By March Twisdale
In 2014, there was a high profile coyote attack at Misty Isle Farms. Three Willamette Valley ewes, brought in for the Vashon Sheepdog Classic, were killed overnight. The next night, government-sanctioned hunters shot and killed two coyotes as the pack returned twice, moving confidently toward the flock, passing many tents and dogs without hesitation.
Maggi McClure was interviewed about the attack and the “new coyote problem.” According to an August 2015 article, she had never heard of a coyote attack on Vashon until the previous year, when they began attacking her sheep. At the time of the interview, they had attacked 13 of her flock, killing nine, despite McClure having a burro and two llamas as guard animals.
The killing hasn’t stopped. Scores of beloved pets and livestock (chickens, dogs, cats, ducks, geese, sheep, baby sheep, goats, baby goats, and more) are being killed annually by a rapidly increasing coyote population.
As reported in Susan Riemer’s October 2016 article, “Vashon coyotes: Expect their numbers to rise, wildlife experts say,” Brook Zscheile of the Wildlife Services division of the United States Department of Agriculture made it clear to a crowd of nearly 100 islanders that, “without any intervention, we’re going to see more and more coyotes and more and more conflicts.” Brooke went on to explain, “the coyote population increases on a J-curve, with a moderate increase initially, and then an abrupt, steep spike.”
Oh, but it’s all natural, right? We’re returning to how it used to be! No, we’re not.
According to a 2015, Cascade PBS article, “Coyotes aren’t native to Vashon. In fact, they’re not native to the Northwest. They started out in the Southwest and the edge of the Great Plains.” Humans far, far pre-date coyotes, as natural residents of the Puget Sound, making us Vashon Island’s long-standing top predator, while coyotes are an invasive, non-native species.
Will we curb their population, and protect our domesticated and wild migratory bird populations, or let the coyotes overpopulate themselves into a disaster for us, local wildlife, and the coyotes themselves?
Islanders living around Augie’s Christmas Tree Farm have a front-row seat as the local coyote pack wipes out flocks of Canadian Geese on their annual migratory journey. The Vashon Bird Alliance celebrates Fisher Pond as a great bird sanctuary, yet migratory water birds have all but disappeared. When new flocks of Canadian Geese arrive, the panicked screams of birds being murdered all night long makes me close my windows.
Three weeks ago, a neighbor on Gorsuch came home from work to find her beloved ewe and three healthy, baby lambs slaughtered by coyotes who dug a hole under her fence. Another neighbor lost a kitty to a coyote, in broad daylight, not 20 feet from his house, while his teenage daughter watched in horror. My friends in town lost a beloved duck and pet cat on the same evening. An entire wooded community along Wax Orchard has given up on having chickens or pet cats. Perhaps because the local coyote pack broke into one family’s fancy “catio,” slaughtering their two kitties while they slept? Another friend near Camp Sealth has escaped predation, thanks to having fiercely dedicated guard dogs, but her neighbor down the same driveway has lost nine sheep in the past year. These are the instances I know of personally, and I’m only one of 10,800 people living on this Island.
For the month of June, let’s all ask our fellow Islanders, “Have you or anyone you know lost an animal to coyote predation?” I’ve yet to meet a person who didn’t have at least three stories.
Personally, we’ve been dealing with almost daily incursions onto our property between noon and 2:00 p.m. When a coyote successfully killed our favorite hen, we chased it off the property. Along the way, it dropped the hen and I quickly picked her up. To my surprise, the coyote reversed course, advancing on all three of us, despite a wildly barking dog and two humans aggressively shouting and waving hands in the air.
I’ve heard more than a few Islanders say, “Will it take a child being attacked before we decide to do something?” Others hotly reply, “That would never happen!” Oh, really?
According to the 2015 Cascade PBS article, “In April 2006, [Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife] officers euthanized two coyotes in Bellevue … after two young children were bitten while their parents were nearby.” In July, 2015, four children in Irvine were attacked by coyotes, including a 2 year-old child. “They opened the garage up and the coyote came in and actually got the child on the neck area and part of the cheek,” California Department of Fish and Wildlife Lt. Kent Smirl told ABC’s Los Angeles station KABC.
Our chickens are still free-ranging, but only because my family is obsessive about protecting our animals. We take turns being “on guard,” for hours at a time. Most people can’t provide this level of protection, causing many to give up on home-grown eggs entirely. Or, they convert pasture-raised flocks into “locked up, grain-fed” chickens with a lower quality of life and eggs that nutritionally resemble factory-raised eggs.
From a sustainability, environmental and health perspective, this is the exact opposite of what we want to see happening on Vashon Island. Which brings us back to the consequences of non-rural attitudes in a rural environment.
In 2017, my neighbor lost his two beloved donkeys to a cougar, adding to a string of livestock losses that included more donkeys, alpacas, and sheep. According to Susan Riemer’s article, “Vashon Cougar Killed After Year on Island,” “wildlife officials originally believed the cougar would eat only deer.” Mistake number one. Why would a young, male cougar spend hours chasing down tough, rugged, healthy deer through dense foliage and forest, with a good chance of losing his prey, when the Island is covered in fat, juicy meals trapped in small, open fields? The answer: he wouldn’t.
When we fail as the Island’s top predator, it’s the animals who suffer. Including the cougars and coyotes. By allowing this young cougar to develop a taste for livestock, we ensured its death. By allowing coyotes to reproduce freely on an Island awash in easy food sources, with no other predator to contend with, we have created a situation where the coyotes will eventually lose.
Coyotes are masters of resource conservation, always hunting the easiest, fattest prey. Just like the cougar! So, I have a question. Why did we trap and kill the cougar after it killed a handful of animals, but the coyotes are being allowed to slaughter hundreds, with no organized response from us humans?
Vashon Island would do better to choose to not co-exist with this invasive species. With coyotes, we are losing more than we gain. How ridiculous to live on an Island with ample space for free-ranging chickens, only to cage them, because we aren’t willing to manage our predator population? What’s the point of wide-open pastures if livestock must be locked up in a barn every minute their human isn’t home to stand guard over them? And an Island-wide army of livestock guardian dogs isn’t the answer, either.
It’s time to shoulder the burden and privilege of our status as “top predator” and manage the Island coyote population intentionally.
Editor’s Note: Please see this article at vashonloop.com for hyperlinks to references.
