The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources has announced reforms to the program that pays bounty hunters $50 for killing coyotes in certain areas of the state. The bounty comes out of the Mule Deer Protection Act, which was passed in 2012 to reduce the predation of mule deer so hunters will have more to shoot.
But there is really no evidence it even works. Coyote will kill and eat deer, but removing the coyotes doesn’t necessarily result in fewer coyotes. Their population is more a function of available food. The program has produced a remarkable 90,000 coyote carcasses in six years, but there is nothing to indicate the coyote population is any smaller in Utah.