Scientific group critical of USDA's lethal wildlife control

The USDA's practice of lethally removing wildlife from the landscape is counterproductive, favors certain game animals and fails to serve any long-term goals, the American Society of Mammalogists says in a letter to the agency. The ASM, a scientific organization with 3,000 members from 50 states and 60 countries, is asking the USDA's Wildlife Services division to move away from the practice of lethal removal — killing — and focus instead on building public education to reduce the need for exterminating wildlife. The group of biologists and educators is asking the USDA to reduce funding for its lethal control efforts and to reshape a program that, it says, has changed little from the days when the Bureau of Biological Survey waged a war against wolves and prairie dogs a century ago...more