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Show COYOTES ARE NEARLY EXTINCT -V would their numbers become as to be a scourge to the country. Closed Ranges and Bounties on Scalps Causing Extermination of Animal. Cottonwood Falls. Kan. According to stock raisers and farmers of this county the coyote seems to be fast becoming be-coming extinct. The fencing up of the big pasture districts in this and neighboring counties, where practically practical-ly every acre is now stocked with cattle, cat-tle, has robbed the coyote of his once free and open range. Because or nis aepreaauons on young and helpless domestic stock a bounty has been set on his head and he has long been a fugitive, hunted and killed by every farmer. The bounty boun-ty of a dollar which is paid by the county for every coyote scalp turned in probably more than any other cause is responsible for the decreasing wolf population. In order to get the reward many farmers, and especially the farmer boys, not only trap and kill coyotes whenever the opportunity comes, hut have made a practice of hunting the coyotes' dens and robbing them of their young. For the scalp of a baby 1 wolf, though only a few weeks old ; and innocent of , any' wrongdoing, is the same in the eyes of the law as would be that of a veteran chicken killer. Only a few years ngo the county i money paid ont in this county alone for coyotes ran as high as $.100 or ?410 annually. Now, it is said, the : numoer win naraiy reacn jeu a year. ', The bringing in of a dozen or more ! scalps by one farmer, which was once ! so common, no longer occurs. I The greater part of these bounties I are collected in the spring months j before the mother wolf has left her I den with her family. So persistently i have the farmers carried on the war-l war-l fare of extermination that the coyotes ' which rear their families in safety j must be cunning indeed. Though this may seem cruel, yet from long experience expe-rience the farmers have found that in a stock-raising country the coyote has no place. Were they left to multiply mul-tiply even for a few years so great i |