When is a wildlife refuge not a refuge for wildlife? When its caretakers allow, even hire, people to kill animals within its territory. The latest example occurred at the Monomoy Wildlife Refuge in Massachusetts, where for the fourth straight year the federal government has hired a sharpshooter to kill coyotes.
In April 2002, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the agency that oversees National Wildlife Refuges, commissioned a Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services sharpshooter to kill a litter of ten pups on South Monomoy Island, one of two islands that make up the wildlife refuge located at the "elbow" of Cape Cod. Six pups were killed on the spot, and the other four were held at Monomoy headquarters for a researcher who had told refuge managers that he wanted to do a behavioral study of the young animals. One died while in captivity, and the remaining three were shot when officials discovered the researcher no longer wanted the pups.
The parents were seen near the den and although they eluded the sharpshooter, they may now be shot on sight by refuge employees. The shootings are part of FWS's six-year "avian diversity" project at Monomoy, in which officials protect the refuge's endangered and threatened sea birds by killing potential predators. The project began in 1996 when FWS poisoned more than 5,000 black-backed and herring gulls, which tend to drive away other nesting birds.
The Monomoy Wildlife Refuge hosts one of the largest populations of common and least terns on the Atlantic seaboard. Some 7,800 tern nests were counted last year on South Monomoy Island, up from 641 in 1997. While neither one of those species is considered endangered, they do share their nesting areas with the roseate tern, an endangered species. The piping plover, a threatened species, also nests on South Monomoy.
In choosing to kill the predators of these sea birds, the FWS is essentially dismissing alternatives to lethal control, not to mention research that indicates such deadly methods produce only temporary boosts to ground-nesting bird populations. The fact is, the decline in both the roseate tern and the piping plover populations is due mostly to habitat loss, not predators.
Yet, the FWS continues to scapegoat coyotes rather than tackle the much larger, more complex issue. Every year for the past four years now, refuge officials wait until a pair of coyotes produces a litter of pups. Then they send in the sharpshooter to kill the pups as well as the parents and any other adults in the area. Officials believe this is the only way to ensure that no other reproductive coyotes will establish a territory on the island in the current season.
The HSUS has offered to help pay for fencing to protect the terns and plover from coyotes and other predators. The HSUS has even offered volunteers to erect and maintain the exclusion fencing. However, the FWS has repeatedly rejected our assistance, claiming the cost would still be prohibitive.
The government's refusal to consider a humane, nonlethal, long-term solution has inspired local outrage. Several past and current public officials have spoken out against these practices, while activists in Chatham, Massachusetts, and scientists have argued that a refuge should provide sanctuary for all wildlife as well as a naturally functioning ecosystem that includes both predators and prey.
