“Let's say I own a gun shop, and I want to drum up business, right? I can host a coyote killing contest, which they'll call predator hunting, where cash prizes of let's say $1000 goes to whomever kills the most coyotes in a 24 hour period. You might have 500 people show up from my state and out of state, and through any means necessary thermal scopes at night, any technology, electronic game calls to lure them in, hunting over bait... The competitive killing of coyotes happens for cash prizes all over the United States, today.” – C.J. Dirago
The most persecuted carnivore in North America is the coyote, their poisoned, they're trapped, their aerial gunned, and killed for bounties and contests constantly. Over half a million coyotes are slaughtered in the U.S. every year.
I'm a little embarrassed to say that I really haven't thought about coyotes all that much. They just haven't really come into my radar until recently, when I met C.J. Dirago.
C.J. knows a ton about coyotes and is doing everything he can to protect them and give them a better rap. He's the founder of Bombazine, an organization seeking to protect wildlife and habitat in reciprocity with nature. Their inaugural project is called Song Dogs. It's an NFT collection of trail camera photography, with all proceeds funding coyote conservation.