Bounty on Coyotes

Naturefreak · Apr 13, 2010, 10:20 AM

Most recently due to lack of hunting some of the local coyotes have lost their fear of people. There was some sited close to a nearby elementary school that caused concern so they trapped and killed them. Someone tied a dead one to a hotel owner's entrance sign , covered in blood . They think it may have something to do with her comments to a newspaper column saying that coyotes are essential to our ecosystem and that they are rarely aggressive.
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Putting a bounty on the heads of coyotes will do no good, biologist says
By Michael Macdonald (CP) – 15 hours ago
HALIFAX, N.S. — A recent spate of troubling close encounters with coyotes has prompted Nova Scotia's natural resources minister to consider offering a bounty for the animals.
There's just one problem. According to the minister's website, bounties don't work.
"Bounties have been tried across North America without success," the website says. "It is almost impossible to remove all animals or even to keep a population in check."
As well, a bounty first offered in Nova Scotia in 1982 was removed in 1986 when it became apparent it had no impact on coyote populations.
But three incidents last week have put enormous political pressure on John MacDonell to act, a wildlife biologist says.
"We'd be wasting our energy killing innocent coyotes that have not caused anybody any trouble," said Bob Bancroft. "The minister has a real challenge here ... It's become an epidemic in the press right now."
Last week in West Hants County, a female jogger was chased by a coyote that bit through her pant leg. In Digby County, two joggers were approached by a coyote that lunged at them. And a resident of Guysborough Country called conservation officers after a coyote chased his dog out of the woods and back to his home.
Nova Scotians remain sensitive to any kind of coyote encounter following the mauling death five months ago of a young Toronto woman on a Cape Breton trail.
Taylor Mitchell, a young singer-songwriter, died in hospital on Oct. 28 after the rare attack in Cape Breton Highlands National Park. Police said Mitchell was hiking alone when a pair of coyotes attacked for no apparent reason.
The fatality was the first of its kind in Nova Scotia, and only the second recorded in North America.
Mike O'Brien, senior wildlife biologist with the province's Natural Resources Department, said a bounty is only one of the options being explored and he acknowledged that Mitchell's death has changed the way the department deals with the public's concerns about coyotes.
"We're trying to be very cautious at this point," he said. "We're being very diligent in the way each report is being investigated."
Nova Scotia hunters can shoot coyotes at any time of the year, but there are restrictions on the type of firearm used, depending on the time of year. Trapping is also limited to a period between October and March.
Bounties for coyotes are currently offered by at least three counties in Ontario, even though the province's Ministry of Natural Resources has also questioned their usefulness.
"We have extensive evidence ... to show that bounties really are not effective," John Pisapio, a biologist in the Aurora district office, said in a recent interview with the Brockville Intelligencer. "The animal population just rebounds."
In Saskatchewan, at least 15,000 coyotes have been killed since the provincial government started offering a temporary $20 bounty in November. Farmers were complaining about livestock losses and the threat posed by increasingly bold coyotes hanging around rural properties.
Bancroft, a former conservation officer who lives in rural Pomquet, N.S., said coyotes are incredibly adaptable animals, which is the main reason why bounties have proven to be a failure in the past.
Scientific research has revealed that female coyotes respond to prolonged culling by having much larger litters - up to 19 at a time, instead of the usual four to six.
"They simply have more babies to fill the void created by the culling," said Bancroft.
Bancroft said the best way to deal with coyotes that feed on livestock or have lost their fear of humans is to use snares to target the nuisance animals.
Last week, two coyotes seen hanging around an elementary school in the West Hants district were snared.
The first eastern coyote was trapped in Nova Scotia in 1977 after the North American population had already spread through Ontario, Quebec, New York and New Brunswick

lynn P. · Apr 13, 2010, 10:28 AM

Sound like the don't have a real solution. Is it, that they're building further out into the coyotes territory? I would be afraid of them getting rabies.

Apr 13, 2010, 11:45 AM

If better results are not obtained, there well may be a mutiny on the bounty.

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