COYOTE POPULATION RAPIDLY INCREASING

(06/01/2007)

This 30-pound coyote was killed on Mike Johnson's farm in 2005 just off State Route 5 above Grantsville There's lots of coyotes in the Calhoun backwoods and around the entire state, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Reducing the coyote population in West Virginia may not be an easy task. Oceana resident Doug Prichard saw his nephew's dog mauled by a pack of coyotes five years ago. He has since formed a coyote hunt club, which has now expanded into 20 counties. Hunt club members have claimed more than two-thousand coyote pelts. Prichard says he wants state and county financial aid to expand the hunt club into all 55 counties. A biologist with the US Department of Agriculture says that to reduce the state's coyote population, hunters would have to kill roughly 37,000 animals every year for at least 30 years. That's based on estimates that put the state's coyote population at roughly 50-thousand. There are state and federal programs in place to kill coyotes that prey on livestock. Two West Virginia counties have their own bounty program. Marlene Vineyard of Arnoldsburg killed this coyote in 2004 after it came in a field behind her barn Kenneth Hughes killed this coyote on Rattlesnake, a remote area between Little Creek and Joker in 2007

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