We demand that the city of Denver permanently terminate its contract with USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service Wildlife Services (APHIS-WS) for Wildlife Damage Management to cease the killing of Canada Geese in Denver. We also demand the USDA APHIS-WS cease the killing of other birds including, but not limited to, Mallard Ducks, Blue Herons, and Great-horned Owls who are living or migrating along the Front Range of Colorado, from Pueblo to Fort Collins.

For those unfamiliar with USDA Wildlife Services, it is a strategically misnamed federal program that wastes millions of taxpayer dollars each year killing wild animals using traps, snares, poisons, gas, and aerial gunning. According to their reports, they have slaughtered more than 34 million animals in the last decade. 

Wildlife Services repeatedly claims that its methods are "selective," implying that they only remove animals actually causing damage. However, the reality is that most Wildlife Services methods are nonselective, in the sense that they will kill many animals apart from the ones doing damage.

USDA Wildlife Services policies and procedures have been questioned almost since the inception of the program. Although livestock damage is a valid concern, Wildlife Services also kills animals for eating flowers and pet food, digging in gardens, frightening people, pooping where people walk, and other concerns that should be addressed by non-lethal methods.

The officially released data on animals killed in 2018 alone is available on the USDA website. Click here to see the numbers for yourself. https://www.aphis.usda.gov/aphis/ourfocus/wildlifedamage/pdr/?file=PDR-G_Report&p=2018%3AINDEX&fbclid=IwAR331yAgQFOlCI4yTAJ1xOnS6rAVOiZYUoexv1awX3z8AoMqFgG7uvDp35Y

If you are as outraged as we all are, please sign and share this petition as frequently as you can. You don’t have to live in Colorado or even in the United States to sign.

Thank you.