This year’s legislative session is well underway in Illinois. One bill would ban wildlife killing contests in the state.
The proposed bill amends the Wildlife Code, banning the practice of awarding prizes and giving incentives for killing wildlife.
Project Coyote supported the introduction of the bill to the legislature. Jane McBride, the Illinois representative of the project, said hundreds of animals could be hunted for a single one of these contests.
“They will come in with, literally, pickup bed loads of carcasses,” she said. “Generally, these carcasses are good for nothing. They can't be used because they're shot up, and they're usually, quite often, just left to spoil somewhere.”
The hunting contests target mainly coyotes and raccoons.
McBride said the contests mainly take place in the southern and western parts of the state, but with more public awareness, the contests have been advertised less widely.
“If you quit this volume of killing, we would be moving in the right direction that science tells us,” she said. “We would have a much more balanced population that is going to help our ecosystems, and help us in our overall efforts to maintain biodiversity out on the landscapes.”
The Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation opposed a similar bill that moved through the legislature in 2024. They have said that killing contests help manage local predator populations and support sporting stores and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
The University of Illinois Extension published a report that showed there was no positive ecological outcome to wildlife killing contests. Most experts they contacted for their report recommended the ending of the contests in Illinois.
The proposed bill wouldn’t impact normal hunting. Proponents of the bill are waiting for it to be assigned to a committee, which could happen in a number of days.
