Update: This bill failed to pass.
Bill Description: If passed, this bill would provide a tax credit for livestock killed by wildlife predators. The department of game and fish would need to certify that the livestock were kiled by a predator in order to qualify for the tax credit.
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Other programs employed in an attempt to address actual and perceived livestock losses from predators are expensive and ineffective. For example, the USDA spends millions of dollars annually on aerial gunning, steel-jaw leghold traps, strangulation neck snares, and poisons to kill predators. Aerial gunning is inherently dangerous as well as the tremendously costly. The dangerous mix of flying at low altitude and low speed has resulted in at least 19 crashes, causing 7 fatalities and 26 injuries. Despite 70 years of federally subsidized predator killing, livestock losses have not declined. The National Agricultural Statistics Service found that predators only caused 2.7% of cattle and calf deaths. Other causes of death were far greater: respiratory problems (27.5%), digestive problems (19.7%), unknown causes (15.2%), birthing (14.8%), weather (9.5%), other (9.1%), poison (1.1%), and theft (0.4%). Yet millions of dollars of taxpayer money are wasted each year to kill predators. According to federal governmental figures, the total number of sheep killed by predators represents only 3.9% of the total number of sheep in America. Lethal control of predators may actually be counterproductive in the long term since these programs do not target animals identified as livestock killers. Instead, entire family packs and local populations may be wiped out, often as a “preventive” measure before lambing season. Such indiscriminate killing can result in “compensatory reproduction,” where remaining the wild animals increase litter sizes in response to increased food and habitat availability. It is time to try more effective and less expensive solutions, especially non-lethal alternatives. And S 616 provides such an alternative.