Widespread hunting, baiting or poisoning of coyotes to reduce sheep losses could make matters worse, says Mike Gollop of Saskatchewan Environment.
The fur and problem wildlife specialist encouraged producers attending a Saskatchewan Sheep Development Board seminar in Saskatoon Dec. 1 to implement a more targeted approach.
He said understanding coyote ecology and behaviour can be an effective first step.
“Use what we know about coyotes to control the risks.”
Every coyote pack has a dominant alpha pair that mate for life, live apart from the pack and carry out the hunts. Others in the pack are generally poor hunters.
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Coyotes are territorial so killing the alpha pair could disrupt the pack’s boundaries and size, he said.
“If heavily exploited and their population is lowered, the more likely litter sizes increase,” Gollop added, calling it a compensatory population response.
“As their population is suppressed they can bring in more breeders,” Gollop said.
He used the examples of coyote packs in national parks, which are generally older, breed later and deliver smaller litters.
Gollop said a kill site can provide clues.
“You must know what a coyote kill looks like,” he said. Coyotes kill by suffocating sheep. It’s wolves, and not coyotes, that kill in packs, he added.
He cited a California study that followed 14 pairs of coyotes and found 10 of them never touched sheep.
Coyote pack size depends on the amount of available prey. Packs grow when food is readily available. Some coyotes live in packs while others are nomadic loners.
Gollop said about six pups per litter are whelped beginning in March, raised in a den until August and then dispersed.
Den sites are usually on a south facing slope obscured by shrubs and within 400 metres of a water source because lactating females need lots of water, he said.
“Coyotes aggressively defend the territory around the den,” Gollop said.
Breeding pairs that raise young are obvious suspects in sheep killings because they are under stress to feed their brood.
He said targeting problem animals and careful site management can reduce coyote attacks.
“Don’t overreact when there’s a kill,” he said. “It could be a nomadic coyote.”
Not all coyotes develop a taste for sheep so killing those would be counterproductive.
“Those animals could be a great asset,” she said, explaining how they protect their territory and keep out other coyotes.
Gollop said mass trapping disrupts the social structure and could lead to greater problems.
Gordon Schroeder, executive director of the Saskatchewan Sheep Development Board, expressed reservations about the use of poisons and home-made remedies.
“‘Let’s not take the radical approach,” he said.
“We have a reputation for doing things as best as we can. Not everybody is killing the sheep. You can’t take all of them cause then we’ll have other issues.”
He suggested a community-wide approach to the problem involving rural municipalities, Saskatchewan Environment’s predation control programs and Saskatchewan Agriculture.
Everyone needs to be on the same page in disposing of their dead livestock, he said, adding that coyotes congregating over dead piles increase the likelihood of diseases.
Len Larson, a producer from Rouleau, Sask., said he has achieved good predator control by placing sheep and cattle together in the same pastures.
His 950 ewes and 50 cows live together and move to different pastures every four days. He also docks lamb tails to keep them from becoming coyote bait.
“Living in close association with the cattle, the sheep will bond,” he said.
Larson estimated his sheep losses to predators at about two percent, mostly at lambing time.
“The cattle are very protective.”
