Hunting coyotes breeds more, biologist says
Coexistence between humans and wildlife is argued to help balance coyote population
By Vanessa Brown
Chris Schadler is a member of the Coyote Project, which promotes coexistence between humans and coyotes. Schadler was among a group who recently spoke in Holmesville, New Hampshire.Chris Schadler, a New Hampshire-based biologist and sheep farmer, and AnnaMaria Valastro are members of Project Coyote, which works to advocate coexistence between people and wildlife. Along with author and naturalist Hope Ryden, they recently spoke to a crowd of 45 people - some of whom were area farmers and trappers - urging against coyote culls as spottings are bound to increase in the coming months when the animals will be out looking for food for their young.
"The harder you hunt coyotes, the faster they reproduce," Shadler said. "And in fact, it grows them, like sprinkling fertilizer on them."When dominant male and female coyotes are hunted, the rest of the pack's food supply becomes greater, which in turn gives them better nutrition and more likelihood to breed.
"As long as the pack stays more or less a pack, as long as it's not exploited, the only animals that are going to breed are typically going to be those top-ranking dominant males and females," Shadler noted. She argued that the logical human response, then, is to let nature take its course.
Coyotes don't respond to culls, Valastro said, adding that the way to control the coyote population is to let them fill up their habitats on their own, which will eventually limit their food supply and territory.
But with an apparently growing coyote population in Huron County, legislators are taking matters into their own hands. Huron County Council last year raised the payout for dead coyotes from $50 to $100 in an attempt to quell the growing problem of coyotes killing farmers' livestock. Valastro urged those in the crowd not to participate in an "indiscriminate hunt" to kill as many coyotes as possible.
Robert Trick, an animal control officer and livestock evaluator who was at the talk, said Huron doesn't have a bounty, but rather a "remuneration" policy for coyote pelts only after livestock has been killed. Valastro said that while policymakers shy away from deeming it a bounty because the term connotes an archaic Wild West negativity, there's no difference between the two.
"They tell people it's not a bounty and somehow call it something else, but it looks like a bounty and smells like a bounty," Valastro said. "When you give people money to kill animals, that's a bounty."
Within the last 10 years, Trick said county farmers have experienced a rise in coyote attacks on their livestock that results in costly losses. Without a natural predator to keep coyotes in check, he said it's up to humans to reduce their population. "We've got too many (coyotes)," Trick said. "They're coming into our towns and we have to get them back into balance." He added that he doesn't have a problem with coyotes in general, only those that attack livestock.
Shadler countered that the U.S. federal government has been trying to control the coyote problem for more than 100 years with no avail. They're sophisticated animals, she said, that adapt to their surroundings.Greater public awareness and education is the start to a successful culture of coexistence, Shadler said. Farmers can help by disposing of their deadstock properly, which involves covering it with lime and burying it in the ground. But a change in government policy could explain why some farmers are instead dumping carcasses in the woods, Shadler said. Farmers now have to pay to have their deadstock removed, and burying it involves work.--the key problem--blogger Rick
Shadler has been studying coyotes for 30 years, and insists cows, sheep and deer aren't their natural prey. But feasting on deadstock that is left in the bush gives them a taste for it, she said, and it's only natural for them to want more. She added that trappers play an important role in curtailing the number of problem animals. Properly disposing of deadstock, along with vigilantly bringing livestock into or closer to the barn at night and erecting proper fencing has proven to keep coyotes at bay, she said. Coyotes aren't going away, she added, and humans need to learn to coexist.
"If what you want is to figure out how to be as smart as coyotes and actually see their populations reduced and finally stabilized where they ought to be, maybe you'll think about doing something different," Shadler said. "Because I'm telling you, you're going to make your lives worse by going the bounty route. We've done it and it doesn't work."
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