Here's one a few of you may be interested in; some philosophical thoughts about predators. A few posts I've read here have made me think of this. In my line of work, I consult with quite a few landowners and hunters on wildlife management issues. It seems that most think that deer are better than coyotes and therefore, have more of a right to live. Many make a point of killing every predator they see.My personal opinion asa conservationist is Ican see the place for all wildlife. Don't get me wrong, I've shot a few 'yotes and can see the necessity for control on some occassions... but not eliminated. What does everybody here think about this? I guess it doesn't specifically relate to bowhunting, but to deer hunting in general.

In the post below, I am including an excerpt from a book written in the 1930's that discusses this idea. I apologize in advance for the length. It is not necessary to read it for this post, but I thought some may enjoy it and that it may spark further discussion.

Here's the excerpt I talked about. This was taken from A Sand County Almanac written by Aldo Leopold in the 1940's. He, by the way, wrote the first textbook on game management. Again, I apologize for the length, but think it is relevant. If you don't read the essay, please still contribute to this discussion.

Barring love and war, few enterprises are undertaken with such abandon, or by such diverse individuals, or with so paradoxical a mixture of appetite and altruism, as that group of avocations known as outdoor recreation….
Public policies for outdoor recreation are controversial. Equally conscientious citizens hold opposite views on what it is, and what should be done to conserve its resource-base… The game farmer kills hawks and the birdlover protects them, in the name of shotgun and field-glass hunting respectively. Such factions commonly label each other with short and ugly names, when in fact, each is considering a different component of the recreational process…
We begin with the simplest and most obvious: the physical objects which the outdoorsman may seek, find, capture, and carry away. In this category are wild crops such as game and fish, and the symbols or tokens of achievements such as heads, hides, photographs, and specimens.
All these things rest upon the idea of trophy. The pleasure they give is, or should be, in the seeking as well as in the getting. The trophy… is a certificate. It attests that its owner has been somewhere and done something—that he has exercised skill, persistence, or discrimination in the age-old feat of overcoming, outwitting, or reducing-to-possession. These connotations which attach to the trophy usually far exceed its physical value.
But trophies differ in their reactions to mass-pursuit. The yield of game and fish can, by means of propagation or management, be increased so as to give each hunter more, or to give more hunters, the same amount… Intensive management lowers the unit value of the trophy by artificializing it.
Consider, for example, a trout, raised in a hatchery and newly liberated in an over-fished stream. The stream is no longer capable of natural trout production. No one would claim that this trout has the same value as a wholly wild one caught out of some unmanaged stream… It’s esthetic connotations are inferior, even though its capture may require skill.
To safeguard this expensive, artificial, and more or less helpless trout, the Conservation Commission feels impelled to kill all herons and terns visiting the hatchery where it was raised, and all mergansers and otters inhabiting the stream in which it is released. The fisherman perhaps feels no loss in the sacrifice of one kind of wildlife for another, but the ornithologist is ready to bite off ten-penny nails. Artificialized management has, in effect, bought fishing at the expense of another and perhaps higher recreation: it has paid dividends to one citizen out of capital stock belonging to all. The same kind of biological wildcatting prevails in game-management. In Europe, where wild-crop statistics are available for long periods, we even know the "rate of exchange" of game for predators. Thus, in Saxony, one hawk is killed to each seven game-birds bagged, and one predator of some kind to each three head of small game.
Damage to plant-life usually follows artificialized management of animals—for example, damage to forests by deer. One may see this in north Germany, in northeast Pennsylvania, in the Kaibab, and in dozens of other less publicized regions. In each case over-abundant deer, deprived of their natural enemies, have made it impossible for deer food-plants to survive or reproduce. Beech, maple, and yew in Europe; ground hemlock and white cedar in the eastern states; mountain mahogany and cliff-rose in the West are deer-foods threatened by artificialized deer. The composition of the flora from wild flowers to forest trees is gradually impoverished, the deer in turn are dwarfed by malnutrition. There are no stags in the woods today like those on the walls of feudal castles.

I believe the key in wildlife management, as in most things, is balance. Achieiving the right balance so that all factions may thrive. Unfortunately greed, of some sort,usually causes drastic imbalances.

Should be controlled by hunting...

If there is a need to control, control.....but if there is not a need, they have every right to live just like deer and should not be demonized.