Why is the federal government still killing coyotes?

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

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Summary

The federal government spends millions of dollars each year on wildlife damage management, a program that includes killing thousands of coyotes. Yet this program may actually have the opposite effect on the coyote's population. Today on the show, why the government keeps spending money on a problem it can't fix.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:02.0	This is the indicator from Planet Money.
0:14.2	I'm Daryan Woods, and I'm here with Kate Dario, producer for the public radio podcast Outside In.
0:20.0	Hey, Kate.
0:20.6	Hey, Daryan.
0:21.2	It is great to have you. You've been reporting on one wildlife program that has been
0:26.0	quite controversial over the years.
0:28.3	Yes, the U.S. Department of Agriculture oversees a budget of millions for what it calls
0:33.2	wildlife damage management.
0:35.4	Is that some kind of euphemism?
0:37.5	Well, some environmental groups would say so.
0:39.9	Part of this program includes the killing of coyotes every year.
0:43.6	They do this with rifles, cyanide, and even aerial gunning.
0:47.7	It's tough to say exactly how much is spent killing coyotes.
0:51.1	The agency doesn't readily release those numbers.
0:53.6	But news outlets and
0:55.1	nonprofits have estimated that it costs anywhere from $200 to $600 per coyote. Doing some back-of-the-en-envalope
1:02.5	math, being conservative, that means it costs taxpayers close to $17 million to kill coyotes
1:09.1	every year. Yeah, but here's the thing. That program may actually
1:13.6	be increasing the number of coyotes overall. So today on the indicator, why is the government
1:19.3	spending millions of dollars on a program that is exacerbating a perceived problem? And could
1:24.9	that money be better spent?
	...

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