It always offends me a tad when I read how deer hunters prioritize the value of wild animals. Lately, it seems the coyote is at the bottom of the list, and I constantly hear their hue and cry, “Kill ’em all.”

As a lifelong sportsman and advocate of hunting, that is nonsense. Coyotes, like all of the other predators, fit into the ecosystem. Yes, they eat deer. It is necessary for them to eat deer in order to survive and to perpetuate their species.

Would these same deer hunters think we ought to kill off the foxes because they dare eat the rabbits we hunt? And how about the owls, hawks and other birds of prey that eat other wilderness creatures like the ducks we love to shoot and kill?

When I was a young hunter, the abominable creature in the minds of the killing community was the bobcat because it too dared to kill a deer. And yes, even our Inland Fisheries and Wildlife “experts” supported the idea of the bounties but They have now come full circle and know this too was wrong.

It’s time that hunters educated themselves and severed their love affair with trophies and horns. It’s time that hunters learned that coyotes are doing only what coyotes are supposed to do.

Learn to respect coyotes and treat them with the equanimity they deserve.

They do not kill just to adorn their dens with the horns of a deer like the bragging trophy hunters.

Bill Randall, Winthrop

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