Foxes and other animals worth more alive

The CDC lists Pennsylvania as a “High Incidence” state for Lyme disease, which is spread by the bite of infected blacklegged ticks. It can cause skin rash, fever, fatigue, and headaches and can have long-term effects on the nervous system, joints, and heart.
This is all the more reason to take stock of research demonstrating that foxes help curtail the spread of Lyme by controlling mice and voles who harbor those ticks.
This makes the toll taken on foxes and other animals in the Keystone State’s wildlife killing contests difficult to comprehend or countenance. In these gruesome events, participants compete for cash and prizes for killing the most, the largest, or even the smallest red and grey foxes, coyotes, bobcats, and other species. .

As the Pennsylvania Game Commission put it, “predator control does not work.” Foxes and other carnivores are here for a reason: to provide ecosystem balance and control the spread of disease. They’re worth more to us alive than dead.
Please contact the commission at pgccomments@pa.gov to urge a ban on wildlife killing contests.
Adele Rizzuto, Yardley

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