Supervisors offer coyote bounty 3.13.2014

Amy Boucher

March 14, 2014

 

 

Supervisors offer coyote bounty

3-2 split continues

 

INDEPENDENCE -- With conflicting information over the efficacy of a bounty in reducing the coyote population and in spite of opposition from five county residents and two county supervisors, a trio of Grayson County supervisors on Thursday night approved spending up to $5,000 a year through the end of 2015 for coyote carcasses, at $40 each.

County Administrator Jonathan Sweet said Saturday the ordinance would be effective over three fiscal years, for a total of $15,000.

Supervisors David Sexton, Glen Eddie Rosenbaum and John Brewer, who generally vote as a block on controversial issues, voted for an ordinance that would establish a bounty on coyotes killed in Grayson. Rosenbaum proposed the ordinance in February because he said coyotes are threatening the deer population in Grayson.

Supervisors Brenda Sutherland and Kenneth Belton, who also generally vote together, opposed the measure. Belton read a letter from a state expert who said that bounties do not reduce coyote populations. The vote took place after a public hearing on the matter.

The supervisors devoted more time to the coyote issue than to any other. Rosenbaum was anxious to get the ordinance in place because coyotes are preparing to whelp and he said the county would get more coyote for the dollar during March and April by eliminating potential litters.

Rosenbaum introduced the ordinance by describing how he first came to Grayson County 44 years previously to deer hunt, and met the Roberts family in Roberts Cove, where he now lives. The Robertses told him that the cove could support 185 deer over the winter.

Two years ago, he set out to reduce the coyote population, which had cut the deer herd in the cove to 51, he said, by eating fawns and by causing does to spontaneously abort fetuses. He killed 59 coyotes between March and September, he said, and his deer herd is now up to 79. Rosenbaum said he can count deer at this time of year because there is no food for them in the forest and they must come out into open pastureland to graze.

"Nobody is taking up for the deer....We need to protect our deer herds." Rosenbaum said the first day of hunting season used to bring a solid line of vehicles in the pre-dawn hours from Sugar Grove all the way into Grayson. Hunters spend money in Grayson, he said. "If we don't do anything, we're going to lose our deer herd."

Rosenbaum said nearby counties with bounties have set them between $60 and $70. He wanted to set Grayson's at $40 to reduce the chance of fraud -- of hunters bringing coyotes from other jurisdictions to claim the Grayson bounty.

Sweet said the application for the bounty is an affidavit with a penalty for fraud.

Sweet told the supervisors he received three letters from people who opposed the bounty but could not attend the public hearing. Two others, Evelyn Halsey and Laura George, spoke against the bounty at the hearing.

Halsey said road hunters kill more deer than coyotes do and dump the carcasses along roadsides. Coyotes, at least, "eat the whole damn thing." She said people who use poison to kill coyotes risk poisoning pets or children. Hunters who use traps trespass to set them on private land, and "I'm concerned about road hunters....if you open up this bounty."

Rosenbaum said after the hearing that coyotes can't be hunted from the road and that trappers put their names on their traps and won't put them out without permission.

George tackled Rosenbaum personally in her remarks. She said he claims to want to save the county money but he already has wasted money drafting an ordinance to repeal zoning, currently on hold, and with the coyote bounty. Rosenbaum could have raked in $2,360 for his 59 coyotes, she noted. "I trust the farmers to do it without the need for remuneration."

Belton read letters from two state experts. One was from Chad Fox, district supervisor for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services Office in Christiansburg. Fox said the coyote population in the western part of Virginia is stable and he recommends improved fencing and guard animals to farmers. He says few coyotes are livestock killers and his program will come to a farm and dispose of problem coyotes. Ten to 15 percent of coyotes are transients looking for territory and these will move in to any vacant territory.

Belton's second letter said not enough coyotes are killed through bounty programs to affect overall population. Grayson's bounty program would pay for up to 125 coyotes in its first year. The second expert said unless you kill off 60 percent, the coyote population can recover in one year. He said bounty programs lead to "rampant fraud" and the deaths of domestic dogs who are shot or trapped.

Sexton said hunting coyotes is challenging and will interest young people in hunting. "We're never going to stop crime either," he said, but wanted to give coyote eradication a try.

Brewer said 18 counties in Virginia have bounties, although the Daily Press  reported in January that fewer than a dozen Virginia localities use coyote bounties. Brewer noted that the ordinance would expire at the end of 2015.

Sweet said the supervisors could evaluate the program then and decide whether to continue it, but warned that evaluation would be difficult without a clear measure of success.

He said the county's animal control officer will accept carcasses at the county public works building during set office hours, and the entire carcass must be submitted for disposal to prevent fraud. The county will have to pay something for the disposal, which will come out of the $5,000 annual budget. The county will not accept any carcass over 72 hours old, to protect the health of employees. He's not sure how the bounty will be paid, but it will not be cash.

"I find it hard to take the taxpayers' money for something that has not proven to be effective," Sutherland said. She noted that farmers could take measures against coyotes and the state offers help in removing problem animals.

"Why would 18 localities in the state continue to invest dollars in it?" Brewer responded.

Sexton said it was not a large investment for the experiment.

"I think we can use the $5,000 a little better for the citizens," Belton said.

Dr. James Parkhurst, Virginia Cooperative Extension wildlife specialist, has said that 150 years of removal efforts through bounty programs have failed, but he said a bounty program can have a temporary regional effect.

Mike Fies of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries has said that coyotes generally prey on birds and "mid-sized mammal nest predators" such as raccoons, as well as eating mast in the forest. They tend to displace red foxes. Fies said at a Virginia Tech coyote education meeting that coyotes' impact on the deer population is "likely very minimal statewide," and that bears as well as coyotes eat fawns.

In fiscal year 2011, 461 sheep, 59 calves and five goats were verified killed by coyotes in Virginia, according to the state's Virginia Cooperative Coyote Damage Control Program. The program was started by USDA's Wildlife Services in 1990 to prevent coyote attacks on livestock and remove "problem" coyotes from farms. In 2011, the department removed 487 coyotes from 181 farms, mostly in the western part of the state, Fox told the Daily Press, when Isle of Wight County was considering a bounty in January.