PREDATORY ANIMALS. 211 



worth of sheep are destroyed annually by preda- 

 tory animals, in the west alone. Some years ago, 

 when California offered a bounty of five dollars 

 per coyote, over 70,000 were killed in one year, 

 and to keep from being bankrupted, the state re- 

 pealed the law. Last year, in less than nine 

 months, nearly 15,000 coyotes were killed in Idaho 

 and presented for bounty and the appropria- 

 tion exhausted. Because these campaigns against 

 predatory animals have been only sporadic they 

 have allowed them to increase enormously during 

 the past few years and become a serious menace 

 to the live stock industry. If every state would 

 offer a uniform bounty for the next ten years, 

 these marauders would soon become practically 

 exterminated. 



The chief predatory animals are the coyote, 

 lynx, wild cat, cougar and wolf. The bear is 

 classed as a sheep killer but is grouped in bad 

 company, and prairie dogs are a nuisance in 

 destroying the grass on the range where they 

 abound. The coyote does as much damage as all 

 the others combined, the wolf does not care much 

 for mutton but is especially annoying to cattle- 

 men. It is a common estimate in the west that 

 a coyote destroys $100 worth of property a year, 

 and a wolf $1,000. The mountain lion or cougar 

 is the particular enemy of deer, one cougar kill- 

 ing, on the average, fifty of these beautiful, timid 

 animals a year. Only one bear, perhaps, out of 

 a hundred turns "meat eater " and harms the 

 stockman. 



