Senate panel to consider $1,000 reward for killing coyotes
The Road Runner and S.C. hunters could be waiting just around the corner for Palmetto State coyotes.
The Senate’s budget-writing Finance Committee will consider this week creating a program to offer a $1,000 reward for killing tagged coyotes.
A Senate budget subcommittee suggested removing the program from the budget that takes effect July 1. However, the proposal’s sponsor is hopeful it will pass.
The Finance Committee will consider the coyote proposal, along with spending roughly $7.5 billion in the state’s general fund budget, this week and next.
The proposal directs the S.C. Department of Natural Resources to tag and release at least 12 coyotes across the state. The tagged coyotes would have a bounty of at least $1,000 each, payable to any hunter who bags them.
“Coyotes are an introduced species to our state’s delicate ecosystem,” said state Rep. Alan Clemmons, R-Horry, the proposal’s sponsor.
The predators have cut into the state’s small animal and deer population significantly, Clemmons said. “Now, with their food source diminished in the wild, coyotes are becoming a menace in urban neighborhoods.”
Clemmons hopes his proposal will encourage hunters to shoot any coyotes that they see in hopes of hitting the jackpot. The bounty program will reduce the state’s coyote population and “will provide an inexpensive tool to incentivize Palmetto State hunters to partner in that mission,” Clemmons said.
Critics say a bounty program would encourage reckless hunting.
State Sen. Nikki Setzler, D-Lexington, who chairs the subcommittee that suggested removing the program, said Clemmons has asked senators to reconsider.
Clemmons said he is confident the full Senate will support the program.
The same coyote bounty program also is in a standalone proposal, which the S.C. House has passed.
S.C. House to act on road-repair proposal
The S.C. House is expected send a road-repair proposal back to the Senate Wednesday.
The House could agree with a Senate-passed plan, but that is unlikely. The House already has approved spending $415 million on road repairs in the state budget that begins July 1. Some of that money is one-time money, which is different from the $400 million a year that the Senate has proposed.
Both chambers also have suggested different ways to change the structure of the state commission that oversees the Transportation Department and the separate board that oversees the S.C. Transportation Infrastructure Bank.
Neither the House nor the Senate plans is a long-term solution to the state’s multibillion-dollar road-repair needs.
This story was originally published April 12, 2016 at 7:25 PM with the headline "Senate panel to consider $1,000 reward for killing coyotes."