Question of the Month
June
2003
How many Midwestern
states offer bounties for certain animals? Which animals are included?
According to the Animal Protection
Institute, five states in the region authorize the payment of bounties
— Michigan, Minnesota, North
Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
This year, the Indiana General Assembly considered a
proposal to put a $5 bounty on coyotes, but the legislation did not
pass.
Arkansas offers the nation’s highest
reward specified in state law, $15 for adult wolves, while the lowest
is in Michigan, 10 cents for rats and between 2 and 10 cents for
certain birds. Many states simply authorize counties or municipalities
to offer bounties for certain animals, leaving it to the local
governments to set the amount of the reward. Minnesota allows bounties
to be paid for certain gophers, ground squirrels and woodchucks; North
Dakota authorizes rewards for gophers, rabbits and crows; and
Wisconsin permits bounties to be paid for certain gophers, rats,
moles, red or gray foxes, wildcats and weasels. In the Midwest, only
Michigan and South Dakota specify the amount of the bounty to be paid
in state legislation. South Dakota offers a $5 bounty for coyotes.
That state’s legislation was last updated in 1998, but Michigan has
not changed its bounty law in more than 60 years.
Bounties were traditionally a method to
encourage people to hunt certain animals that went after herds or
crops, directly attacking the livelihood of farmers. Indiana lawmakers
considered instituting a bounty on coyotes (counties would have paid a
$5 bounty using money from a dog tax) due to concerns about their
effects on domestic animals and the population of wild game in certain
areas of the state.
The Animal Protection Institute opposes
lethal control of animals. Since animal populations are often
naturally controlled by the food supply and habitat available to them,
lethal control, or even relocation, may actually cause an increase in
the population of the remaining animals because they have fewer
competitors, the institute believes. Lethal control also can disperse
animals that traditionally live in packs, a social arrangement in
which reproduction is limited to the pack’s leaders.
For a state-by-state listing of
bounties, including statute citations, visit the Animal Protection
Institute’s Web site at: www.api4animals.org/doc.asp?ID=1260.
For
more information on this or any other public policy issue, please call
630-925-1922 or complete the online
form for research services.
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