Post by Mongojoe on Jan 20, 2009 7:47:34 GMT -5
From PREDATOR XTREME Magazine
1-08-09
Coyotes certainly didn't originate in Virginia, nor are even native to the state, but like many Eastern areas, are there in great numbers today.
But while many cracker-barrel philosophers theorize that coyote populations were brought in by state game agencies, the truth is, man-made changes to the American landscape over the past 200 years have created the ideal habitat for these predatory animals where it may not have existed before.
Now, the Associated Press is reporting that farmers in Southwest Virginia are fighting to protect their livestock.
“It changes the way you farm, because now we bring our sheep in every night behind an electric fence,” Barbara Kling, who has lost as many as 20 sheep in a year to coyote attacks, told the AP. “It's a lot more work, and you don't feel as good about things.”
Kling lives outside Abingdon in Washington County, Va. and has two guard dogs—white Maremmas—that have cut her family's livestock losses by 75 percent. She got the dogs seven years ago.
A variety of factors have led the rise of coyote populations in Virginia and other eastern states including the elimination of the wolf, the rise of prey populations, changing land practices such as timbering and farming and even the building of bridges across large rivers such as the Mississippi and others.
Mike Fies, wildlife research biologist for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, told the AP that coyotes first became established in southwest Virginia in the early 1970s and have become increasingly common since. They have also moved into virtually every other part of the state. Hunting dogs all the way in eastern Virginia’s Southampton County routinely catch and kill coyotes.
While negative impacts have yet to be seen on game populations, the biggest problem is for livestock farmers. Foxes, both red and gray, tend to diminish when coyotes move in simply because they compete for the same resources and coyotes are larger, more efficient hunters.
For a reflection of how coyote populations are exploding in the state one needs to only look at harvest records. Hunters in 1994 killed 1,200 coyotes in Virginia; in 2006 they killed more than 20,000. The state’s current population is estimated at over 100,000.
1-08-09
Coyotes certainly didn't originate in Virginia, nor are even native to the state, but like many Eastern areas, are there in great numbers today.
But while many cracker-barrel philosophers theorize that coyote populations were brought in by state game agencies, the truth is, man-made changes to the American landscape over the past 200 years have created the ideal habitat for these predatory animals where it may not have existed before.
Now, the Associated Press is reporting that farmers in Southwest Virginia are fighting to protect their livestock.
“It changes the way you farm, because now we bring our sheep in every night behind an electric fence,” Barbara Kling, who has lost as many as 20 sheep in a year to coyote attacks, told the AP. “It's a lot more work, and you don't feel as good about things.”
Kling lives outside Abingdon in Washington County, Va. and has two guard dogs—white Maremmas—that have cut her family's livestock losses by 75 percent. She got the dogs seven years ago.
A variety of factors have led the rise of coyote populations in Virginia and other eastern states including the elimination of the wolf, the rise of prey populations, changing land practices such as timbering and farming and even the building of bridges across large rivers such as the Mississippi and others.
Mike Fies, wildlife research biologist for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, told the AP that coyotes first became established in southwest Virginia in the early 1970s and have become increasingly common since. They have also moved into virtually every other part of the state. Hunting dogs all the way in eastern Virginia’s Southampton County routinely catch and kill coyotes.
While negative impacts have yet to be seen on game populations, the biggest problem is for livestock farmers. Foxes, both red and gray, tend to diminish when coyotes move in simply because they compete for the same resources and coyotes are larger, more efficient hunters.
For a reflection of how coyote populations are exploding in the state one needs to only look at harvest records. Hunters in 1994 killed 1,200 coyotes in Virginia; in 2006 they killed more than 20,000. The state’s current population is estimated at over 100,000.
