AWI Continues Campaign to Reform Wildlife Services Program

In 2019, Wildlife Services killed 2.2 million animals, including 1.2 million native wildlife species, according to data released in October 2020. AWI is co-leading a coalition of organizations working to ensure that this US Department of Agriculture program fulfills its legal duty under the National Environmental Policy Act to fully consider the environmental impact of its wildlife damage management programs. Recently, through submitting comments to the USDA and testifying at public hearings on the program’s operations in California and Wyoming, we once again argued against the use of cruel methods of lethal management, including strangling snares, leghold traps, body-crushing traps, killing pups in their den, and aerial gunning, and we encouraged Wildlife Services to consider nonlethal alternatives to managing human–wildlife conflict. 

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