We are facing a serious problem here in Colorado Springs regarding the trapping of Coyotes at the Colorado Springs Airport. As citizens of Colorado we had voted for and passed an Amendment (Amendment 14) against the use of traps, poisons, and other forms of inhuman acts to kill animals. The Colorado Springs Airport had filed for and with a little muscle from the FAA received a permit to trap coyotes regardless of the Amendment we as citizens worked so hard to pass. We have tried to work with the airport and offer other non lethal options.

These have been ignored by the airport, as they don't consider what they are doing to be wrong. Gary Green himself said "We are doing this in the most humane way possible, and will continue with this program until it is effective." I did not realize that leg traps were a humane way to kill a living breathing creature. We are asking for your help. Can you please send an Alert out to you members asking them to contact the airport, government, etc. and let them know how they feel. Could you also place these alerts on your web site so others can know about this issue, and lastly we are asking for a boycott of the Colorado Springs Airport.

Gary Green stated that he has received tons of email regarding this issue, but for some reason he does not seem to think that he will lose enough business to matter. Just as a heads up Gary is responding with a pre-wrtten email to try to explain his actions. I have included an alert we have been sending out, you may use it or modify it as needed.

Thanks in Advance,
Tommy Butcher

Please pass this on to your members.

ACTION ALERT: COLORADO SPRINGS AIRPORT IS LEG-HOLD TRAPPING COYOTES. THREE COYOTES HAVE ALREADY BEEN KILLED!

The Colorado Springs (CS) Airport has begun leg-hold trapping for 10 coyotes. The CS Airport utilized a public safety loophole in the state ban on traps, poisons, and snares to obtain a permit for this cruel trapping program. In addition to the threat posed to coyotes by the traps, it is estimated that two non-target animals may be caught for every target animal caught in a trap.

In the case of leghold traps, injury may be a fate worse than death. Traps cause:

The struggling, thrashing, twisting and dislocating of limbs;

Tissue, ligament, tendon, and bone damage from the trap itself;

Possibility of infection and even gangrene;

Broken teeth from chewing at the trap;

Thirst, dehydration, and starvation;

Exhaustion from struggling;

The possibility of them chewing off a foot;

In the summer, heat exhaustion and in the winter, freezing;

The trapped animal's tongue may freeze to the trap from licking her wounds;

The trap may not slam on a limb, but may slam on the animal's head. The animal may still be alive, but held by a leghold trap that is crushing her skull;

Small animals caught in traps may be crushed in half, and struggle while being crushed and bleeding internally;

Animals suffer the terror of the trap, and of not being able to escape a predator or harsh weather;

It takes a very short time for an animal to suffer irreparable damage in a trap while it takes a very long time to die in a trap;

Animals have been left in traps for days and sometimes weeks, and are sometimes forgotten altogether;

A coyote injured but not killed by a trap may die anyway, as only the fittest survive in the wild;

Pups of trapped coyotes may die if not old enough to take care of themselves.

The CS Airport has been granted an unjustified permit to trap coyotes due to strong-arm tactics and pressure on the health department by the Federal Aviation Administration and the US Department of Agriculture's "Wildlife Services" (better known as Animal Damage Control). The CS airport has definitely NOT established a genuine safety issue and concern.

While the coyote is considered "a hazardous wildlife species" that is not to be tolerated in the airport operating area, there has never been an instance of anyone being injured as a result of an airstrike with a coyote anywhere in the United States. The push to kill coyotes at the CS Airport rests on the premise that killing the coyotes will prevent an incident from ever happening. Such thinking is a recipe for disaster for wildlife and characteristic of historic killing campaigns in the US that eliminated the grizzly bear and grey wolf from much of their range.

Ironically, killing coyotes may actually increase coyote populations at the CS Airport. Surviving coyotes tend to have bigger litters, and more adult coyotes reproduce, as coyote pack structures and territorial boundaries disintegrate. This means the CS Airport killing program will likely not work, and will mean continued, unjustified killing for a problem that does not even exist.

Yet, there are alternatives to lethal control of the coyotes at the CS Airport. Several Colorado wildlife advocacy organizations and specialists have proposed alternatives to the abhorrent trapping and killing, including: Gayle Hoenig (wildlife rehabilitator specializing in coyotes), Sinapu (Colorado predator defense group), Marc Bekoff (professor and ecognized coyote authority at the University of Colorado in Boulder) and Jack Murphy Urban Wildlife Rescue (Denver, CO). Rurthermore, it would take only a couple of weeks to establish coyote-proof fencing along the perimeter of the airport, for a permanent and effective solution.

Many Colorado citizens fought hard to pass Amendment 14, and the majority of us voted for it. Undermining the law through exploiting loopholes in an unethical manner is not to be tolerated. If the CS airport is allowed to get away with this cruel trapping program, a precedent will be set for airports throughout Colorado to implement cruel and unreasonable means of iradicating unwanted wildlife, against citizens' wishes.

What you can do: please contact the following individuals, and urge them to support humane and non-lethal controls for coyotes at the Colorado Springs Airport.

Gary Green, Director, CS Airport
7770 Drennan Road
Colorado Springs, CO 80916
Telephone: 719-550-1910
@ci. colospgs.co.us">GGreen @ci. colospgs.co.us

Dave Nickerson
@ci. colospgs.co.us">DNickerson @ci. colospgs.co.us

Craig Coolahan, Wildlife Services
US Department of Agriculture
2nd Floor, Suite 210
12345 W. Alameda Pkwy
Lakewood, CO 80228
Telephone: 303-969-5775
Fax: 303-969-5798

Governor Bill Owens
State Capitol, Room 136
Denver, CO 80203
@capitol. state.co.us">governorowens @capitol. state.co.us

US Department of Transportation
Federal Aviation Administration
Office of Airport Safety and Standards
Ed Cleary, FAA Staff Wildlife Biologist
800 Independence Ave., SW
Washington, DC 20591

Dan Bowlds
Chief, Environmental Health Service
El Paso County Department of Health and Environment
301 South Union Blvd.
Colorado Springs, CO 80910-3123
Telephone: 719-578-3129
Fax: 719-578-3192