or studying ways to protect the livestock of the 27,000 ranchers who use public lands. This means that, in addition to below-cost grazing fees, a wool-growers subsidy, and other federal aide, these ranchers each get a $550 per year subsidy from ADC.
All of these problems will be addressed in this report. The next chapter describes the Thoreau Institute's methods for reviewing government agencies and programs like ADC. Following it are three major chapters reviewing ADC's budget and other pertinent data.
Chapter III looks at the ADC program's budget and especially the part of the budget dealing with protecting western livestock. All of the data in this report comes from the Department of Agriculture, much of it from a similar examination recently made by the Western Region of the ADC itself. The Thoreau Institute's conclusions will be compared with those made by the ADC.
Budgetary information in this report extends as far back as 1980. However, due to inflation 1980 dollars are not strictly comparable with 1994 dollars. Unless otherwise noted, all dollars cited are "nominal" dollars, meaning that they are not adjusted for inflation. When the phrases "1994 dollars" or "inflation-adjusted dollars" are used, all dollars prior to 1994 have been adjusted using gross national product price deflators to be equal to 1994 dollars.
Chapter IV examines ADC's on-the-ground activities. In large part this relies on ADC records reporting various types of animal damage and ADC's response. Several tables present state-by-state information, including data gathered by the National Agricultural Statistics Service on predation of sheep and cattle that is probably more reliable than ADC's records.
The report's final chapter discusses the legal, economic, and political aspects of the ADC program. This section includes some suggestions for opponents of ADC predator-killing efforts. The report concludes by summarizing the perverse incentives created by the ADC program that were identified by this study.
A traditional analysis estimates the benefits and costs of a program or alternative programs to calculate whether the benefits exceed the costs. If they do, the analyst recommends the alternative with the highest net benefits. If they do not, the analyst supposedly recommends against the programs.
This method naïvely assumes that Congress, agency employees, and the people served by the program want to have the benefits exceed the costs. In fact, the incentives faced by the various policy makers often lead them to use criteria that are very different from net benefits and to spend far beyond the point where benefits no longer exceed costs.
The Thoreau Institute's method uses benefit-cost analyses whenever possible, but the results of those analyses are taken as symptoms of potential problems with the system, not as guides for policy makers. Of course, a benefit-cost analysis is not always possible, but whether possible or not the more important step is to analyze the incentives faced by various participants in the system.
The people who benefit from a program, for example, care little about the program's net benefits. Instead, they care about the benefits that they receive vs. the costs they incur. If their benefits exceed their costs, they are likely to support the program even if the costs to society are far greater than the public benefits.
The supporters of a federal program soon learn that they have to express their support before Congress. The incentive of most members of Congress is simple: to get re-elected. An important way to achieve this goal is to try to please all of the various interests who walk in their doors--especially those who vote as a block or make campaign contributions.
It seems difficult to imagine that an interest group as small and diffuse as a few thousand western livestock ranchers who are spread out over many states can have a major influence on Congress. Yet they do because of a Congressional tactic known as logrolling.
In a narrow sense, logrolling takes place when a senator or representative votes for a project supported by another senator or representative in order to gain the vote of the second congressman for a project supported by the first. In this sense, ranchers only have to gain the support of a few key members of Congress, especially if one of those members is on the Senate or House Appropriations Committee.
In a broader sense, Congress gets its voters to log-roll by giving them all a little something. Urban residents who might not favor aerial hunting of coyotes, for example, may tend to vote for senators who support such hunting because the senators also supported urban projects such as hospitals, highways, or mass transit systems.
The people who run the programs feel only a little differently. Despite their lofty missions, the underlying goal of any bureaucracy is to maximize its budget. Managers thus respond to the goals of the people funding the program, which are often very different from maximum net benefits. If Congress--or a few powerful members of Congress--wants to kill coyotes, then some bureaucracy will respond to that desire in order to get more funds.
Together, the legislators, bureaucrats, and special interests that benefit from a program form an "Iron Triangle" that is difficult to break. Each leg of the triangle has a different goal, but they can all achieve their goals in the same way: by spending tax-dollars or deficit-dollars on programs that benefit the special interests.
It is the nature of such programs to be highly wasteful. If the program could make money for the special interest, they would probably do it themselves rather than ask taxpayers to fund it. Unlike private businesses, whose spending is limited by their income, bureaucracies have no natural check on their spending. The overall spending of most state legislatures is constitutionally limited to their income, but Congress does not have such a limit.
The Thoreau Institute's methods, then, focus on identifying key members of a program's Iron Triangle, following the money to see how it reinforces that Triangle, and determining whether and how the program fails to live up to its original goals. The first step in this procedure is to examine the program's budget.
The report takes a special look at the Western Region, both because it spends most of ADC's operational money and because it was the subject a recent major review within ADC itself. In this it relies heavily on data in a "Program Evaluation Panel Report," or PEP report, prepared by ADC in 1993.
Figure one tracks the operations and research budgets since 1980. As shown, operations suffered a major cut in 1982, apparently as a part of President Reagan's attempts to control domestic spending. But funding was restored in 1985 and increased by another 40 percent in 1986. Research funding received an 80 percent boost the following year.
These increases in funding coincide with the transfer of ADC from the USDI Fish and Wildlife Service to the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. This transfer was made because certain members of Congress were unhappy with the Fish and Wildlife Service's handling of ADC and felt that the program would better meet their goals if managed under USDA. The funding boost is apparently related to those goals.
Figure one: ADC's federal funding has trended upward since 1980, with the largest boost in 1986 when the program was transferred from USDI to USDA. Source: USDA and USDI budget documents presented to Congress for the relevant years.
Aside from the 1986 boost, ADC funding shows an apparent upward trend. This is deceptive, however, because figure one does not account for the effects of inflation. Figure two, which is adjusted to 1994 dollars using gross national product price deflators, suggests that today's ADC funding is only slightly greater than it was in 1980--but still much more than in 1983.
Figure two: After adjusting for inflation, the 1986 boost is apparent but the upward trend is less so. Source: Same as figure one adjusted using gross national product price deflators calculated by the Department of Commerce.
Within APHIS, ADC budgets are tracked in much greater detail than the two line items presented to Congress. In particular, the operations budgets are divided into four broad line items: "agency support," "program support," "program investments," and "program delivery." The latter item is where the on-the-ground work takes place, and it is divided into eight resources: "aquaculture," "livestock," "forest/range," "crops," "human health and safety," "property," and "wildlife."
Figure three: Though declining slightly in relative importance, the Western Region still receives the lions share of ADC funds.
Program investments includes funds spent on the programmatic environmental impact statement (EIS) and the management information (MIS). It also includes contracts to other agencies such as to the National Agricultural Statistics Service to gather data on livestock losses and to Utah State University to develop an academic program for animal damage control. It also covers the costs of operating a supply depot in Pocotello, Idaho. Table one shows that ADC spent over $7.5 million on these programs between 1987 and 1994.
Nominal Dollars 1994 Dollars EIS (1) $2,686,532 $3,057,760 MIS (2) 2,567,510 2,737,049 Pocotello (3) 513,058 541,973 NASS (4) 600,000 632,798 USU (5) 1,053,680 1,103,140 Other (6) 160,808 162,977 Total $7,581,588 $8,235,697 1. Programmatic EIS 2. Management information system 3. Supply depot 4. National Agricultural Statistics Service contract studies 5. Development of academic program at Utah State 6. Funds to various universities. Source: ADC Western Region PEP Report.
ADC divides program delivery into its western and eastern regions and research, which is done at the Denver Wildlife Research Center. With about 54 percent of the program delivery budget, the Western Region is the largest, but its share has declined from 62 percent in 1985. The Eastern Region's share has increased from 13 percent to 16 percent, while research has increased from 25 percent to 30 percent.
Some of this earmarking is for programmatic-type activities such as the EIS and the Utah State academic program. But most is for specific, on-the-ground actions. For example, between 1987 and 1994, Congress directed that over $2.1 million be spent protecting North Dakota sunflowers from blackbirds, that over $1.7 million be spent on a guard dog program for Northwest and Minnesota farmers, and that nearly $1 million be spent protecting Texas citrus crops from grackles.
Location Activity 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 Operations Program EIS 500 500 500 500 500 500 Utah USU curriculum 250 250 250 Texas Grackles/citrus 300 300 300 N. Dakota Blackbirds 368 368 468 568 568 468 Montana Expand ADC 100 100 100 100 100 Nevada Pilots 100 New Mex. Sandhill crane 60 Northwest Guard dogs 155 205 205 205 205 205 205 West Predator control 500 500 500 500 West Equipment 260 260 260 260 Minnesota Guard dogs 45 45 45 45 45 45 45 45 Minnesota Wolves 250 250 250 Wisconsin Beaver 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 Arkansas Blackbirds 50 Illinois Blackbirds 50 Vermont Squirrels/maple 40 52 52 52 52 Louisiana Fully fund 100 100 100 Louisiana Rice 120 Arkansas Restore funding 207 240 240 240 240 240 Maine FandW 75 75 75 75 75 Mississippi Operations 100 100 100 100 100 Mississippi Beaver 100 100 100 100 Alabama Increase program 100 100 100 100 Delta states Operations 125 125 125 125 125 125 125 East Equipment 125 125 125 125 Research Hawaii Rats 240 240 240 240 240 240 240 AZ, CA, NV Lithium chloride 100 100 100 100 Delta States Blackbirds 100 150 150 150 150 150 150 N. Dakota Blackbirds 200 300 300 300 Louisiana Rice 30 Northwest Seedlings 100 100 100 100 100 Northeast Seedlings 150 150 150 150 DWRC Maintenance 317 317 317 317 317 DWRC Equipment 489 489 489 489 489 DWRC Construction 5,000 DWRC Pesticides 1,500 1,500 1,500 DWRC Non-lethal 500 750 8,300 4,259 TOTAL 1,185 2,861 4,633 6,491 12,191 7,641 10,358 6,867Before making adjustments for inflation, Congress has specified where more than $52 million of ADC's budget must be spent over the past eight years. Much of this money has been directed to a few specific states, often by representatives of those states on the Senate and House appropriations committees. "DWRC" stands for the Denver Wildlife Research Center. In 1993 and 1994, Congress directed that at least half the funds spent at this center be devoted to non-lethal activities. Source: Western Region PEP report through 1992 and ADC budgets for 1993 and 1994.
In ADCs Eastern Region, money has been earmarked for, among other things, protecting Wisconsin farmers from beavers ($0.7 million) and Vermont maple syrup from squirrels ($0.25 million). Even more money has been earmarked for research on such things as protecting Hawaiian sugar cane and macadamia nuts from rats ($1.7 million), Northwest tree seedlings from mountain beaver ($0.5 million), and developing a North Dakota sunflower that can resist blackbirds ($1.1 million).
Increases in the research budget kept up with earmarking, but not in the operations budget. Between 1987 and 1992, ADC's operations budget nominally increased by $3 million. But after inflation, the operations budget declined by more than $1 million, so the $3 million increase in earmarking ate into other activities. While formal earmarking declined in 1994, ADC maintains budgets in most of the states to which they had been formerly directed so as to maintain good relations with Congress.
Although the Western Region covers a full range of ADC activities, about three-fourths of its federal funds are spent protecting livestock. Every state program except Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, and North Dakota spends over half its federal funds on livestock protection. States in the arid West--Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico--all spend over 80 percent of their federal funds on livestock protection (figure four).
Since the Western Region's budget is nearly three-and-one-half times larger than that of the Eastern Region, western livestock protection is the dominant service provided by ADC operations. This activity consumed 53 percent of ADC's total on-the-ground operations in 1992. However, this is down from 67 percent in 1985.
Overhead--agency support, program support, and program investments--adds nearly 25 percent to ADC's on-the-ground expenses. When this is counted, the program spent a total of $13.3 million on western livestock protection in 1992.
Figure four: The ADC programs in most western states devote most of their resources to livestock protection. In the arid, intermountain states, more than 80 percent of ADC's efforts go to livestock protection. Source: ADC Western Region PEP Report.
Most state or local government provide cooperative funding to ADC's programs. As a whole, cooperative funding for livestock protection nearly matches the federal funds, but ranges from less than half of the federal funds in four states to nearly twice the federal funds in South Dakota and Texas (figure five).
Figure five: On this chart, 100 percent means that state and local funding exactly match federal funding. While this is ADC's goal, most states fall far short and it is met only because of the significant contributions of Texas and California. Source: ADC Western Region PEP Report.
The amounts shown in figure five are averages for the eight-year period between 1985 and 1992. Cooperative contributions by most states stayed fairly constant relative to federal funding over this period, but fluctuated considerably in Arizona and Nebraska. In Arizona, for example, cooperative contributions ranged anywhere from 10 to 36 percent of the total.
Inflation combined with Congressional earmarking reduced the federal share of livestock protection funding by about 10 percent between 1985 and 1992 (figure six). Federal funding reached a low of 84 percent of the 1985 levels in 1990, and has recovered somewhat since then. State funding has fluctuated but in the long run has kept up with inflation.
Figure six: After adjusting for inflation, federal funds for western livestock protection declined steadily between 1985 and 1990. While this has turned around somewhat, funding still falls short of 1985 levels. Source: ADC Western Region PEP Report.
A disproportionate share of livestock protection funds are spent on public lands (figure seven). About half of the eleven Western states, but a much smaller percentage of the six border states, are publicly owned, mostly national forests and BLM lands. About half of the national forests are closed to ADC work pending preparation of NEPA documents, and most BLM lands are similarly closed to all but "emergency" work. Yet an average of three-fourths of all federal livestock funds, and three-fifths of cooperative funds, are spent on public lands.
Figure seven: The vast majority of western ADC livestock funds are spent on public lands. This gives public land ranchers an additional incentive to overgraze. Source: ADC Western Region PEP Report.
Natural resources is primarily protection of some forms of wildlife, such as rare or endangered species, against other forms. This may also include forest protection, even though most forestry work is classified as agriculture. Property includes a wide variety of activities, such as protecting dikes from beaver, buildings from rats, and clothes from mice.
Table three compares the Western Region budgets for each of these areas for 1987 and 1992. Nominally, all have increased. But after adjusting for inflation, the crop program declined while the livestock program remained constant. The other programs have grown by large amounts.
1987 in 92$ % Fed 1992 % Fed % change Aquaculture 0 0 -- 176 91 -- Livestock 17,179 20,760 52 20,829 51 0 Forest and range 748 904 44 1,483 42 64 Crops 2,248 2,717 63 2,342 65 -14 Human health 619 748 45 1,109 42 48 Property 864 1,045 24 2,030 39 94 Wildlife 393 475 43 877 42 85 Total 22,051 26,649 51 28,846 50 8ADC still spends most of its money on livestock, but the livestock budget has remained constant while other budgets have increased. The second column of numbers shows the 1987 budget adjusted for inflation to 1992 dollars. The "% Fed" columns show the percentage of funds paid by the federal government; the remainder are paid by local cooperators. The "% change" column shows the increase or decrease in real dollars between 1987 and 1992. Source: Western Region PEP report.
These budgetary trends may reflect the changing environment for the ADC program. Urban America no longer thinks that carnivores like coyotes and wolves are evil and should be exterminated. Instead, these animals are considered as cuddly as the family dog--in fact, owning a dog with wolf lines is the latest fad.
This new attitude threatens ADC's main mission. But no bureaucracy dies when the need for its mission disappears. Instead, it finds a new mission that reflects a new constituency. So the ADC is moving into areas that will appeal to urbanites such as protecting endangered species from predators, protecting airplanes from seagulls, and protecting catfish farms from cormorants.
Table three also shows the percentage of each activity that is funded by the federal government. ADC's goal is to have state and local cooperators fund half its budget--then it can tell Congress that federal funding will be matched with local funds. While it meets this goal overall, the variation is wide--from less than 10 percent for aquaculture to over 60 percent for property.
Table four shows the various sources of funds for livestock protection. After the federal government, most funding is provided by states, counties, and organizations such as stockgrowers' associations. "Revolving funds" are found only in a few states--Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Utah--so are probably local in origin. Other federal agencies such as the Forest Service also provide a small amount of cooperative funding.
Source Amount Percent Individual $12,049 0 Organization 2,164,309 10 County 3,050,690 14 State 4,592,967 22 Fur sales 46,327 0 Revolving funds 229,368 1 Federal cooperators 191,036 1 ADC 11,031,676 52 Total $21,318,422 100States, counties, and organizations provide most of the matching funds for ADC's livestock budgets. Source: ADC 1992 report, table 1a.
The PEP report concludes that "In general, ADC effectiveness in protecting livestock has decreased since 1985." Livestock losses are increasing, says the report, despite the fact that ADC is killing a third more coyotes now than in 1985.
The report gives several reasons for this alleged reduction in effectiveness. First is the difficulty of complying with the National Environmental Policy Act. This is not so much the programmatic EIS but local environmental assessments (EAs) required by the Forest Service and BLM. Until such EAs are done, the Forest Service won't allow any ADC activities on a national forest and the BLM will allow only "emergency" activities.
Only about half of the national forests in the West have EAs for ADC, and few BLM districts do. In the meantime, ADC state offices have diverted resources away from fieldwork to helping prepare the EAs. This cost the ADC an estimated $400,000 in 1992 and presumably similar amounts in other recent years.
When the EAs are done, the final decisions often restrict the type of control activities that the ADC can do. Local officials blame other agencies' NEPA processes for "work stoppage, restriction of using certain tools/methods, increase in confirmed and reported losses, reduced aerial hunting time, loss of cooperative support, and private control by some permittees."[4]
In addition to NEPA, the PEP report cites the Endangered Species Act, Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, and Migratory Bird Treaty Act as laws that "are restricting the ability of ADC to effectively discharge its responsibility within the current funding levels."
The report also blames lack of funding for ADC's reduced effectiveness. Funding for livestock protection has not kept up with other programs or with inflation. The report points the finger at Congressional earmarking but does not openly complain about the earmarking process.
The PEP report also notes that private trapping of coyotes for their furs has dramatically declined, mainly because fur prices have fallen by two-thirds. As recently as 1980, over 300,000 coyotes were taken by private trappers in the West. At that time, pelts sold for about $30 each. By 1989-90, prices had fallen to under $10 and only 27,000 were trapped.
This suggests that, if killing coyotes is truly a sound goal, ADC could do it much less expensively by paying a bounty on coyote pelts. If ADC spends an average of $100 to kill a single coyote, but private trappers will trap 100,000 more coyotes with a $20 increase in fur prices, then increasing fur prices would be far more efficient. A major problem with this, of course, is that private trappers are probably even less selective than ADC about targeting problem animals.
The PEP report speculates that, since ADC's resources for livestock protection are declining, but the numbers of coyotes taken is increasing, coyote populations must be increasing. While this is one possible explanation, the report admits that others are also possible.
One major flaw with the PEP report is that it offers no evidence that livestock predation by coyotes is actually increasing. The report cites "verified losses" but not actual or reported losses. As the ADC frequently emphasizes, verified losses are only a fraction of the total and are certainly not a statistically sound measure of changes in losses over time.
The PEP report concludes that ADC needs more funding for field operations to hasten compliance with NEPA and meet the challenge of increased coyote populations. More research funds are also needed, says the report, to develop new methods of control to replace older methods that have been restricted by law or local rules. Without additional funding, predicts the report, "the ineffectiveness of ADC services will accelerate even more rapidly."
Data gathered by ADC since the PEP report was written contradicts many of the report's conclusions. For one thing, coyote fur harvests have considerably increased since 1990, the last year listed in the PEP report. According to ADC records, western coyote fur harvests reached nearly 120,000 in 1992.
Even more important, ADC reports indicate that predation by coyotes significantly decreased in 1992. These reports are accumulated by the ADC in May and probably were not available to the authors of the PEP report (which was published in June of 1993). As shown in table seven below, the reported value of livestock killed by coyotes declined by two-thirds, and the value of sheep reported killed by coyotes declined by 49 percent from 1991 to 1992.
ADC records of reported losses are no more accurate than its records of verified losses. But they are the only data available in a time series. These data suggest that the livestock losses to predators may have little to do with the "effectiveness" of the ADC program.
In the table, "records" are the number of types of damage, such as coyotes killing lambs. All coyote-killed lambs in a given state would be included in one record. "Units" are number of incidents, such as the number of lambs killed by coyotes. But units can also be acres of crops damaged by birds, airplanes damaged by seagulls, or buildings damaged by beavers.
Year Records Units Value 1990 2,762 1,830,592 $50,087,037 1991 3,522 1,214,456 47,388,555 1992 5,776 215,182 30,944,414 Total 12,060 3,260,230 $128,420,006ADC's damage reports have been increasing in number but declining in value over the last three years. "Records" indicates the number of different types of reports, such as coyote's killing sheep in a given state. "Units" indicates the number of acres, incidents, animals, or plants damaged. "Value" is the value of the damaged resource. Source: ADC 1992 report, table 4a.
Some idea of ADC's records can be gained from table six, which lists all individual records for 1990 through 1992 for which the damage was estimated to be greater than $500,000. These range from single "incidents" between a hawk or Canada goose and an aircraft which cost over $2 million each to damage of over 230,000 acres of sunflowers by blackbirds which, cumulatively, also cost some $2 million.
State Year Resource Damaged Responsible Species Number Units Value AR 1990 Rice Blackbirds 12,200 Acre $6,100,000 CA 1990 Standing trees Black bears 52,200 Each 3,445,200 MS 1990 Catfish Cormorants 3,300,000 OH 1991 Corn Blackbirds 1 Incident 2,869,000 OH 1991 Corn Multiple species 1 Incident 2,761,000 WA 1990 Airport/aircraft Canada geese 1 Incident 2,500,000 TN 1991 Non-res. buildings Starlings 1 Incident 2,500,000 ND 1991 Sunflowers Blackbirds 800 Incident 2,446,865 ND 1990 Sunflowers Blackbirds 231,405 Acre 2,005,585 WA 1991 Standing trees Porcupines 1 Incident 2,000,000 MA 1992 Safety, aviation Hawks 1 Incident 2,000,000 OR 1992 Standing trees Black bears 24 Incident 1,971,700 ND 1992 Sunflowers Blackbirds 523 Incident 1,543,985 HI 1992 Safety, aviation Barn owls 15 Incident 1,505,721 WI 1991 Non-res. buildings Ring-billed gulls 5 Incident 1,501,500 TX 1990 Cattle, calves Coyotes 3,376 Each 1,442,996 TX 1991 Pasture Prairie-dogs 18,053 Acre 1,319,810 TX 1991 Cattle, calves Coyotes 3,021 Each 1,240,835 NM 1990 Rangeland Rats, Kangaroo 16 Incident 1,061,500 NM 1991 Cattle, calves Coyotes 2,485 Each 1,050,526 AR 1992 Rice Blackbirds 66 Incident 990,000 AR 1991 Rice Blackbirds 56 Incident 840,000 CA 1991 Cattle, calves Coyotes 2,398 Each 837,546 TX 1990 Sheep, lambs Coyotes 14,135 Each 834,141 NM 1990 Pinto beans Prairie Dogs 2 Incident 827,172 AZ 1990 Cattle, adults Blackbirds 1,601 Each 818,700 GA 1991 Other trans. safety White-tailed deer Incident 758,000 WA 1992 Standing trees Black bears 2 Incident 660,000 TX 1991 Sheep, lambs Coyotes 12,363 Each 625,790 NC 1991 Standing trees Beavers 3 Incident 625,000 CA 1990 Cattle, calves Coyotes 1,833 Each 580,569 UT 1991 Sheep, lambs Coyotes 9,488 Each 547,065 CA 1990 Sheep, lambs Coyotes 6,479 Each 519,294 TX 1990 Exotic game mammals Coyotes 1,311 Each 518,880 UT 1990 Sheep, lambs Coyotes 8,944 Each 518,146 TX 1990 Cabbage Blackbirds 6 Incident 517,900 LA 1991 Sugarcane Nutrias 1 Incident 504,000Of ADC's 12,060 damage records for 1990, 1991, and 1992, 37 report damage exceeding a half million dollars. Some of these represent individual incidents, but others are accumulations of a given type of incident in a particular state. Source: ADC 1992 report, table 4a.
The numbers in ADC's records are not all verified by ADC personnel, but ADC does attempt to find out if they are reasonable. Yet these numbers are something less than the total actual damage reported to the ADC. The ADC's new management information system (MIS) records total damage reports. As of 1992, this system was on line only for livestock in five states. The reports from those states tended to be much greater than reported by the older system. The difference is that the ADC makes no attempt to determine whether the larger numbers reported by the MIS project are reasonable.
Obviously, many animal damage problems are never reported to ADC. As will be shown later, only about 10 to 25 percent of cattle and sheep predation is recorded in ADC's reports, and the recorded percentages for other activities--such as the amount of clothing damaged by mice--may be far smaller.
Clearly, an important selection process is going on here. Before an animal damage incident can be recorded in ADC's files, the person suffering the damage has to know about ADC and that it takes such reports. Even more, people are likely to file reports only if they expect ADC to help them with the problem.
For example, sunflowers are grown in many states with particularly large crops being grown in Minnesota, South Dakota, and Kansas. Yet ADC's records show animal damage only to sunflower crops in North Dakota. This is not because there is no damage in other states, but because ADC's blackbird control program is located in North Dakota.
Eventually, animal damage reports become self-fulfilling prophecies. Without a government agency like ADC, farmers will expect some animal damage and will take whatever steps they can afford to minimize that damage. When ADC enters the picture, farmers will reduce their own efforts because they expect ADC to solve their problem. This reduction in farmer efforts increases the amount of damage. Increased damage reports give ADC an opportunity to ask Congress for more funds. Increased funds allow them to serve more farmers and protect more crops, and the process cycles through again.
For example, research shows that sheep growers can reduce the risk of coyote predation by placing their sheep and lambs in lighted pens at night.[5] This is the practice of many farmers in states with minimal ADC livestock programs. But where ADC has significant programs, farmers will let their sheep range free at night and rely on the government to kill coyotes for them. Despite ADC's efforts, the effect is greater losses to predation--which to some becomes an argument for more ADC funding.
Some of the reports recorded by ADC seem rather fantastic. Many farmers question whether a coyote can kill a healthy calf, much less adult cattle. Yet, between 1990 and 1992, ADC records report coyotes killing nearly 24,000 calves and 1,000 adult cattle, not to mention 36,500 sheep, over 80 horses, and 500 full-grown pigs.
We can believe that Texas alligators are capable of killing ducks and possibly even the calf reported in 1990. We might be able to believe reports that black bear killed 90 adult cattle and several horses. But some of the following reports are hard to accept:
In general, the only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that ADC's reports are not reliable in any sense. Some of the reported damage probably was not really caused by wildlife. Fluctuations from state to state and year to year are probably more related to the aggressiveness of local ADC employees in collecting reports than of actual damage.
A. All Livestock
1990 1991 1992
1. Damage Caused by Mammals
Coyotes $9,586,696 $9,951,335 $3,155,779
Wild cats 1,839,206 1,203,049 341,477
Feral dogs 711,310 499,784 280,779
Bears 265,338 206,226 129,343
Raccoons 241,707 126,167 34,202
Skunks 162,019 23,550 146,648
Wolves 69,644 49,721 41,129
Other ferals or exotics 64,499 75,012 3,767
Other mammals 5,995 59,108 6,319
2. Damage Caused by Birds
Blackbirds 818,700 207,655 366,100
Golden eagles 410,388 299,743 13,463
Vultures 35,186 74,956 21,189
Ravens 54,119 51,588 18,217
Bald eagles 19,994 42,119 376
Hawks, Falcons, Osprey 19,951 9,227 27,029
Starlings 0 2,500 12,740
Crows 4,565 1,845 242
Waterfowl 0 0 2,771
Song birds 0 120 131
3. Damage Caused by Other Animals
Alligators 450 0 12
Snakes 17,390 7,570 55
Lizards 0 6 0
Turtles 0 0 168
TOTAL $14,327,156 $12,891,280 $4,601,936
B. Cattle
1990 1991 1992
1. Damage Caused by Mammals
Coyotes $3,428,717 $4,891,245 $1,033,036
Wild cats 381,486 192,179 45,642
Feral dogs 216,161 168,848 137,884
Bears 96,777 54,164 22,978
Wolves 39,148 32,544 35,600
Other ferals or exotics 1,350 5,575 2,000
Skunks 784 0 600
Other mammals 400 0 230
2. Damage Caused by Birds
Blackbirds 818,700 207,650 366,100
Vultures 27,358 43,900 18,465
Ravens 35,812 22,200 9,259
Starlings 0 2,500 12,340
Golden eagles 7,095 1,810 200
Waterfowl 0 0 2,400
Bald eagles 0 250 0
Song birds 0 0 1
3. Damage Caused by Other Animals
Snakes 700 4,620 0
Alligators 450 0 0
TOTAL $5,054,938 $5,627,485 $1,686,735
C. Sheep
1990 1991 1992
1. Damage Caused by Mammals
Coyotes $4,657,006 $3,874,274 $1,958,163
Wild cats 877,011 704,151 246,225
Feral dogs 366,993 250,685 85,267
Bears 165,664 146,684 97,697
Raccoons 23,496 22,294 834
Skunks 6,005 5,400 193
Wolves 13,399 4,793 2,881
Other ferals or exotics 30,651 21,573 899
Other mammals 1,180 5,020 100
2. Damage Caused by Birds
Golden eagles 298,028 192,929 12,983
Bald eagles 14,034 29,640 13,148
Ravens 17,587 24,598 8,254
Vultures 1,693 19,290 1,212
Hawks, Falcons, Osprey 10,020 3,565 0
Crows 3,475 1,845 168
Song birds 0 120 0
3. Damage Caused by Other Animals
Snakes 10,340 2,950 0
TOTAL $6,496,581 $5,309,810 $2,428,024
Source: ADC 1990 report, table 4, and 1992 and 1991 reports table 4a.
By comparison, the Eastern and Western regions together reported killing fewer than 60,000 mammals of all other types in 1992. Among these are about 1,200 bobcats, 600 feral dogs, and 200 bears--all potential threats to livestock. Most of the other species killed were beavers (15,100), foxes (10,600), skunks (7,900), raccoons (7,600), and opossums (2,800). With the possible exception of foxes, these are not serious threats to livestock.
ADC's policy is to treat an animal damage problem only after receive a report from someone that wildlife have harmed their livestock, crops, or property. ADC offers consultative advice to property owners who suffer such damage.
In 1992, out of 40,600 consultations offered by ADC, only 1,342 such consultations related to coyotes and only 1,600 agricultural consultations related to species that seriously threaten cattle or sheep. By comparison, ADC had 3,800 consultations on raccoons, 3,300 on squirrels, 3,100 on skunks, 2,400 on geese, 2,200 on deer, 1,500 on beavers, and 1,400 on blackbirds. A total of 40,600 consultations were made on all species.
Once called into action, ADC workers use a variety of means to kill coyotes and other large predators. The most effective is aerial, either helicopter or airplane. Together these killed a reported 32,700 coyotes in 1992, or more than a third of the total. Next is the M-44, which killed about 25,200, or more than a quarter of the total. Leghold traps killed 13,300, while the rest were killed via snares (10,000), calling (7,400), denning (killing pups in their dens, 3,300), shooting (3,700), or "other" (2,200).
Assuming that half of ADC's livestock protection budget is dedicated to killing coyotes, the average cost per coyote over the past eight years is more than $100. This ranges from under $75 in Nebraska to over $150 in Utah. Adding APHIS and ADC overhead would increase these costs by about 20 percent.
In some cases, the costs can be much higher. In nine states, ADC regularly rents helicopters to hunt coyotes. Based on ADC reports of the cost of helicopter rental per hour and the number of coyotes killed per hour, the rental cost per coyote ranges from $25 to over $2,000, for an average of well over $150. Since other costs are involved, including personnel and overhead, $100 per coyote seems a conservative figure.
Would each of the 100,000 coyotes killed by ADC do more than $100 worth of damage to livestock if left unchecked? An accurate answer depends on detailed biological information that is not available at this time. In many cases, however, the answer is "no."
After ADC receives a complaint that predators are killing a rancher's livestock and verifies that the livestock were killed by predators, ADC attempts to suppress predators in the local area. However, there is no guarantee that the coyotes killed are the ones that killed the livestock or that they would have killed any if left alive. It is likely that many of the coyotes killed would never have preyed on domestic livestock.
In the case of ADC's livestock protection efforts, the output that is being sought is livestock that are not eaten by predators that would have been eaten were it not for ADC. This is obviously difficult to measure. So instead, ADC concentrates on inputs--numbers of coyotes killed, numbers of lambs that are killed by coyotes, etc.
The one opportunity to compare actual outputs is to compare differences in ADC programs among the different states. Although ADC is run by the federal government, individual states have taken different approaches to predator control. A comparison of these different approaches may reveal that some states are more successful and/or spend less than others.
The following tables contain state-by-state breakdowns of ADC budgets and activities. Tables eight through twelve are based on ADC data for 1992. These data are collected in a dozen or so tables used internally by ADC. For example, table 1 shows how much money is spent in each state, on what resource, and where the money comes from, while table 4 shows the wildlife damages reported to ADC each year.
Tables thirteen through sixteen are based on data collected by the National Agricultural Statistics Service--some of it under contract to ADC--for 1990 and 1991. ADC combines New Hampshire and Vermont in some its records, so for comparability these states are combined in all tables.
Fifteen states, all but one of them from the Western Region, have budgets of more than a million dollars. Altogether, the Western Region accounts for well over 80 percent of the 1992 state budgets.
The federal government provides 100 percent of the funding in seven states and the District of Columbia. Of these states, significant ADC programs are maintained only in Maine, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Iowa. The federal government provides a third or less of the funds in Texas, South Dakota, New Jersey, and Hawaii. But it provides over half the funds in more than 40 states and between 75 and 99 percent of the funds in 17 states.
Federal Coop. Total Percent State Funds Rank Funds Rank Budget Federal TX 2248462 1 4551609 1 6800071 33 CA 1912539 2 2122723 2 4035262 47 NM 1097422 3 902,019 3 1999441 55 UT 958,209 4 747,251 5 1705460 56 WY 942,559 6 718,326 6 1660885 57 OR 942,030 7 690,699 7 1632729 58 MT 944,301 5 575,804 11 1520105 62 OK 756,594 10 660,032 8 1416626 53 ID 899,413 8 358,101 14 1257514 72 NV 692,564 12 539,602 12 1232166 56 WI 510,000 14 656,738 9 1166738 44 SD 355,786 17 790,500 4 1146286 31 ND 812,109 9 317,442 15 1129551 72 WA 521,929 13 590,217 10 1112146 47 CO 739,421 11 289,470 16 1028891 72 AZ 449,426 16 272,231 17 721,657 62 MS 488,000 15 150,900 21 638,900 76 HI 86,570 34 504,956 13 591,526 15 NE 307,180 18 164,478 20 471,658 65 TN 221,330 22 214,366 18 435,696 51 LA 299,955 19 43,316 27 343,271 87 NJ 83,256 36 209,265 19 292,521 28 NY 136,814 25 136,998 22 273,812 50 MN 253,536 20 9,512 40 263,048 96 NH/VT 205,500 23 55,330 24 260,830 79 AR 240,000 21 19,092 34 259,092 93 KY 74,770 40 131,562 23 206,332 36 OH 156,000 24 40,000 28 196,000 80 VA 112,000 27 43,858 26 155,858 72 ME 125,000 26 200 43 125,200 100 NC 100,000 30 23,625 32 123,625 81 MO 100,000 29 22,500 33 122,500 82 GA 93,000 32 28,899 30 121,899 76 IL 74,000 41 38,264 29 112,264 66 MI 99,000 31 12,758 38 111,758 89 MD 86,680 33 25,000 31 111,680 78 AL 100,000 28 4,732 42 104,732 95 WV 85,602 35 15,295 36 100,897 85 IN 83,000 37 16,696 35 99,696 83 AK 50,100 44 46,863 25 96,963 52 SC 82,399 38 7,135 41 89,534 92 FL 80,000 39 80,000 100 PA 66,585 42 66,585 100 MA 50,203 43 14,900 37 65,103 77 CT 30,447 46 12,295 39 42,742 71 IA 35,000 45 35,000 100 KS 3,000 47 3,000 100 RI 1,646 48 1,646 100 DC 792 49 792 100 DE 528 50 528 100 TOTAL 18794657 16775559 5570216 53States are listed in order of the total ADC budgets. Source: ADC 1992 report, table 1a.
Nearly 98 percent of ADC's livestock budget is concentrated in the 16 contiguous western states (excluding Kansas). Within those states, the federal government funds only about a third of the program in Texas and South Dakota, but over half in most other states and nearly two-thirds or more in Montana, Idaho, Colorado, Arizona, Washington, and Nebraska. Outside the West, the largest ADC livestock program is in Minnesota, which is entirely funded by the federal government.
The different states use various methods to fund their ADC programs. The California program is funded mostly by the counties. Texas is shared by the state and local organizations. Utah and North Dakota rely mostly on state funds. In many cases, however, county and state funds may merely be a pass-through of assessments charged to livestock ranchers.
Five states receive no funding at all, and funds in at least 23 other states are inadequate to support even a single full-time employee. Most of these states rely almost entirely on federal funds.
Indi- Organi- Fur Revolv. Federal Percent State vidual zation County State sales fund agency ADC TOTAL ADC TX 1360659 1385604 1461501 4207764 35% CA 1169281 370,748 163,241 1644784 3348054 49% WY 756 47,206 582,660 56,000 13,024 10,000 895,431 1605077 56% NM 51,793 401,049 285,240 8,637 804,410 1551129 52% UT 627,230 2,547 47,174 862,582 1539533 56% MT 183,571 314,189 8,204 928,216 1434180 65% NV 88,526 405,912 631,623 1126061 56% ID 322,757 1,235 687,846 1011838 68% CO 2,150 188,286 67,434 31,600 699,340 988,810 71% SD 237,083 235,711 6,172 169,244 249,168 897,378 28% OR 2,075 263,000 149,000 457,000 871,075 52% AZ 100,989 37,342 75,000 6,000 395,791 615,122 64% OK 6,425 37,320 210,813 12,950 303,837 571,345 53% ND 223,528 219,234 442,762 50% WA 2,140 1,752 137,305 235,455 376,652 63% NE 70,198 7,743 10,000 154,591 242,532 64% MN 179,256 179,256 100% VA 30,000 40,660 70,660 58% OH 40,000 4,700 44,700 11% LA 37,395 37,395 100% MS 1,953 1,050 560 18,160 21,723 84% NH/VT 300 5,600 9,864 15,764 63% WI 8,250 7,033 15,283 46% WV 14,140 14,140 100% AL 12,700 12,700 100% IA 12,348 12,348 100% ME 11,750 11,750 100% TN 8,809 8,809 100% GA 43 5,581 5,624 99% IL 5,448 5,448 100% MO 5,269 5,269 100% MI 4,949 4,949 100% FL 4,500 4,500 100% SC 4,120 4,120 100% IN 3,508 3,508 100% PA 3,296 3,296 100% KY 2,812 2,812 100% NC 1,540 1,540 100% MD 187 647 834 78% HI 300 500 800 63% CT 687 687 100% MA 600 600 100% AK 513 513 100% RI 82 82 100% TOTAL 12,049 2164309 3050690 4592967 46,327 229,368 191,036 11031676 21318422 52%States are listed in order of total ADC livestock budgets. ADC spends no funds on livestock programs in Arkansas, Delaware, Kansas, New Jersey, or New York. Source: ADC 1992 report, table 1a.
With the largest ADC program, it is no surprise that Texas collects the largest number of damage reports and records the greatest damage value. But states with the third and fourth largest amounts of damage--Arkansas and Massachusetts--have only the 23rd and 44th largest ADC programs. Most of the differences between budgetary and damage rankings can be explained either by a few costly incidents or by Congressional focus on special ADC activities.
Ordinarily, Massachusetts would be ranked much lower, but a single incident between an airplane and birds accounted for 96 percent of the damage it reported in 1992. Nearly 90 percent of the damage reported in Hawaii was also due to a few aircraft incidents.
Arkansas' high ranking is probably due to Congressional interest. Starting in 1988, Congress earmarked nearly a quarter of a million dollars per year to "restore" Arkansas' ADC program. The high reported damages probably reflect this new funding.
Other states with high reported damages also reflect Congressional earmarking. The North Dakota blackbird control program explains that state's number five ranking. Blackbirds caused 82 percent of the damage reported in that state. Congress has funded $100,000 per year each to Mississippi and Wisconsin to control beavers, and beavers were responsible for 86 percent of the damage reported in Mississippi and 40 percent of the damage reported in Wisconsin.
Table ten also shows the value of damage reportedly caused by coyotes. Not surprisingly, the 16 western states with ADC programs form the top 16 in ranking, reporting 96 percent of the total damage due to coyotes.
The next three are Virginia, Ohio, and Minnesota, reporting over half the coyote damage of all the eastern states. These three also happen to be the top ranked eastern states in terms of ADC livestock budgets, receiving 60 percent of eastern livestock funds. As will be shown in table sixteen, among eastern states Virginia ranks only third in actual livestock losses to predators, while Minnesota ranks eighth and Ohio sixteenth. It seems likely that the high reported losses in these three states primarily reflect the states' high ADC budgets.
Coyote Events Value of losses Coyote Coyote State reportd damage reportd damage rank TX 26,213 3686339 3,783 238,729 4 OR 40,422 3327579 3,157 230,880 5 AR 476 2185930 12 1,150 28 MA 15 2078740 ND 3,831 1895694 1,944 215,456 7 HI 303 1712955 CA 13,303 1674396 4,183 247,436 3 OK 7,149 1402438 3,228 189,513 10 WA 5,668 1395505 943 129,336 12 WI 5,845 1253958 314 6,885 22 MS 1,359 1104842 NM 25,224 735,173 924 104,742 14 AZ 1,618 683,650 262 55,097 16 NC 259 682,985 LA 1,707 675,625 123 3,104 26 NE 17,523 493,902 822 59,280 15 SD 3,386 453,970 1,983 160,150 11 IN 301 436,605 5 85 31 UT 5,909 429,984 3,534 221,346 6 WY 7,759 421,045 7,194 393,180 1 MD 7,886 403,646 VA 2,639 344,044 496 35,028 17 CO 4,676 343,122 3,198 192,826 9 MN 603 341,671 203 17,559 19 MT 4,859 332,085 3,776 291,547 2 KY 2,941 310,135 PA 228 277,215 7 525 29 TN 556 275,459 ID 4,777 264,414 3,009 205,939 8 AL 2,033 258,330 40 15,650 20 NV 3,178 238,569 1,810 122,120 13 OH 1,061 234,229 363 19,715 18 NH/VT 2,384 142,170 157 5,576 23 MO 808 100,844 8 200 30 CT 2 78,000 WV 3,983 60,428 MI 268 43,231 64 3,631 25 NJ 54 42,000 IL 3,382 27,500 40 4,100 24 GA 37 27,025 7 2,190 27 SC 210 18,323 IA 242 15,350 212 10,400 21 ME 10 10,000 DE 19 9,350 AK 63 8,960 DC 15 6,000 RI 1 1,000 FL KS NY TOTAL 215,184 30944414 45,801 3183375States are listed in order of total damage reported. Blanks should be interpreted as zeros; thus, no damage was reported in Florida, Kansas, or New York. Source: ADC 1992 report, table 4a.
Aerial shooting, the most popular way of killing coyotes, was responsible for about a third of the "take," as ADC calls it. Chemical devices such as M-44s did a quarter, and traps and snares another quarter. The rest was done by such means as calling, denning, or just plain shooting on sight from the ground.
These proportions varied only somewhat by state. California seems to mostly avoid aerial shooting, but Wyoming, Nevada, Idaho, Utah, and Colorado rely on it for well over half their take. M-44's are dominant in Nebraska, New Mexico, and, to a lesser extent, the Dakotas. The eastern states rely almost exclusively on traps and snares.
Table eleven also shows the harvest by private fur trappers. Since 1992 numbers were not available for every state, the most recent year recorded was used. If the resulting number--284,000--is reliable, it is substantially greater than the 153,000 reported for 1990 in the Western Region PEP report. The 119,000 reported for the Western Region was more than double the PEP report's 1990 level, even though no numbers were reported at all for New Mexico.
Leghold Call- Den- Other Other Private State Total Aerial traps Snares ing Shot ning M-44 Chem. Nonch. Hvst. TX 19,255 3,814 1,682 4,686 914 312 187 7,579 17 64 98 NM 8,252 1,175 1,018 665 581 158 4 4,638 13 na SD 7,582 2,497 413 745 491 88 2,186 1,149 13 7,959 OR 7,442 2,716 2,223 931 357 273 151 739 52 3,849 WY 7,320 4,499 595 169 927 390 212 527 1 6,032 MT 6,816 3,665 476 564 393 236 408 1,074 7,532 NV 6,124 3,706 1,073 77 586 340 217 27 98 3,718 CA 5,926 76 1,720 505 529 1,049 423 1,277 347 1,536 ID 5,333 3,428 721 83 639 65 30 356 11 2,583 OK 5,284 1,623 612 387 781 184 71 1,623 3 1,617 UT 4,933 2,062 320 152 586 81 951 719 4 58 3,271 CO 3,261 1,817 78 173 330 141 341 272 109 28,707 WA 3,179 461 766 242 180 188 257 1,004 81 1,875 ND 3,150 634 554 562 39 36 88 1,214 23 8,562 NE 2,483 320 181 26 59 63 1,724 110 16,316 AZ 1,503 274 841 1 33 47 307 25,500 MN 60 58 2 19,000 VA 25 3 20 2 OH 24 16 8 102 MS 14 14 43,191 IN 6 1,029 KY 53,553 AL 21,100 MI 5,500 IA 4,500 MO 3,919 IL 3,010 PA 2,136 KS 1,800 GA 1,656 NY 1,403 ME 1,222 NH/VT 813 AR 129 TN 98 CT 77 LA 66 MA 58 SC 30 RI 2 MD 1 TOTAL 97,972 32,767 13,364 9,998 7,427 3,651 3,340 25,239 1,307 873 283,550States are listed in order of the number of coyotes taken by ADC. No coyotes were recorded as killed by ADC or private trappers in Alaska, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, North Carolina, New Jersey, Wisconsin, or West Virginia. Source: ADC 1992 report, table 2.
Adult Cattle Calves Adult Sheep Lambs Total State No. Value No. Value No. Value No. Value Value WY 5 3,500 42 16,800 1,734 104,040 5,362 268,100 392,440 MT 1 687 222 92,170 399 27,778 3,042 166,913 287,548 CA 221 3,507 220 89,196 356 18,561 2,110 121,469 232,733 OR 5 2,950 328 85,800 372 19,173 2,082 118,237 226,160 UT 27 6,885 1,106 76,903 2,348 136,508 220,296 ND 13 7,375 258 106,110 187 13,730 1,031 76,030 203,245 ID 3 2,316 208 17,056 515 35,432 2,138 147,094 201,898 CO 9 3,925 288 21,350 2,532 156,917 182,192 TX 27 14,430 285 96,029 364 18,202 1,136 47,132 175,793 SD 253 73,550 1,730 86,600 160,150 NV 25 14,350 49 9,034 356 34,293 1,312 75,487 133,164 OK 18 11,080 1,388 107,065 66 5,115 175 9,765 133,025 WA 4 3,090 219 88,835 113 10,825 275 20,660 123,410 NM 19 9,127 170 55,021 155 11,314 459 22,940 98,402 NE 5 4,750 116 35,015 88 6,375 184 9,495 55,635 AZ 2 1,600 70 39,740 33 4,317 80 5,965 51,622 VA 1 1,000 8 3,203 20 1,280 467 29,545 35,028 OH 31 4,000 16 1,575 244 12,215 17,790 MN 2 1,025 27 10,578 4 389 79 4,325 16,317 AL 24 14,250 14,250 IA 6 2,450 4 200 7,650 10,100 WI 2 320 9 3,830 14 800 285 1,525 6,475 NH/VT 2 1,000 5 575 16 1,330 38 3,335 6,240 IL 1 39 4,100 4,100 GA 6 2,130 1 60 2,190 LA 41 942 5 400 5 190 1,532 AR 10 1,000 1,000 PA 7 525 525 IN 1 65 65 Total 366 83,107 4,021 964,189 6,251 417,347 27,322 1528682 2993325States are listed in order of the total value of sheep and cattle reported lost to coyotes. No losses were reported in Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, or West Virginia. Source: ADC 1992 report, table 4a.
NASS collected data through sampling surveys of farmers and ranchers in every state except Alaska conducted by phone, mail, and in person. Surveys collected information from 65,000 sheep growers and 77,000 cattle growers. NASS estimates that the sheep data have a 95 percent chance of being accurate within plus or minus 8 percent, but did not estimate accuracy for the cattle survey. Of course, the surveys' reliability depends on the accuracy of the information supplied by survey respondents, which NASS did not estimate.
Tables thirteen and fourteen also show the size of the cattle and sheep herds and calf and lamb crops in the years of the surveys. These data are published by NASS in its annual report of agricultural statistics.[9] Table fifteen compares NASS' estimates of predator losses with ADC's reports for the relevant years, 1991 for cattle and 1990 for sheep.
Two-thirds of the calf losses, but only a third of the adult losses, were estimated to be due to coyotes. Feral dogs were responsible for most of the other losses, with mountain lions a distant third.
Losses to predators vary dramatically by state, ranging from just 0.02 percent of Ohio calves and no Ohio adults to 1.1 percent of Arizona calves and 0.2 percent of Arizona adult cattle. Farmers and ranchers in Arizona, Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Colorado, Utah, and Illinois experienced significantly higher than average calf losses.
Of course, ADC has put enormous efforts into predator control in eight of those ten states. This could merely suggest that ADC's efforts were not enough and should be redoubled. But it could also indicate that ADC's efforts have failed and a completely different method should be applied.
Four of the top ten cattle producing states (Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, and Kansas) do not have a significant federal ADC livestock program. Cattle growers from these states all report predator losses that are far less than half the national average.
Total in 1,000s Losses to Predators Losses to Coyotes Cattle Calf Share Share Share Share State Herd Crop Cattle herd Calves crop Cattle herd Calves crop AZ 840 300 1,600 0.19 3,300 1.10 1,300 0.15 1,900 0.63 OR 1,480 650 200 0.01 4,500 0.69 4,000 0.62 NV 540 260 1,600 0.62 1,500 0.58 NM 1,340 480 1,000 0.07 1,800 0.38 200 0.01 1,000 0.21 TX 13,300 5,150 3,000 0.02 23,400 0.45 1,000 0.01 16,200 0.31 OK 5,550 1,900 1,800 0.03 7,000 0.37 1,300 0.02 4,000 0.21 TN 2,250 1,070 400 0.02 4,100 0.38 1,400 0.13 CO 2,750 840 200 0.01 2,900 0.35 100 0.00 2,500 0.30 UT 810 330 100 0.01 1,000 0.30 800 0.24 LA 1,020 500 200 0.02 1,400 0.28 100 0.01 1,200 0.24 IL 2,000 610 200 0.01 1,800 0.30 1,400 0.23 CA 4,600 1,700 1,100 0.02 4,300 0.25 200 0.00 2,600 0.15 KY 2,500 1,210 300 0.01 3,300 0.27 100 0.00 1,800 0.15 HI 214 68 200 0.29 VA 1,730 805 800 0.05 1,600 0.20 700 0.09 AL 1,800 830 300 0.02 2,100 0.25 100 0.01 1,600 0.19 MS 1,290 680 300 0.02 1,600 0.24 1,300 0.19 GA 1,420 670 400 0.03 1,300 0.19 100 0.01 600 0.09 SD 3,400 1,620 300 0.01 3,700 0.23 100 0.00 3,500 0.22 SC 580 245 600 0.24 NC 950 450 300 0.03 700 0.16 AR 1,690 770 300 0.02 1,400 0.18 300 0.04 WY 1,190 640 100 0.01 1,200 0.19 1,000 0.16 ID 1,740 680 100 0.01 1,200 0.18 900 0.13 WA 1,340 540 200 0.01 800 0.15 100 0.01 700 0.13 NH/VT 326 182 100 0.03 200 0.11 200 0.11 ND 1,700 960 200 0.01 1,400 0.15 100 0.01 1,300 0.14 MT 2,330 1,430 300 0.01 1,800 0.13 1,200 0.08 MN 2,760 1,030 100 0.00 1,400 0.14 400 0.04 IA 4,700 1,310 300 0.01 1,600 0.12 200 0.00 1,200 0.09 FL 1,900 980 400 0.02 900 0.09 200 0.02 IN 1,225 460 100 0.01 500 0.11 400 0.09 NE 6,000 1,680 200 0.00 1,800 0.11 100 0.00 1,700 0.10 MO 4,400 2,040 500 0.01 1,800 0.09 200 0.00 1,000 0.05 KS 5,700 1,330 200 0.00 1,100 0.08 100 0.00 800 0.06 WV 515 265 200 0.08 MD 320 125 100 0.03 MI 1,200 380 100 0.01 100 0.03 PA 1,820 770 100 0.01 200 0.03 NY 1,550 770 200 0.03 200 0.03 WI 4,170 1,780 400 0.02 300 0.02 OH 1,580 600 100 0.02 AK 8 3 CT 74 34 DE 28 11 MA 70 33 ME 119 50 NJ 70 32 RI 7 4 Total 98,896 39,256 15,900 0.02 90,500 0.23 5,400 0.01 59,800 0.15States are listed in order of the total value of cattle and calf losses to predators. Blanks in loss categories mean less than 50 estimated to be lost. Sources: Herd and crop size: NASS, Agricultural Statistics 1992, tables 386 and 389, data for 1991. Losses: NASS, Cattle and Calf Death Losses, pp. 4, 5, and 6.
As with cattle, losses vary greatly by state, with lamb losses ranging from 0.8 percent of lambs and 0.4 percent of adults in Michigan to 11.0 percent of lambs and 4.6 percent of adults in Nevada.
High loss rates are calculated for Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama, but these numbers are suspect. NASS did not report separate sheep and lamb numbers for these three states in 1990, instead combining them with Florida, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and South Carolina. The numbers in the table are an average for all nine states, but this probably underestimates the numbers for Arkansas, Alabama, and Mississippi, and may overestimate them for the other states.
Discounting these three states, the states with the top ten losses as a proportion of their herds are all western states except Virginia. As previously noted, Virginia has one of the largest ADC livestock protection programs in the East.
Total in 1,000s Losses to Predators Losses to Coyotes Sheep Lamb Share Share Share Share State Herd Crop Sheep herd Lamb crop Sheep herd Lamb crop AR 7 5 200 2.68 800 14.68 100 1.34 400 7.34 NV 97 84 4,500 4.64 9,200 10.95 3,200 3.30 6,300 7.50 MS 7 5 300 4.03 400 7.34 100 1.34 300 5.50 AL 7 5 300 4.03 400 7.34 100 1.34 200 3.67 NM 473 290 10,000 2.11 27,000 9.31 4,300 0.91 10,600 3.66 CO 455 400 9,000 1.98 30,500 7.63 5,900 1.30 26,300 6.58 OK 105 90 3,000 2.86 4,900 5.44 2,800 2.67 4,400 4.89 AZ 220 130 4,000 1.82 7,500 5.77 2,600 1.18 5,100 3.92 OR 345 310 5,100 1.48 18,800 6.06 3,200 0.93 9,900 3.19 UT 485 430 9,300 1.92 22,100 5.14 6,500 1.34 15,000 3.49 TX 1,890 1,150 2,700 0.14 80,000 6.96 1,600 0.08 40,000 3.48 VA 122 130 2,500 2.05 5,500 4.23 200 0.16 3,900 3.00 SD 535 515 8,700 1.63 22,700 4.41 8,200 1.53 20,700 4.02 MT 640 500 7,600 1.19 23,000 4.60 6,100 0.95 19,100 3.82 LA 17 11 400 2.35 300 2.73 200 1.18 200 1.82 IN 82 90 2,000 2.44 2,300 2.56 100 0.12 200 0.22 WY 705 550 5,700 0.81 26,600 4.84 4,300 0.61 21,900 3.98 KY 38 31 500 1.32 1,200 3.87 100 0.26 800 2.58 FL 7 5 300 5.50 200 3.67 NE 135 125 1,700 1.26 4,600 3.68 1,500 1.11 4,200 3.36 CA 775 550 9,900 1.28 17,700 3.22 5,300 0.68 12,800 2.33 ND 152 156 1,700 1.12 5,300 3.40 1,100 0.72 4,500 2.88 ID 270 270 3,600 1.33 7,600 2.81 2,600 0.96 6,200 2.30 IA 400 385 9,400 2.35 5,100 1.32 5,800 1.45 2,900 0.75 TN 12 10 400 4.12 100 1.03 IL 138 160 1,900 1.38 2,800 1.75 700 0.51 1,200 0.75 MO 120 110 1,000 0.83 2,400 2.18 500 0.42 1,500 1.36 KS 185 145 2,000 1.08 1,800 1.24 1,300 0.70 1,300 0.90 OH 205 200 1,500 0.73 3,100 1.55 200 0.10 1,700 0.85 NY 92 67 1,000 1.09 700 1.04 200 0.22 200 0.30 WA 83 75 400 0.48 1,400 1.87 200 0.24 1,100 1.47 ME 20 16 400 2.50 300 1.88 MN 210 225 1,600 0.76 3,200 1.42 300 0.14 1,700 0.76 WV 80 75 1,800 2.40 500 0.67 WI 90 100 500 0.56 1,300 1.30 300 0.33 900 0.90 MI 92 95 400 0.43 800 0.84 100 0.11 200 0.21 NH/VT 42 37 500 1.35 400 1.08 AK 3 1 CT 10 9 DE 7 5 GA 7 5 HI 7 5 MA 17 13 MD 32 23 NC 15 11 NJ 14 10 PA 134 98 RI 7 5 SC 7 5 Total 9,601 7,725 112,400 1.17 344,400 4.46 69,600 0.72 226,800 2.94States are listed in order of the total value of sheep and lamb losses to predators. Blanks in loss categories mean less than 50 estimated to be lost. Sources: Herd and crop size: NASS, Agricultural Statistics 1992, tables 419 and 423, data for 1990. Losses: NASS, Sheep and Goat Predator Losses, pp. 4, 8, and 9.
On the average, ADC's reports of adult cattle losses were about 10 percent of NASS' estimates. ADC's calf loss reports ranged from 15 percent (for predators as a whole) to 19 percent (for coyotes) of NASS'. When just western states are counted, the figures remained the same for adults while for calves ADC's numbers accounted for 20 percent (predators) to 25 percent (coyotes) of losses. ADC's sheep and lamb numbers accounted for 20 percent of NASS' estimated losses to predators and 24 percent of losses to coyotes.
Unfortunately, NASS' numbers are for a single year only--1990 for sheep and 1991 for cattle. Because of problems with the way ADC's reports are collected, these percentages may not hold up for other years.
Losses to Predators Losses to Coyotes State Cattle Calves Sheep Lambs Cattle Calves Sheep Lambs AL 3 AR 30 70 AZ 4 25 10 7 650 29 8 6 CA 7 1 3 2 2 1 2 2 CO 50 47 20 11 100 47 24 12 GA 87 40 ID 50 3 6 2 0 2 8 2 IN 50 125 67 3 KS 100 100 26 50 73 17 KY 1,650 LA 467 400 MD 100 0 MN 10 15 14 32 12 170 MO 2,400 1,500 MT 30 9 30 11 0 6 31 9 NC 233 0 ND 15 6 9 6 8 6 7 6 NE 50 16 21 14 25 15 19 14 NH/VT 25 200 0 0 200 0 NM 8 1 5 3 3 0 3 3 NV 14 7 8 16 7 7 OH 3 0 OK 29 5 16 11 25 3 19 10 OR 11 19 5 10 0 19 5 6 PA 0 0 SC 50 SD 25 19 19 24 18 18 TN 4,100 1,400 TX 10 7 0 3 4 5 0 3 UT 100 3 2 2 2 2 2 VA 1 67 6 0 140 1 WA 22 4 1 4 11 4 1 3 WI 0 133 29 300 20 WV 0 14 0 4 WY 50 22 8 7 0 19 7 6 Average 9 7 5 5 10 5 4 4 ADC % 11% 15% 20% 21% 10% 19% 24% 24%States are listed in alphabetical order. States with no ADC reports of predator losses are not shown. Numbers greater than one indicate the number of losses estimated by NASS for each animal reported lost by ADC. Thus, a "100" means that NASS found 100 times as many animals lost as reported by ADC. A "0" means that NASS found fewer than half as many losses as ADC reported. A blank means that either ADC or both reported no losses. Source: ADC 1991 report, table 4a, for cattle and calves and 1990 report, table 4, for sheep and lambs compared with NASS data in tables thirteen and fourteen.
Texas has both the most valuable herds and the most losses. After Texas, however, there is little correlation between herd size and losses. Nebraska, with the second most valuable herds, ranks only 18th in losses, while Kansas, number four in herd value, ranks just 24th in losses.
On the average, farmers lose about $1 worth of livestock to predators for every $1,000 of value in their herds. But farmers and ranchers in Texas, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Montana, Arizona, Wyoming, and Utah lose far more. Meanwhile, farmers in Kansas--with the fourth largest herds--lose only 20cents per thousand dollars of value.
In general, the highest losses are suffered by western states with the largest ADC programs. This could reflect different conditions in those states, requiring an aggressive ADC program to support local livestock industries. But if true, then ADC is effectively supporting a submarginal industry. Ending the ADC livestock program in the West would benefit farmers who can grow livestock without serious predator problems.
An alternative view is that the ADC program has failed, and possibly has even increased predator problems. Comparing figures for Kansas, which does not participate in the federal ADC livestock program, with those for Nebraska or Oklahoma tends to support this view.
In the East, losses do not seem to correlate with the size of the state ADC programs. The largest ADC livestock programs in the East are in Minnesota, Virginia, and Ohio. Virginia ranks third among eastern states in total losses and first in losses as a proportion of herd value. But Minnesota--with the largest eastern ADC program--ranks eighth in total losses and just sixteenth in losses as a proportion of herd value. Ohio is also low in the rankings.
Clearly, ADC discriminates against livestock producers in most eastern states. Its support of submarginal operations in the West reduces livestock prices. Its selective support of eastern states gives a few eastern producers an unfair advantage over the others.
Herd Losses Loss ------ Value of Losses ------ $ Loss State value value rank Cattle Calves Sheep Lambs /$m TX 8243980 12,425 1 1,503 6,248 194 4,480 1.51 NE 3472960 961 18 100 481 122 258 1.20 OK 3302350 3,261 3 902 1,869 216 274 0.99 KS 3233580 639 24 100 294 144 101 1.95 CA 2846800 3,403 2 551 1,148 713 991 3.78 MO 2765920 938 19 251 481 72 134 1.38 IA 2756140 1,540 12 150 427 677 286 2.84 WI 2578290 216 34 107 36 73 1.52 SD 2204920 3,036 6 150 988 626 1,271 4.56 MN 1686520 718 23 50 374 115 179 2.67 CO 1658030 3,231 4 100 774 648 1,708 4.02 MT 1624650 2,466 8 150 481 547 1,288 0.56 KY 1581252 1,135 16 150 881 36 67 0.93 TN 1415417 1,318 13 200 1,095 22 1.20 FL 1215382 457 29 200 240 17 3.60 IL 1184376 874 21 100 481 137 157 0.72 PA 1133316 104 40 50 53 0.97 ND 1128660 893 20 100 374 122 297 0.28 AL 1125082 755 22 150 561 22 22 0.34 VA 1098534 1,316 14 401 427 180 308 0.79 ID 1088540 1,055 17 50 320 259 426 0.74 AR 1053892 583 26 150 374 14 45 0.67 NY 993,286 165 35 53 72 39 0.43 OH 978,340 308 33 27 108 174 0.20 OR 957,880 2,722 7 100 1,202 367 1,053 0.75 GA 891,822 548 27 200 347 0.55 NM 850,276 3,214 5 501 481 720 1,512 0.61 WY 849,270 2,271 10 50 320 410 1,490 0.80 MS 829,372 622 25 150 427 22 22 0.38 WA 826,236 421 31 100 214 29 78 0.61 IN 747,949 456 30 50 134 144 129 0.51 MI 714,984 150 38 50 27 29 45 0.56 LA 646,860 520 28 100 374 29 17 0.32 NC 598,246 337 32 150 187 0.08 UT 553,250 2,224 11 50 267 670 1,238 0.17 AZ 524,360 2,391 9 802 881 288 420 0.45 SC 357,082 160 36 160 0.45 NV 351,908 1,266 15 427 324 515 0.21 WV 338,995 154 37 53 101 0.61 NH/VT 217,205 132 39 50 53 28 0.09 MD 197,412 50 42 50 0.42 HI 126,280 53 41 53 0.25 ME 75,355 22 43 22 0.30 CT 47,380 MA 45,852 NJ 45,214 DE 17,818 RI 5,287 AK 4,978 Total 61191484 59,138 7,916 23,843 8,093 19,286 0.97All dollars are in thousands. States are listed in order of the total value of the cattle and sheep herds and calf and lamb crops. The last column shows the number of dollars farmers lost for every thousand dollars of value of their herds. Source: Tables thirteen and fourteen multiplied by average animal values taken from ADC 1992 reports.
None of these things change the basic question this report has raised about ADC: Just why is the federal government involved in activities that are mostly of private and almost entirely of local concern? This chapter examines this question in four different ways.
First, are programs like ADC are even allowed under the U.S. Constitution? One hundred years ago, the answer given by any court and most politicians would have been "no." Problems with ADC, which parallel those of many other agencies, suggest that the recent broader view of constitutionality may not be a good thing.
Second, is there any economic justification for ADC programs? To answer this, the report examines ADC's own economic arguments for its existence--and finds them wanting.
Third, if ADC is so bad, then why does it continue? Flaws in our political system keep programs like ADC going even when most people would probably oppose them.
Finally, what would happen if the federal ADC program disappeared? Kansas, which does not participate in most of the federal program, provides a revealing look at life without ADC.
The mainstream thinking in America at that time was that the federal government was restricted by the Constitution from engaging in any such local activities. As Henry David Thoreau said, "that government is best which governs least." The best anyone could hope for from their government, Thoreau thought, was to be left alone.
For the most part, people at that time did not consider the Constitution to be an unfair or inappropriate restriction on federal powers. While the exact meaning of the Constitution has always been controversial, Americans for the most part were wary of a powerful or spendthrifty federal government. Indeed, the entire federal budget in 1895 was considerably smaller than APHIS's budget today.
Other than rivers and harbors legislation, the few nineteenth-century bills which Congress passed authorizing federal spending on local problems were vetoed by the president. For example, Franklin Pierce vetoed an 1854 bill to provide federal funding for mental hospitals, and Grover Cleveland vetoed an 1884 bill to provide relief to farmers in drought-stricken Texas.
By the 1890s, however, a significant minority of Americans began to advocate a larger federal role in resource management. Originally this movement was restricted to resources already owned by the federal government. Led by Gifford Pinchot and Teddy Roosevelt, these "Progressives" worried that handing public resources over to the private sector would allow large corporations and monopolies to take control of all the wealth in America. While Roosevelt's administration oversaw the establishment of the Forest Service, Bureau of Reclamation, and a few other agencies, the movement waned after Roosevelt left office.
Progressive ideas resurged during the Great Depression, which was seen by many as the failure of capitalism and the free market. Government planning and control, they argued, represented an alternative that would be more humane and better distribute wealth to the masses.
Although preceding the New Deal by two years, the Animal Damage Control Act of 1931 reflects this new view. As later explained by President Franklin Roosevelt, every farmer has a "right" to "raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living."[11] ADC and other federal supports to agriculture aimed to protect that "right."
It is fortunate for the ADC that no one challenged the 1931 law in court, for at least until 1938 the Supreme Court would undoubtedly have declared it unconstitutional. The "strict constructionist" thinking that dominated the Supreme Court at that time was that the federal government had no authority that was not explicitly granted by the Constitution. Since the Constitution said nothing about wildlife, wildlife management was considered exclusively a state or local prerogative.
The original authors of the 1931 law probably hoped to avoid controversy by giving the Department of Agriculture the authority mainly to do research and demonstration projects, adding actual predator control only as an afterthought. But by the end of Roosevelt's term in office, new appointments to the Supreme Court led to a change in thinking that greatly expanded the idea of what the federal government could do.
This new thinking, sometimes called "loose constructionism," did not go so far as to grant the federal government unlimited authority in all areas not expressly denied by the Constitution. But did broadly interpret such parts of the Constitution as the one granting Congress authority over interstate commerce. Recent court rulings have approved of federal regulatory and spending powers over just about any business activity on the ground that the business may at some point cross a state line.
Unfortunately, advocates of government planning and regulation never consider the incentives their programs create. For example, federal agencies intended to regulate private businesses soon find that they can get bigger budgets by supporting the businesses they were supposed to regulate. While government regulation may be legitimate, the people who benefit from such regulation tend to be diffuse, while those who oppose it tend to be concentrated. Thus it is easy for the concentrated ones to turn an agency around to their point of view.
This is similar to the bitter irony that the constitutional doctrine that today allows the federal government to control wildlife was originally established by environmentalists. Challenges to the Endangered Species Act on constitutional grounds were rejected by the Supreme Court when environmentalists argued that the interstate commerce clause legitimized a federal role in wildlife management. This precedent, in turn, legitimizes ADC.
Yet there is an inherent contradiction in this broad constitutional doctrine. If, in effect, there is no limit to federal powers, then why do we need states at all? What do the ninth and tenth amendments to the Constitution--which guarantee that all rights not specifically reserved to the federal government belong to the states or to individuals--mean if the federal government is all-powerful?
This contradiction is most visible in the federal debt that is now spiraling out of control. Other than their votes for presidents and members of Congress, the public has no say in taxes, federal spending, or federal borrowing. By spending constituents' money on local interests, members of Congress can effectively buy their re-election. Even worse, much of the money spent by Congress is borrowed, which is apparently painless because it costs taxpayers little in the short run but it will sap the strength of the country in the long run.
These problems show that the checks and balances that once protected this country have failed. And a major reason for that failure is the Supreme Court's willingness to approve the constitutionality of almost any federal program.
Yet considering the intent of the Constitution--with appropriate separation of powers between federal, state, and private interests--anyone would have a hard time justifying the ADC program.
Minimum wage laws improve the standard of living for people with the lowest paying jobs. But they also reduce the number of people that an employer can hire, leading to unemployment elsewhere.
Federal housing projects have proven disastrous, the social security system is likely to go bust when the baby boomers retire, and federal education programs have imposed so many red-tape requirements on schools that many would be better off not getting federal money.
One problem here is an erroneous assumption that the federal government can do things that the states can't. True, the federal government has a larger tax base than individual states, but it is no larger than the sum of all the states.
But a more serious problem has to do with Roosevelt's conception of "rights." All of the rights in the Bill of Rights are negative rights--guarantees that the government will not interfere in the affairs of individuals and (in the case of the ninth amendment) states. Thus, we have a right to say what we want, worship where we want, assemble with whomever we want without government interference. Nor can the government deprive us of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Such negative rights are all oriented toward keeping government small and excluding it from our daily lives.
Roosevelt's rights, on the other hand, are all positive rights--guarantees that we will all enjoy a certain standard of living. Government can only make these guarantees by becoming huge and promising to interfere with every aspect of our daily lives--not to mention the lives of every wild animal in the nation.
In fact, government is incapable of following through on these guarantees. It can, for a time, steal from one segment of society--or future generations--and give to another segment or generation. But in the long run these actions will sap the economic vitality of the nation, leaving it vulnerable to recession and economic invasion by foreign businesses.
One possible tactic for Wildlife Damage Review would be to challenge the constitutionality of the ADC program in court. Such a challenge would draw public attention to the inanity of the federal government killing predators in an era when few biologists would support such a program. At the same time, it would be difficult, possibly expensive, and possibly raise the ire of other groups, such as endangered species advocates, who might feel threatened by such a challenge.
ADC documents and conversations with ADC staff reveal that the agency has developed a number of reasons for justifying its existence. The most important argument is that "wildlife is a publicly owned resource held in trust by state and federal agencies. Government agencies have a mandate to provide for the welfare and perpetuation of wildlife and must . . . respond to requests for resolution of damage and other problems caused by wildlife."[13] This is an equity argument: the public that benefits from wildlife should pay the cost of wildlife damage.
The problem with this argument is that, with a few exceptions, most wildlife are wards of state, not federal, agencies. When ADC was created in 1931, this was true for all wildlife. State ADC programs may be justified on these grounds; a federal program might only be justified for species over which the federal government has assumed control, such as wolves or bald eagles.
A second argument for federal involvement is that "Expanding human populations and the resultant competition with wildlife for limited habitat results in human-wildlife conflicts which are national in scope and, directly or indirectly, affect all components of our society."[14] This is an efficiency argument: Since the problems are national in scope, only a national agency can address them.
This argument is simply unpersuasive. Raccoons eating someone's chicken in California or blackbirds eating sunflower seeds in North Dakota are local problems, not national ones. Defending against foreign invasion is a national problem requiring a federal program. Defending sheep herds and corn fields are not.
The history of ADC indicates that Congress did not create the program because wildlife in general were wards of the federal government or because problems were national in scope. Instead ADC was a direct response to wildlife problems on an near federally owned land. This is an equitability problem: If the federal government owns the land harboring pests, it should pay the costs of controlling the pests.
This might warrant a role for the Forest Service or other public land agencies in controlling predators that wander from land in their jurisdiction. It does not justify a completely separate agency with authority to eradicate or control wildlife on any public or private land.
Another argument was raised by ADC staff members: ADC actually protects wildlife, they argue, because ending ADC would lead farmers and ranchers to begin a far more vicious campaign against predators and other pests. This is questionable: Without the resources of the federal Treasury behind them, ranchers by themselves would probably not have eradicated wolves from most of the nation. But even if it is true, it only justifies action at the state, not federal, level.
ADC's most technical economic analysis to date was prepared for its final programmatic environmental impact statement (EIS), covering its entire program. This EIS will not eliminate the need for environmental assessments on national forests or BLM lands, but will provide an umbrella document for those EAs to refer to.
To date ADC has spent close to $3 million and some eight years preparing this programmatic EIS (table one). It published an initial draft EIS in 1990 and a supplemental draft in 1993. It expects to publish the final in the next few months.
The final EIS that is now in the works will contain five alternatives:
CO VA 1. No action $3,490 $8,285 2. Current 3,540 6,995 3. Non-lethal (if successful) 12,040 7,935 3. Non-lethal (if not successful) 10,030 10,715 4. Non-lethal before lethal 9,490 9,235 5. Compensation 7,040 21,800Comparative costs of alternatives for two sample situations: one in the West (Colorad), one in the East (Virginia). Source: Appendix N of internal draft of ADC's final EIS.
The compensation alternative is interesting not because it is a good one but because it is so bad yet so politically attractive. Given enough pressure from environmentalists, Congress is likely to select such an alternative because it makes everyone happy--farmers and ranchers lose nothing whether their livestock or crops are eaten or not, and wildlife lovers don't have to worry about predators and other wildlife being killed.
The compensation alternative's fatal drawback is its enormous cost, which ADC has probably underestimated. When considering such alternatives, government agencies and legislators rarely, if ever, worry about the possibility that compensation would lead people to change their behavior. In this case, it is likely that a federal offer to compensate losses will lead farmers to greatly increase their claims of reported losses. Losses that, today, farmers consider to be just a cost of doing business will suddenly become losses for which farmers will believe they have a "right" to compensation.
ADC does not assume that a compensation program will lead to such an increase in reported losses. But it does assume that any losses must be verified prior to compensation. In the ADC's coyote examples, the costs of verification greatly exceed the actual compensation payments. Thus, the greatest beneficiary is the bureaucracy.
So the compensation alternative, though politically attractive, should be unpalatable to anyone concerned about the health of the economy. Under ADC's estimates, alternatives 3 and 4, which restrict the use of certain methods, are significantly more expensive than the current direction.
Surprisingly, however, ADC's estimates show that the no action alternative is usually no more expensive than the current direction. In the Virginia sheep farm case, the no action alternative is 18 percent more expensive than the current direction. But in five of the eight other cases studied by the ADC, the no action alternative costs no more--and, in the Colorado sheep case, costs less--than the current direction (table eighteen).
No
Action Current
Sheep on Colorado public land $3,490 $3,540
Sheep on Virginia private land 8,285 6,995
Cattle egrets near Texas residential area 1,300 1,300
Cattle egrets near Arkansas airport 79,500 36,200
Beaver in Texas pasture 1,850 1,850
Beaver in Texas forest 500 500
Disease-carrying blackbirds near Kentucky school 12,100 6,400
Starlings near Vermont dairy farm 2,270 1,420
Protecting endangered plover from gulls in NY 77,900 77,900
In these scenarios projected by APHIS economists, the no action alternative
usually costs no more than the current direction. Source: Appendix N of
internal draft of ADC's final EIS.
The major exception is the case of protecting airplanes in an Arkansas airport from cattle egrets. But the main reason why the no action alternative costs so much more than the current direction is that ADC assumed that, without a federal ADC program, the airport would have to pay a consultant $40,000 to tell them how to solve the problem. The remaining difference in costs results from ADC's assumption that it could "loan" the airport materials that otherwise the airport would have to buy.
Similar reasons--consultant costs and purchasing rather than borrowing materials--explain the difference in costs in the Kentucky example. In the Vermont dairy farm example, ADC assumes that it could eliminate 80 percent of forage losses to starlings while the farmer without ADC's help would only be able to eliminate 20 percent of the forage losses.
These assumptions--that the government is smarter and more efficient than private individuals--run counter to most people's experience. In all probability, the overall no action alternative would cost no more, and may cost less, than the current direction. The no action alternative also has the virtue of shifting most of the costs to the people who benefit, rather than having federal taxpayers bear much of the burden.
This can be seen by two major actions taken by Congress toward ADC in the past decade. First, angered by a proposal by a secretary of the interior (who by then was out of office), Congress transferred ADC from the Fish and Wildlife Service to APHIS. This transfer was followed by a boost in ADC's budget.
Second, since the transfer Congress has begun to earmark a growing share of ADC's budget to specific states and problems. Starting at less than $700,000 in 1987, earmarking to specific states or regions grew to more than $4 million by 1992, or better than 10 percent of ADC's budget. Local earmarking has fallen to some $2 million in 1994, but the agency continues to fund activities in states like Montana and Utah at the earmarked levels.
Anyone familiar with Congress would predict that the biggest agriculture subsidies would go to states whose delegations sit on the agriculture subcommittees of the House or Senate appropriations committees. States with powerful members on the House or Senate agriculture committees would also get significant subsidies.
Table nineteen shows that this prediction is correct. All of the local earmarks but one went to states with members on the appropriations or agriculture committees. The largest earmarks went to states with members on the agriculture subcommittees of the appropriations committees. In most cases, the Senate, rather than the House, seems to be the controlling factor.
North Dakota has received the most money of any state--nearly $4 million to date. So it is no surprise to find that that state's senior senator, Quentin Burdick, chairs the Agriculture Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Moreover, the state's junior senator also happens to be on the same subcommittee--an unusual circumstance in Congress but one that allows them to direct all sorts of agriculture subsidies to their state.
Most other state earmarks can also be explained by the presence of senators or representatives from those states on the agriculture subcommittees. Where no one can be found on the agriculture subcommittee, they often can be found playing important roles on the appropriations committees proper. For example, Oregon Senator Mark Hatfield is the senior Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee and probably has much to do with the earmarking directed to the Northwest. Washington Representative Tom Foley's status--currently Speaker of the House and previously a top-ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee--may also play a role.
Changes in committee memberships also explain the timing of the earmarks. For example, Louisiana received no money earmarked just for it until 1994, shortly after its Senator, Bennett Johnston, took a seat on the Agriculture Subcommittee of Senate Appropriations.
These correlations do not prove that the individuals named in the table were directly responsible for the earmarks. Such proof would require a careful reading of tens of thousands of pages of hearing records and might not even be possible then because much appropriations committee work takes place behind closed doors. But the strong correlations here help identify who is likely to oppose major reductions in the ADC program.
Members of the agricultural committees tend to be less environmentally inclined than members of the interior committees. Thus, now that ADC is in the Department of Agriculture, environmentalists will have a harder time cutting the program's budget. In fact, this very thought might have contributed to ADCs move out of Interior.
The immediate political problem today is not where ADC is located but the Western Region report on ADC's effectiveness. This report is probably the first step in a concerted effort by ADC and western livestock ranchers to promote a major boost in ADC's funding. Environmentalists may consider themselves lucky if, at the end of this budget season, they have held ADC's budget to 1994 levels.
The best short-term tactic for groups like Wildlife Damage Review would be to identify members of the agriculture subcommittees of the appropriations committees who are not from the West--even better if they are not from one of the states that receives earmarked ADC funds. Wildlife groups in their states or congressional districts should be contacted and urged to pressure their representatives to reduce funding for predator control.
State or Total Probable Supporter(s) Position of Supporter
Region Years 1000s
Alabama 91-94 $400 Senator Howell Heflin Ag Committee
Arkansas 89-94 1,457 Senator Dale Bumpers Ag Subcommittee of
Appropriations Committee
AZ, CA, NV 87-90 400 Sen. Dennis DeConcini Appropriations Committee
(AZ) See also Nevada
Delta states 88-94 1,875 See Mississippi &
Louisiana
Hawaii 87-94 1680 Representative (later House Ag Subcommittee of
Senator) Daniel Akaka Appropriations Committee
Illinois 94 50 Representative Rich Durbin Ag Subcommittee of
Appropriations Committee
Representative Sidney Appropriations Committee
Yates
Louisiana 1994 450 Senator Bennett Johnston Ag Subcommittee of
Appropriations Committee
Maine 90-94 375
Minnesota 87-94 1,110 Representative Collin Livestock Subcommittee
Peterson Representative of Agriculture Committee
Tim Penny Agriculture Committee
Mississippi 90-94 900 Senator John Stennis Ag Subcommittee of
Appropriations Committee
Representative Jamie Ag Subcommittee of
Whitten Appropriations Committee
Montana 88-92 500 Senator Conrad Burns Appropriations Committee
Senator Max Baucus Agriculture Committee
Representative Pat Agriculture Committee
Williams
Nevada 94 100 Senator Harry Reid Appropriations Committee
Representative Barbara Ag Subcommittee of
Vucanovich Appropriations Committee
New Mexico 94 60 Representative Joe Sheen Ag Subcommittee of
Appropriations Committee
North Dakota 89-94 3,908 Senators Quentin Burdick Ag Subcommittee of
and Mark Andrews Appropriations Committee
Northwest 88-94 1,985 Senator Mark Hatfield Appropriations Committee
Texas 87-89 900 Senator Phil Gramm Ag Subcommittee of
Represenative Kika de la Appropriations Committee
Garza Chair, Agriculture
Committee
Utah 90-92 750 Senator Jacob Garn Appropriations Committee
Vermont 88-92 248 Senator Patrick Leahy Chair, Ag Committee,
Appropriations Committee
Wisconsin 88-94 700 Senator Robert Kasten Ag Subcommittee of
(term ended 1992) Appropriations Committee
Represenative David Obey Ag Subcommittee of
(joined subcomm. 1991) Appropriations Committee
Most
of the local earmarks are probably due to specific members of the House or
Senate appropriations committees. Since many states are not represented on
these committees, this leads to an unfair distribution of funds.
The agent, Robert Henderson, estimates that he spends only 60 percent of his time on animal damage problems. He also estimates that his salary, combined with travel costs and administrative overhead, cost the state less than $100,000 per year. This means that Kansas' ADC budget is, effectively, less than $60,000 per year.
Kansas farmers who suffer from livestock predation can turn to Henderson for training on how to trap or kill predators. Henderson may also suggest trappers that farmers can hire. But Henderson does not trap or kill predators himself.
Instead, Henderson encourages farmers to use practices that reduce the risk of predation. Publications that he distributes point to research done at Kansas State which found that penning sheep at night will largely protect them from coyotes.[15]
Nebraska and Kansas are geographically similar and contain similar numbers of cattle and sheep (table twenty). While Nebraska spends four times as much on its ADC livestock program, and kills far more coyotes, farmers in Kansas report fewer losses to coyotes or other predators.
Kansas Nebraska K % of N ADC livestock budget 60,000 243,000 25% Budget paid by state 60,000 88,000 68% Coyotes killed by ADC 0 2,483 0% Private coyote harvest 1,800 16,316 11% Cattle herd 5,700,000 6,000,000 95% Calf crop 1,330,000 1,680,000 79% Sheep herd 185,000 135,000 137% Lamb crop 145,000 125,000 116% Losses to Predators Cattle losses 200 200 100% Calf losses 1,100 1,800 61% Sheep losses 2,000 1,700 118% Lamb losses 1,800 4,600 39% Losses to Coyotes Cattle losses 100 100 100% Calf losses 800 1,700 47% Sheep losses to coyotes 1,300 1,500 87% Lamb losses 1,300 4,200 31% Losses to Predators as Share of Herd or Crop Cattle losses 0.004% 0.003% 105% Calf losses 0.083% 0.107% 77% Sheep losses 1.081% 1.259% 86% Lamb losses 1.241% 3.680% 34% Losses to Coyotes as Share of Herd or Crop Cattle losses 0.002% 0.002% 105% Calf losses 0.060% 0.101% 59% Sheep losses to coyotes 0.703% 1.111% 63% Lamb losses 0.897% 3.360% 27%
Kansas has slightly fewer cattle than Nebraska, yet it reports only about two-thirds as many calf losses. With more sheep than Nebraska, Kansas has far fewer lamb losses. The difference in sheep losses to coyotes is even more dramatic: Despite its larger herds, Kansas suffers 13 percent fewer adult losses and nearly 70 percent fewer lamb losses than Nebraska.
Only among adult cattle do the figures show a higher proportion of herd loss to predators in Kansas than Nebraska. But this is probably a result of the way NASS reported its data: all numbers were rounded to the nearest hundred--"200" could be anywhere from 151 to 249. If Kansas' cattle losses to predation were only 180, while Nebraska's losses were 220, then Kansas adult cattle losses, as a proportion of Nebraska's, would be similar to the adult sheep numbers.
Kansas appears even better when compared with its neighbor to the south, Oklahoma. Oklahoma's herds are even closer in size to Kansas' then those of Nebraska. Oklahoma's ADC program is more than twice as large as Nebraska's and nearly ten times as large as Kansas'. Yet Oklahoma farmers suffer nearly five times as much predation as in Kansas.
Kansas is a model of what ADC might look like in many states without the federal program. If the federal program did not exist, then some states such as Texas would probably still have a major ADC program. But many other states may fund ADC only to get federal matching dollars. Without such matching dollars, western livestock growers in many states would have to fund predator control out of their own pockets.
This might lead some to use the least costly methods available to kill coyotes, such as poisons, which might be less environmentally desirable. But others would use alternative practices, such as guard dogs or penning, to reduce the risk of predation. Still others would reduce their herd sizes in response to increased costs, thus reducing the effects of grazing on the land. The net effect would be an improvement for the land, for wildlife, and even for many farmers and ranchers.
Fully 40 percent of ADC's budget is directed toward protecting livestock from predators on public lands. Only about 27,000 ranchers have permits to graze livestock on public land. This means that each of those ranchers effectively receive a subsidy from ADC of over $550 per year.
Virtually all of the people who benefit from ADC could do ADC's work themselves. If they had to do so, many would probably use alternate methods, such as spending more efforts protecting their livestock and less indiscriminately killing predators.
The distribution of ADC's programs are inherently unfair. Congressional earmarks favor certain states over others--namely those that have members on the appropriations committees. The livestock program focuses on western states to the near-exclusion of eastern farmers. These inequities are a natural consequence of the pork barrel process and cannot be remedied by, for example, increasing ADC's budget to cover more farmers.
Beyond the waste of money and inequities of the program, this report has shown that the ADC program creates numerous perverse incentives. These include:
The U.S. government is supposed to be built on checks and balances, but these incentives fail to balance one another. Instead, the various incentives faced by ranchers, ADC officials, and members of Congress lead them to continue dedicating federal funds to what is essentially a private, or at most, a state concern. All three of these groups essentially view the Treasury as an open access resource, meaning that each has an incentive to get as much funding as possible for the ADC program regardless of the consequences for the rest of the government.
Second, the existence of ADC creates perverse incentives for farmers, USDA officials, and members of Congress to mismanage public resources--both public funds and publicly owned wildlife. These misincentives cannot be fixed by tinkering with ADC's budget. They will end only when the ADC program itself is ended.
2. Jack Olsen, Slaughter the Animals, Poison the Earth (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1971), 287 pp.
3. Dayton Hyde, Don Coyote--The Good Times and Bad Times of a Much Maligned American Original (New York, NY: Arbor House, 1986), 245 pp.
4. Animal Damage Control Western Region Program Evaluation Panel, An Evaluation of the Effectiveness of the USDA, APHIS Animal Damage Control Program in Protecting Livestock (Washington, DC: ADC, 1993), p. 4.
5. Robert Robel, et al., "Relationships between Husbandry Methods and Sheep Losses to Canine Predators," Journal of Wildlife Management 45(4):894-911.
6. William James Haga and Nicholas Acocella, Haga's Law (New York, NY: William Morrow, 1980), 191 pp.
7. National Agricultural Statistics Service, Cattle and Calves Death Loss (Washington, DC: USDA, 1992), 23 pp.
8. National Agricultural Statistics Service, Sheep and Goat Predator Loss (Washington, DC: USDA, 1991), 12 pp.
9. National Agricultural Statistics Service, Agricultural Statistics 1992 (Washington, DC: USDA, 1992), 524 pp.
10. Ted Williams, "Beyond Traps and Poisons: Can the Agency Charged with Regulating Nuisance Animals Clean Up Its Act?" Audubon, March-April, 1994, pp. 28-34.
11. Edward Corwin, Liberty Against Government (Baton Rouge, LA: LSU Press, 1948), p. 4n.
12. Ibid.
13. USDA, ADC Supplement to the DEIS, p. 3.
14. Ibid, p. 7.
15. Robert Henderson, Managing Predator Problems (Manhattan, KS: KSU Extension, 1980), 19 pp.