Forest land is WAY more expansive in Al now then in the trapping heyday. The few people who lived in AL in the 50's, 60's and 70's were rural. Now they all live in cities. By the late 70's - 90's when turkeys were inclining and predator trapping was starting to decline, we were way more attached to the land. One property I am familiar with in dallas co had 30 families living on it and share cropping in the 50's and 60's (3,000 ac). Now NONE. Much of the open land is now pines. They had quail then, now none. We were able to control coons easily when there was only 10 million acres of forest in Al and every high school kid trapped and half the rural people ate them. Now we are removed, fields have been planted to pines and coons are abundant from eating corn.

Lets say we have 23,000,000 acres of forest in AL and lets say we have a coon per 10 acres across that. That is 2,300,000 coons. If we killed close to your estimate and close to what we used to report in trapping, 100,000 coons, that is 4% of the coon population. And the cost would be $2,500,000 according to your plan. Lets say that we apply that to a 3,000 acre, well managed place, with 300 coons preying on turkey eggs. We kill 4% or 12 coons and are left with 288 coons. Do you really think that would not be emptying the ocean with a bucket? It would make NO difference at a high cost, paid by the taxpayer (or license buyer). I set it up this way because I have a 3,000 acre place we work on in Dallas co that has an exceptional turkey population that we kill 100-120 coons per year, every year, off the place. That, I would assume, would be about 40% of the coons on the place - enough to make a difference.

I would submit a $1 an acre, or even $10/acre, incentive to burn would get you 250,000 acres burned or 2,500,000 acres burned for the same cost - A far more beneficial program IMO.