PETITION TARGET: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
What started as a heroic rescue turned into a horror story after Miami-Dade Fire Rescue pulled a stranded coyote from the waters of PortMiami. The coyote was exhausted but otherwise healthy after the 30-minute swim, and was to be cared for by Wildlife Rescue of Dade County — until the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) made the cruel and baseless decision to put him down.
“We were ready to vaccinate it against parvo, distemper and rabies,” Lloyd Brown, the rescue’s director, told 7 News Miami.
But that didn’t happen. Brown spent the day preparing for the new arrival, whom he planned to rehabilitate, but instead, the FWC destroyed the coyote.
“The reason I was given was that coyotes are considered to be nuisance animals,” Brown explained. “In my opinion, the coyotes are native wildlife.”
Animal expert Ron Magill echoed this sentiment.
“This is an animal that has over the years migrated down to the state, it’s one of the most adaptable animals in the world,” he told NBC Miami.
“We would have loved the opportunity to try and save this guy and put it back in the wild,” Brown said.
In killing this innocent coyote as a so-called “invasive species,” the FWC acted according to terrible policies that destroy healthy, innocent wildlife. Sign this petition urging the agency to change their ill-conceived guidelines and work to save animals, rather than kill them.
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