DNR wants to save coyotes from being sold as live bait
Trappers catching coyotes during the off season may no longer be able to keep the animals alive and sell them to out-of-state hunting-dog trainers.
IN INDIANA
Coyotes (Canis latrans) are native to Indiana soil, but were considered rare or uncommon in Indiana until the early 1970s. Today, coyotes are found throughout Indiana.
LIVE-BAIT HEARING
The legislative Natural Resources Study Committee will next take up the issue at its Oct. 30 meeting. The Department of Natural Resources also will hold public meetings to discuss the proposed amendment. Dates for those meetings have not been set, although they should take place early next year.
Trainers use them as live bait for hunting practice, the Department of Natural Resources said. Animal-rights activists claim using a live, wild animal for bait is cruel, while trappers say the captive coyotes are well-treated.
Because of an ambiguous state rule, trappers who catch a live coyote out of season "think they can do anything with it," said Phil Bloom, spokesman for the Department of Natural Resources.
In "live bait" training, dogs track a wild animal that has been released in an enclosure. While some say trainers keep the wild animal from being caught, activists say the dogs often catch and kill the "bait," which includes raccoons, rabbits and coyotes.
Under a rule change preliminarily approved last month by the Natural Resources Commission, coyotes caught outside the normal trapping season must be euthanized within 24 hours.
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