Perth County councilors push for better reporting of coyote sightings

A recent Perth County staff report that found little evidence to support a local coyote predation program was met with skepticism by some councillors.

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Presented by Lori Wolfe, the county’s top administrator at council’s Jan. 25 meeting, the report highlighted local claims to the Ontario Wildlife Damage Compensation Program, which provides compensation to livestock operators for the injury or loss of their animals due to predation.

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Wolfe’s report indicated that only eight of these claims had been filed in Perth County since 2021, representing a combined value of $5,089.

“There are low numbers across Perth,” she said.

She also informed council she had met with her lower-tier counterparts from the region to discuss the need for a program. The consensus, she said, was the local numbers do not warrant a program. Instead, there was a suggestion that communications staff from across the county develop an educational program each fall as a “proactive action to prevent livestock damage.”

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Perth South Mayor James Aitcheson, who had requested the report last fall, said he had a slight issue with his findings.

“We get umpteen calls a year from people whose pets were just killed by a coyote, and that’s why I raised this issue last fall,” he said. “I’m getting all kinds of people still phoning to say a coyote just got their family pet, but there is no place to report and say, ‘Hey, my pet just got destroyed by a coyote.’”

Since there is no mechanism to report the loss of family pets, Aitcheson noted there’s no way to gauge if this is a growing problem in Perth County.

“There’s very few livestock that report it, but most livestock are predominantly indoors now,” he said. “(Coyotes) don’t necessarily get a chance to kill them off. They might if it was a beef yard or something where you know calves are born out in the pasture, but you’re never gonna see big numbers.

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“The problem is they’re getting more into the residential-type stuff and killing off pets and whatnot. That’s kind of why I raised the issue and I still have a little bit of an issue with this report.”

North Perth Mayor and Perth County Coun. Todd Kasenberg suggested creating an outlet for residents to report pet killings as a way to track numbers.

“I wonder if we shouldn’t consider as a sort of attempt dipping in the feet into this one, creating some kind of messaging about a hotline that people can call or an email form on the county’s website that would collect information about this because I too have heard from people where coyotes have killed their pets, and that’s quite disconcerting because it means of course, they’re getting closer and closer to real human activity,” he said.

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Wolfe said staff could easily add this component to the discussed educational program.

“We could easily put something in that allows the community to report either to the local level or to the upper tier. . . and then we could annually look at that when (municipal administrators) meet,” she said.

Wolfe’s report also included an outline of a possible coyote predation program, which would provide a financial incentive to hunt problem coyotes. The outline program suggests a $100 reward per coyote pelt, with a limit of 10 coyotes per kill.

While accepting Wolfe’s report as information, councilors directed staff to implement the educational component and a new reporting mechanism for coyote sightings in the county.

The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.

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