n January 8, 2000, George and Dixie Ann Tippetts’ dog didn’t come home, so their son followed a trail behind their house that led to a neighbor’s Christmas tree farm. Approaching the property line, he found the dog lying dead just off the trail. It had crossed a trampled fence line, pulled an illegally set M-44 and staggered to its death in an area with no livestock in sight. The Tippetts, who live less than 30 miles outside of Portland in Estacada, Oregon, had no idea that M-44s were being used in the area. There were no warning flags near the M-44 or signs posted at the entrance of the property, both of which are required by federal regulations. Spencer is sometimes called to remove the carcasses of dead coyotes from ranchers' land. Another dog was killed by an M-44 in western Oregon in October 1994. Its owner, Amanda Wood, frantically tried to resuscitate her dog only to be poisoned herself. Experiencing numbness, dizzy spells and nausea, she drove herself to the hospital. She recovered, although her dog did not. "I view most of the personnel that work for Wildlife Services as criminals," says Brooks Fahy after documenting the Tippetts’ story. Fahy is the manager of the Predator Defense Institute (PDI), which fights to protect all predator species of the West and to abolish Wildlife Services. "This is a rogue agency whose employees are above the law." Fahy recently met with DeFazio and the state pesticide inspector, Dale Mitchell, to discuss the dog deaths in Oregon and other M-44 violations in Colorado. "If we can show that there is a pattern of misuse," says Fahy, "we may be able to get the EPA to ban [sodium cyanide] — at least temporarily." According to a 1995 Government Accounting Office report, Wildlife Services "used lethal methods in essentially all instances to control livestock predators." Thomas disagrees. "We preach to land owners, and they do most of the non-lethal methods that are effective. But all we can do is make recommendations; we can’t mandate anything." Fahy says this is one of many problems with the livestock protection program. "Ranchers have no responsibility to protect their herds. They don’t even have to use fences. But when they lose a few lambs, they can call a public agency to help them with their private business." The increased popularity of synthetic fibers has led to a continual decline in the wool market. Sheep numbers in the United States have dropped 85 percent in the last 60 years — 25 percent in the nineties alone. Consequently, many sheep ranchers can no longer afford to lose even a few sheep if they want to Brooks Fahy shows off a steel leg hold trap. stay in business. Despite growing meat consumption, the cattle market also has struggled lately because of increased competition from South American ranchers. Coyotes have hurt both sheep and cattle producers, but their impact is often overstated. In the cattle industry, coyotes accounted for less than 2 percent of cattle deaths, with respiratory problems accounting for 27 percent of the losses. And while coyotes killed about 245,000 sheep in 1994, they only accounted for about 20 percent of the total sheep losses, according to the USDA. Ranchers claimed more than $11 million in sheep losses to coyotes in 1994, but because ranchers receive more aid if they blame their losses on wildlife, many people, including Spencer, question the validity of their claims. DeFazio argues that the public shouldn’t be forced to pay this money — more than $100 per dead coyote — to help a small number of western United States livestock producers. "Wildlife Services’ own data reveal how wasteful the program is," he says in a letter to PDI. "For every dollar of reported livestock damage, Wildlife Services spends $3 in the West to ‘fix’ the problem. Wildlife Services is nothing short of corporate welfare for a few private ranchers." Representatives DeFazio and Charles Bass of New Hampshire introduced an amendment to the Agriculture Appropriations Bill in June 1999 that would have cut $7 million from the USDA’s $45 million annual budget for Wildlife Services, eliminating the livestock protection program. The USDA threatened to cut vital services such as bird control at airports and rabies prevention, and the Bass-DeFazio bill narrowly lost — the third time in four years that the House has defeated similar bills. "Nothing in this amendment would prohibit a rancher from controlling predators that are problems on their own property, owned or leased," DeFazio stated in a letter to his fellow representatives. "If you have termites in your house, no one from the federal government is going to show up. They will laugh at you and tell you to call a pest control company."