When the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission arranged for North Carolina’s hunters to legally take (kill) coyotes by using spotlights and hunt them literally night and day with no restrictions, it seemed like a good idea. Our state had entirely too many coyotes and our deer and small game animals were taking losses due to the coyotes’ predatory nature. Our hunters and outdoorsmen were rejoicing in the new coyote hunting regulations.

Unfortunately, just a few weeks after the new coyote laws took effect, someone shot and killed several of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s (USFWS) red wolves. Environmental groups such as the Red Wolf Coalition, the Defenders of Wildlife and others decided the new coyote law was to blame. They then employed the Southern Environmental Law Firm to sue the entire NCWRC for allowing the hunters to hunt coyotes at night.

The result of the suit was Judge Terrence Boyle enforcing a temporary injunction against the killing of all coyotes at any time in Beaufort, Hyde, Dare, Tyrell and Hyde counties. This action literally placed the unwanted coyote on the same legal footing as the endangered red wolves in the five county core area that the feds had selected as the red wolf recovery area. It was now illegal to kill or hurt both the coyotes and red wolves in the five counties.

The NCWRC, many of North Carolina’s hunters and a lot of landowners were unhappy about Judge Boyle’s temporary injunction. Those same people likely have a problem with a recent study by Duke University that details exactly how corridors should be created to allow the red wolves to migrate westward across North Carolina and be allowed to reproduce in much larger areas of our state. These corridors could include a good amount of privately owned land, as well as lands owned by the NCWRC and the hunters and fishermen of North Carolina.

If these proposals are approved and implemented, the land involved in the establishing of the travel routes could be declared “critical habitat” for the red wolves and, under the rules of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), severe restrictions could be implemented on any type of activity that could adversely affect any endangered species on these lands. The restrictions could result in a federally mandated total ban on any type of hunting in the U.S. Government’s designated critical habitat area for red wolves.

Before any land is declared by the federal government to be “critical habitat,” studies must be carried out to determine if the land under consideration is cost effective for the taxpayers of our state.

In other words, would the well being of the red wolves be more economically important to the citizens of our state who pay the taxes or would the private ownership of the land be more economically important to North Carolinians?

When the federal government lists a species as threatened or endangered under the ESA, it is required also to designate critical habitat “to the maximum extent prudent and determinable.” Critical habitat can include areas occupied by the listed species, as well as areas outside the geographical area it occupies if these areas are considered “essential for the conservation of the species”.

Increasingly, the federal government’s critical habitat designations are including private property and watersheds, even in instances where no species have been observed in those areas for years or at all.  For example, in April 2013, the USFWS proposed to list the Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frog as endangered and proposed to designate over 2.1 million acres as critical habitat for the frog, including over 82,000 acres of private property. In 2012, the FWS finalized a revised critical habitat for the northern spotted owl of more than 9 million acres in Washington, Oregon and California — nearly double the 5.3 million acres the USFWS designated in 2008.

To a lot of North Carolinians, the relatively new idea of the Feds allowing the red wolves to migrate and expand their range westward through not only our state, but parts of Virginia as well is very distasteful. Tar Heel outdoorsmen that I’ve talked with are very upset and are wondering what they can do to stop this possible federal land.

A public meeting has been scheduled by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission to address a lot of the current red wolf issues in our state and you may be assured that the Duke University study will be covered in detail. This meeting is scheduled for 7:00 pm on Thursday, June 19, 2014 and will be held at the Columbia, N.C. High School Auditorium at 902 E. Main Street in Columbia.