密歇根新闻广播 猎手们加大力度控制密歇根反弹的狼群（在线收听）

It's been nearly a year since the state of Michiganapproved year-round and nighttime hunting forcoyotes. But how effective has that change inhunting policy been, and how has it impacted thestate's coyote population?

Adam Bump from the Michigan Department ofNatural Resources (DNR) joined Stateside to help usunderstand why the change was made last year.

"Our natural resource commission had been hearing a lot of complaints and concerns from avariety of different stakeholders," Bump said. "So it went from people in the Upper Peninsulathat were concerned about lower deer numbers to suburban and urban folks in southernMichigan that were starting to see more coyotes in their neighborhoods and had concerns thatway."

Other nearby states have had similar laws on coyote hunting, so Bump said "it's not somethingnew, but it's new to Michigan."

He also said the coyote population is very "resilient" and needed a widespread effort, including changes to the weapons and methods hunters can use.

One business in mid-Michigan turned coyote control into a contest to help limit thepopulation. Tom Knutson from Knutson's Sporting Goods in Brooklyn launched a bounty hunt. He said coyotes are a "serious problem" in the state.

"It was actually my son who came up with the idea," Knutson said. "He had seen differentcontests around the country and most of them were always one weekend only ... and he decidedthat maybe we should do a contest that was more along the lines of a bounty hunt. More [like] the customer who could bring in the most over a longer period of time and then see how big acoyote we could find and try to get an idea of what sizes are out there and what's going on inthe environment."

The bounty hunt started the last weekend of January. Knutson said he was expecting around 30 coyotes in total to come in. The hunt doesn't end until March 1 and hunters have nearly tripledthat number.

Listen to the full interview above to hear more about the bounty hunt. You'll also hear theDNR's advice for those, in both urban and rural areas, who spot coyotes.