Worth noting that poorly planned "pest eradication" campaigns were a global thing. Here in California they paid bounties on a rather wide variety of perceived pest animals.
That was also when the Population Explosion became a thing, and with it human eradication became a darling of certain people. China tried it with the one child policy.
Alaska actually had a bald eagle bounty, as the hunters and fishermen didn't want competition: https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/index.cfm?adfg=baldeagle.printer...