Past time to develop alternate methods of controlling predators
To the Expositor:
Just over a week ago, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) announced it had closed three new areas around provincial parks to wolf and coyote hunting and trapping in order to provide protection for the threatened Algonquin wolf population. Both government and academic researchers confirm that without a genetic test, it is impossible to tell an Algonquin wolf from a coyote or hybrid in eastern Canada.
No bans have been enacted in Manitoulin, but there has been one record of an Algonquin wolf on the Island. Concern from livestock farmers about the bans enacted elsewhere highlights the Ontario government’s failure to provide farmers with the tools they need to prevent losses to coyotes and wolves in the first place.
While MNRF is responsible for most wildlife-related policy, it is the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) that provides compensation to farmers for damage caused by wildlife. Clearly these ministries are not working together as they should to protect farmers, livestock and wildlife.
Many non-lethal strategies have been used to prevent or resolve instances of wolves and coyotes preying on livestock. As each farm is unique, each farmer requires a unique set of adaptive tools that are cost-effective. Unfortunately, the cost of upgrades to infrastructure and other options such as livestock guardian animals are not subsidized by the government, limiting access to many farmers.
When livestock is killed, valuers report the circumstances, and are required to evaluate whether reasonable attempts have been made to prevent depredation. Because compensation for market value of killed animals fails to address indirect losses and attempted depredations, it is not surprising that farmers want to eradicate what they consider to be the source of the problem: predators around their property. What is surprising is that despite ongoing hunting and trapping, farmers can continue to lose livestock.
A growing body of research shows that hunting and trapping cause social chaos within highly-social wolf and coyote packs, and can lead to increased killing of sheep and cattle for a number of different reasons. This explains why compensation can be high year-to-year or even increase—provincially, it topped $1.5 million in 2015—in areas where hunting and trapping of coyotes and wolves is permitted and common.
Just as fraudulent abuse of the compensation program negatively impacts other farmers, so too does lethal removal of wildlife deemed problematic for one farmer affect the rest of the community. Where coyote or wolf family packs are splintered by hunting and trapping, survivors are more likely to target easy-to-kill livestock, whether at that same farm or at a neighbours’ down the street. Where wolves and coyotes are systemically eradicated from a region, natural prey such as deer and rodents multiply, damaging the livelihood of crop farmers. Open territory does not remain open for long, either—new coyotes and wolves move in when a local pack is killed off and the behaviour of new packs can’t be predicted. It is more effective to train resident packs to avoid livestock and teach their offspring to do the same than to keep trying to kill off any and all coyotes and wolves in the vicinity.
Farmers are the backbone of a robust food industry in our province. Having come from a farming family, I know that caring for livestock is an essential part of being a farmer. Livestock losses can be both economically and emotionally traumatic. Even in areas like Manitoulin where coyote and wolf hunting/trapping is permitted, farmers and their livestock are still suffering. The existing compensation program is begging for improvements at the provincial level. It is high time for MNRF and OMAFRA to commit to researching and subsidizing non-lethal depredation prevention tools that satisfy both the Ontario farming community and the public in whose trust the government is required to conserve wildlife and recover species like the Algonquin wolf that are facing extinction.
Hannah Barron
Director, Wildlife Conservation Campaigns
Earthroots
