It's a management plan
It is game management, nothing more. Bring the wolf back if you want true balance and factor in your losses to your livestock. I don't particularly endorse the "contest" aspect of it, where, unlike fish, you don't release them after you plug them with a bullet.
Me, personally, am all for shooting coyotes. My BIL skins them and takes the furs to a big fur trade every year somwhere in SE Oregon/Northern Nevada and supplements his income with the hides. Not a bad way to bring some income into a hobby. Dropping them in the field is not the end of it for him. They are not just left to rot away and be consumed by their living relatives.
I can empathise with the "don't shoot it if you don't eat it" aspect. But again, it's a management plan. If they become endangered from overhunting and genocide (read wolf), they will be regulated accordingly. Their success has put them on the open hunting list where they are, and hunting hasn't decimated their populations, so just let it go is my stance.
Sure their cute and fuzzy looking which is what the animal rights groups would have you think. Try telling that to your fluffy little cat. I've seen them in Sunriver, Oregon area where they were just running down one of the bike paths like two neighbor dogs that escaped the confines of the yard. Sure, capping them in a developed area is verboten for peoples' safety. But those same people advocating not shooting them are left wondering where that prized persian cat of theirs went too. You see the "missing pet" signs at the grocery store free ad boards all the time. Rarely do these metropolitan-ites connect the dots. Oh honey, look at that cute furry dog outside, he wants to play with our barking cat (slang for small dogs). Umm, no honey, he wants to eat him, call him back inside before it's too late.
