April 10, 2003

Coyote issue to surface at Lunenburg County meeting

DUNDAS--Coyotes are attacking calves in Lunenburg County, and some farmers have asked county officials for permission to defend their livestock with high-powered rifles rather than with shotguns.

A local ordinance prohibits the use of high-powered rifles for hunting of any kind in the county, but does allow shotguns. But some farmers are asking for an exception to the ordinance in the case of coyotes. The county board of supervisors is scheduled to conduct a public hearing on the matter April 24.

“We need fire power,” said Walter Thompson, president of the Lunenburg County Farm Bureau. “Even a 12-gauge shotgun is not effective unless you’re close to the coyote.” Farmers want permission to use high-powered rifles to shoot coyotes on their private property.

A rifle that’s .223-caliber to .243-caliber would be sufficient for a coyote, said Chad Fox, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services. “You don’t even need a deer rifle, which is .243-caliber. Some counties don’t allow rifles. They use dogs and shotguns for deer hunting because it’s tradition,” and that’s the case in Lunenburg.

No statistics are available on how many coyote attacks on livestock have occurred Lunenburg County in recent years.

Blamed for the deaths of pet dogs and cats, coyotes first appeared in Virginia in the 1950s and became a problem in the 1980s, said Fox, noting that every county of Virginia now has coyotes.

Wildlife Services provided coyote control services directly to 197 livestock farms in 28 western counties of Virginia during the 2002 fiscal year, according to a Wildlife Services report. WS doesn’t have enough funding to help Lunenburg County livestock producers, and that’s why farmers are asking for an exemption to the ordinance banning rifles.

During the 2002 fiscal year, 234 sheep, 35 calves and 120 goats were killed or injured by coyotes in Virginia. That represents a 25 percent increase in reported sheep predation, a 133 percent increase in reported calf predation and a 25 percent increase in reported goat predation from fiscal year 2001, according to the WS report.

WS removed 393 coyotes from farms in the western counties of Virginia to stop or prevent predation on livestock in fiscal year 2002. Traps and baits were used more often than livestock protection collars and shooting. The report notes “an expanding coyote population” in Virginia and calls the calf predation situation “a growing concern among producers, particularly in Southwest Virginia and increasingly in the Piedmont.”

The National Agricultural Statistics Survey of cattle predator loss indicated an increasing number of coyote/calf predation in Virginia, from 700 calves in 1991 to 900 calves in 1995 to 1,100 in 2000.

In addition, hunter harvest surveys made by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries indicated that the coyote harvest increased from 1,295 in the 1993-94 hunting season to more than 6,000 in the 1998-1999 season.

Contact Eric Miller, VFBF field editor, at 804-290-1133.