USDA: Stop Spending Our Tax Dollars to Kill Wildlife

Secretary Brooke L. Rollins and the U.S. Department of Agriculture

Every year, U.S. taxpayers foot the bill for a little-known USDA program called Wildlife Services, which kills millions of animals at the request of private interests, chief among them Big Ag. Federal employees, paid with public money, trap, poison, and shoot animals on Big Ag’s behalf.

Wildlife Services operates in nearly every state. In New York alone, it killed 66,385 animals in 2025.

Nationwide, the agency reported killing 2,833,285 animals in fiscal year 2025, up from 1,928,932 the year before. That’s more than 900,000 additional animals killed in a single year, including:

  • 68,760 pigeons, 31,558 of them killed by firearms
  • 61,383 coyotes, plus 220 coyote dens destroyed
  • 23,422 beavers
  • 8,629 raccoons
  • 4,539 American crows
  • 2,292 opossums
  • More than 2,200 red and gray foxes
  • 743 cats, 111 of them killed by firearms
  • 402 black bears and 3 grizzly bears
  • 326 gray wolves
  • 167 mountain lions
  • 3 Mexican gray wolves, a federally endangered species

The methods are as disturbing as the numbers. Animals are shot from helicopters, killed with firearms on the ground, stuck to glue traps, and poisoned with M-44 “cyanide bombs.” Many of these methods cannot tell an "intended target" from one that's "unintended."

Who benefits? Big Ag. Who pays? You. Agriculture was the single largest category of Wildlife Services’ federal spending in 2025: $68.6 million of $138.3 million in federal funds. Coyotes, wolves, bears, and mountain lions are killed in large part because ranchers and Big Ag want them gone, and taxpayers foot the bill.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Proven ways for people and wildlife to coexist already exist, from better fencing to lights, sound deterrents, and securing feed and food sources.

We, the undersigned voters, call on Secretary Rollins and the Department of Agriculture to:

  1. Stop using taxpayer funding to kill animals.
  2. Invest in coexistence, funding proven solutions that keep people, animals, and wildlife safe without killing.
  3. Immediately end the use of aerial gunning, cyanide bombs, glue traps, and neck snares.
  4. Require full transparency: which private entities requested each killing, why, and what it cost the public.

Animals are a priority for voters across the country. This program answers to the taxpayers who fund it, and we are asking you to end the killing.

Sponsored by
Vfar_logo_icon_(1)
Voters For Animal Rights
New York, NY

To: Secretary Brooke L. Rollins and the U.S. Department of Agriculture
From: [Your Name]

We, the undersigned voters, call on Secretary Rollins and the Department of Agriculture to:

Stop spending taxpayer money on the lethal removal of native wildlife on behalf of private livestock and agribusiness operations.
Require nonlethal methods first, with public documentation of what was tried before any animal is killed.
Prohibit the cruelest and least selective methods, including aerial gunning, cyanide bombs, glue traps, and neck snares.
Require full transparency: which private entities requested each killing, why, and what it cost the public.

Animals are a priority for voters across the country. This program answers to the taxpayers who fund it, and we are asking you to end the killing.