Pa.’s crafty coyotes expanding their range

Associated Press

From their perch 100 yards away, the coyotes seem to stare at Jim Cowell as they brazenly case his beef cattle.

“It seems like they’re getting awful brave. They’re not intimidated by people anymore,” said Cowell, who carries a .22 when he’s working his farm outside Waynesburg in southwestern Pennsylvania. “It is a little unnerving.”

Not to mention something of an economic threat. Cowell once lost four calves to coyotes, whose population has soared since the 1980s. So when the state House recently passed legislation that would pay hunters and trappers $25 for each coyote they kill, Cowell and other farmers cheered.

“It’s a problem that needs to be taken care of,” he said.

The state’s second-largest predator after the black bear, the coyote has been documented in Pennsylvania since the late 1930s. No one knows for sure how or why they showed up, or how many there are now, but the crafty canines have been blamed for a wide assortment of atrocities — from killing livestock to depleting prized whitetail deer to stealing into suburban neighborhoods and making off with Fido and Fluffy.

Yet wildlife experts say coyote bounties have never worked anywhere they’ve been tried, raising questions about whether the $700,000 that lawmakers voted to spend on the bounty program would be money well spent. The measure has been sent to the Senate for consideration.

“Bounties have been used to control coyote populations in North America for over 150 years, despite a lack of evidence that they lead to long-term reductions in populations,” Utah State University researchers wrote in a 2003 study.

While it hasn’t taken an official stance on the bounty bill, the Pennsylvania Game Commission also takes a dim view of bounties.