The Warner Bros. cartoon that featured the hardworking sheep dog, Sam, and the coyote, Ralph, is surprisingly realistic, says a northern Alberta shepherd.
Coyotes seem to know when farmers go to bed or drive to town for parts, said Laurence Read, who lost more than 100 sheep to coyotes last year on his farm near Silver Valley
“Sometimes we don’t seem to have coyote problems until the house lights go out.”
Read estimates he has about six or seven days grace after moving his sheep to a new pasture before coyotes figure out how to get at the sheep by crawling through the page wire fence.
Read Also
Feeder market adds New World screwworm risk premium
Feedlots contemplate the probability of Canadian border closing to U.S. feeder cattle if parasite found in United States
Just like Sam the sheepdog, Read’s three guardian dogs keep the coyotes away from the main flock, but there isn’t enough dog power to stop the coyotes from killing sheep in the smaller flock in adjoining pastures.
Like a well-rehearsed military manoeuvre, coyotes sneak along the outside and nab a lamb from the sides while the dogs are chasing others.
“The coyotes are devastating our industry,” said Read, who reduced his flock by half to 350 ewes in an attempt to control the losses. “It does get very discouraging.”
Last winter, Read cleared a 140-acre parcel of rugged willow and brush land where the coyotes used to hide and stalk unsuspecting lambs.
“It took away their hiding places and gave the dogs more field of vision.”
For the past four years Read has set wire snares hoping to catch coyotes roaming the edges of the sheep pasture. He’s caught approximately 15.
He’s also taking a $700 trapping course that will allow him to set traps on neighbouring land and push the coyotes further away.
He shoots coyotes and makes deals with local hunters, allowing them to hunt on his land as long as they shoot the predators.
Read is teaching himself how to use calls to draw the coyotes in for a closer shot. Creating the sound of an injured fawn or jackrabbit seems to draw them closer, as do howls.
“I use coyote howls and talk to them in their own language. You can bring them in right on top of you. It’s a big rush when you can get out there and bring them right on top of you and then you get to shoot them. It works well, but you’ve got to spend the time to do it.”
The combination of tactics has reduced coyote losses to a dozen this year.
“We try to use a multitude of tools for our problem and it helps. No one thing works and no one solution, except staying constant.”
Philip Kolodychuk of Bluesky, Alta., estimates he’s lost 15 to 20 sheep this year from coyotes. The northern Alberta sheep farmer has used traps, snares, poison and dogs to keep the coyotes away. He just bought a larger rifle to help improve his odds of shooting them.
“Usually when I see them I don’t have my gun, or if I have my gun they’re too far away,” said Kolodychuk, who wonders why there isn’t government help to control coyotes or compensate him for lost sheep.
“It’s discouraging when you go out and find dead animals,” he said.
“Nobody compensates you for a coyote loss. It’s definitely an economic concern for us.”
Al Neville of Rimbey, Alta., credits the low predator losses in the forestry cut blocks of British Columbia to constant surveillance, good shepherds, a heightened awareness of working in the mountains and good guardian and herding dogs.
Neville estimates that he and his partner, Georgia Edworthy, have grazed more than 50,000 sheep on the cut bocks during the past 20 years and have lost less than one percent to predators and sickness.
“We’ve been lucky,” said Neville, who just returned from grazing 1,200 sheep on a cut block between Prince George and Mackenzie. “We couldn’t do it without the dogs.”
He lost a guardian dog this summer to a wolf and a sheep to a grizzly bear.
The young dog was roaming far from the flock in an area thick with wolves when it was attacked. The grizzly nabbed the sheep while waiting in alder trees. Neville immediately moved out of the area to another valley, away from the troublesome bear.
“The wolves are the hardest thing on the guardian dogs. They just wear them right out,” he said.
Wildlife has priority on the mountain. Sheep producers there are not allowed to shoot troublesome animals so they have to be vigilant.
Only strong healthy veterinarian-inspected sheep are sent to graze in the cut blocks. Sick animals are watched and then taken off the cut block to help minimize problems.
“We hire good people and train them good. One of us is on the block at all times,” he said.
