The County of Perth is looking into a coyote predation program, allowing for compensation for hunting coyotes in the area.
“You can’t just go out and kill as many as you want,” Lori Wolfe, chief administrative officer (CAO) of the county, said at the Perth County Council meeting on Thursday morning. “We would put a limit on it and that you need a license to go out and hunt these types of animals.”
Last fall, the county had a discussion about coyotes and the potential problems that they have in rural communities. Wolfe and other staff have since investigated a program and found low numbers across the area.
The Province of Ontario has the Ontario Wildlife Damage Compensation Program (OWDCP) to compensate agricultural producers whose livestock or poultry have been injured or killed as a result of wildlife predation.
Through the OWDCP, only eight claims of damage were reported across the county in the last three years.
After meeting with all the CAOs of Perth and reviewing the low numbers, county staff do not believe that the potential loss justifies creation of a program. The consensus was to re-look at the program if numbers rise.
There was support for an annual education campaign, to raise awareness of coyotes in Perth and precautions the public should take.
Wolfe did prepare an example bylaw of how such a program may look, if council decides to move forward with one.
The recommended compensation would be $100 per coyote pelt and the hunting of coyotes would be permitted within a 10km radius of where livestock was killed.
There would be a maximum of 10 coyotes per killed livestock.
Coun. Jim Aitcheson appreciated the report, though said that it focuses on the dangers coyotes pose to livestock and not on family pets, which is a much bigger issue at the moment.
“I get umpteen calls a year from people whose dog or pet was just cleaned by a coyote,” he said. “You’re never going to get big numbers of livestock. The problem is they’re getting more into the residential type stuff.”
Like Aitcheson, Coun. Todd Kasenberg has heard from county residents of family pets being killed by coyotes, saying that is disconcerting since it demonstrates that coyotes are getting closer and closer to human activity.
The issue is that there is no formal way to report such occurrences and there is no data on sightings or coyote-pet occurrences as of yet.
Both Aitcheson and Kasenberg expressed support for the creation of a reporting tool, allowing for residents to formally report sightings or altercations with the animals. That way, they might be able to glean more data on how bad the problem is in the region.
Coun. Jerry Smith, who hunts yearly with a local group, said that every season hunters are allowed to shoot coyotes during a deer hunt and they don’t need to report it. He estimated that just his group gets 80-100 coyotes every year, and they are not the only hunting group in his area.
He recommended that the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs, the governing ministry, should be made aware of that. Those numbers could be indicative of a much larger problem.
Wolfe said that she had reached out to the ministry for more information but did not receive a response in time for the report. Wolfe will inquire about having a representative speak to council at a later meeting.
County council voted to receive the report for information and direct staff to implement an education program and a reporting mechanism for coyote sightings within the county.
They also voted to defer the decision of enacting a program to a future council meeting.