DON MINNICH : Thank you Bart. I thank you for this opportunity 



to be here and participate today. As I see it, my role is not to 

 interject anything about my own personal philosophy regarding this 

 subject or to really get into predator-prey relationships, but simply to 

 present the Fish and Wildlife Service's policy and official position 

 regarding animal damage control so I'll restrict my comments to that. 

 For any of you who might be prone to take notes, you don't need to. 

 I have some extra copies of my comments, so that frees you up from 

 that. 



Animal damage control is a complex matter. There are many points 

 of view among the American people. Traditionally, that has been one of 

 America's greatest strengths, that is the freedom to have varied views 

 and to express them. On the one hand we may have people who hold 

 that offending animals should be eradicated, and I mean completely, as 

 a species. From the other extreme we get the charge that if your 

 mission is to conserve wildlife, you shouldn't kill a single creature. 

 Obviously, and fortunately for both wildlife and livestock, the vast 

 majority of Americans hold to a view that falls somewhere between these 

 two positions. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is in the animal 

 damage control business for the same reason that we're into habitat 

 protection, refuge management, fish hatcheries, research and a whole 

 raft of other assignments. Congress has simply said to us, "Look, this 

 is something that you are going to do." And so we're obeying the law, 

 we're doing it. On March 2, 1931, Congress passed legislation the 

 establishment of an Animal Damage Control Program. And in July of 

 1939 conduct of the program was assigned to the Bureau of Biological 

 Survey which was a forerunner of the contemporary Fish and Wildlife 

 Service. In the same act. Congress authrorized expenditures of federal 

 funds for a ten-year period, not to exceed $1 million dollars each fiscal 

 year. Times have changed since then. In fiscal year 1980, the one 

 we're now in, the national budget for animal damage control was 

 approximately $18 million. This same figure has been requested for 

 fiscal year '81, but with an additional $1 million for research, in the 

 Service Director's words, "To get at the fundamental problems causing 

 livestock and sheep losses." 



Now, before anyone chuckles, let me say that, like you, we know 

 that coyotes kill sheep. And like Bart O'Gara and Mr. Joe Helle, who 

 is a rancher in Montana, we know that golden eagles will occasionally 

 take lambs. What is not known by anybody, so far as I know, is why 

 one coyote will kill sheep and another won't under similar 

 circumstances. And I don't think anyone knows how the losses to 

 predation can safely be stopped with the resources currently available. 

 Probably the losses will never be completely stopped, so for now we 

 have to keep to reasonable goals. In other words, how much can be 

 stopped with the resources available. We have reduced predation a lot, 

 over the years, in cooperation with the states and with private citizens. 

 It has not, however, prevented annual reoccurrence. Nor, to my 

 knowledge, have our measures ever stopped losses over a wide area. 



The predator-prey relationship always will be with us. The strong 

 takes the weak. A lamb is a vulnerable creature and when unguarded. 



