A program proposed by the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources is allocating $12,000 worth of bounties in hopes of stopping the spread of coyotes in the state. The program outlines the plan to tag and release a minimum of 12 coyotes across the state and offer hunters who are able to kill one of the tagged coyotes a $1,000 bounty.
The hope is that in the attempt at locating the tagged predators, many other coyotes will see the same fate. The House-approved bill now sits in Charleston Republican Sen. Chip Campsen’s Fish, Game and Forestry Committee in the Senate.
The challenge of course, would be finding innovative ways to trap and kill coyotes, oftentimes found in municipalities were hunting and discharging a firearm is off limits.
“I don’t know that you can control the coyotes by a bounty,” Mount Pleasant Mayor Linda Page told The Post and Courier. “They’re going to stay somewhere as long as there’s a food source. They’re going to live among us like the armadillos soon.”
Currently in the state of South Carolina, coyotes can be hunted year-round on private lands with a license, but property owners have the ability to trap coyotes within 100 yards of their home without a permit or license. Coyotes that are trapped, however, cannot be released.