One after another, residents of this quiet college town stood before the city council, expressing outrage over the recent killing of five coyotes - four of them pups - by a little-known branch of the U.S. Department of Agriculture called Wildlife Services.
An hour later Tuesday night, council members took action - voting unanimously to sever the city's s relationship with the federal agency and develop more non-lethal alternatives for dealing with wildlife.
"It's very clear to me that this contract is a complete mess," said Davis Mayor Joe Krovoza. "We are contracting with a group. We are paying them money and they don't begin to share our values."
The council's action came just days after the Davis Enterprise reported an employee of the agency killed the coyotes last month on a golf course on the edge of town. Carol Bannerman, a spokesman for Wildlife Services, told the Enterprise the coyotes were killed "because there had been a pattern and concern about aggression toward joggers that had pets, as well as pets in the area."
But in a community that prides itself on protecting the environment, the agency's action drew anger and concern from citizens and city officials who were not consulted or informed about the killing.
" I think they've got a deaf ear to what's going on. They are just out of synch," Krovoza said. "There is no reason to continue with the USDA."
Earlier this year a series of articles in the Sacramento Bee reported the agency's predator control activities are often excessive and indiscriminate and risk altering ecosystems in ways that threaten biodiversity.
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