Birth control could replace bullets in race to reduce growing threat
To many farmers, the only good coyote is a dead coyote. Thousands of the dog-like animals are shot and killed each year to prevent attacks on livestock, wildlife and people. Now, as the coyote population expands to include urban areas, a humane alternative may be on the horizon.
Based on observations that coyotes without puppies are less likely to attack livestock, scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) are working to produce new fragrances to bait and trick the elusive animals into consuming birth control drugs. Fewer pups means fewer attacks, which should result in fewer coyote shootings, the scientists say. The findings are reported in the May issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a peer-reviewed publication of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.
At present, there is no reliable coyote contraceptive. However, USDA researchers are testing potential candidate drugs.
Fragrances, or chemical attractants, are nothing new to coyote management. They have been used for years to lure coyotes into traps to reduce attacks on livestock. To take advantage of the coyote's keen sense of smell, these fragrances have often been creative mixtures of blood, urine and other fluids from a variety of animal sources. Because of this variability, the effectiveness of these fragrances has been unpredictable, researchers say.
"Coyote management requires specialized attractants for the targeted delivery of drugs and vaccines and for the effective operation of traps," says Bruce A. Kimball, Ph.D., principal investigator of the study and a chemist with the USDA's National Wildlife Research Center in Fort Collins, Colo. "Attractants must provoke behavior that will make them respond appropriately."
In an effort to develop simpler and more reliable fragrances to optimize effectiveness, Kimball selected 33 complex
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Contact: Beverly Hassell
b_hassell@acs.org
202-872-4065
American Chemical Society
1-May-2000