This ALERT WAS RECEIVED YESTERDAY .
Dear Friends,
The fate of Ontario’s coyotes and other wildlife will soon be determined.
For those who have written letters condemning the illegal coyote killing contests, your voices have gained the attention of politicians. It is the next step, however, that you and I take that will make a difference in the outcome for wildlife.
As many of us have learned, the Minister of Natural Resources is working with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, farmers and rural municipalities to develop a long-term coyote and ‘nuisance’ wildlife management strategy.
However, Ontario’s wildlife “belongs” to all of us! It should not just be up to farmers and natural resource or hunting interests to decide the fate of our wildlife. Particularly, given the ill-informed and brutal approach taken to coyotes in this province.
A proposed Agriculture-Wildlife Conflict Strategy was quietly posted on the Environmental Bill of Rights Registry in late February, with the public consultation closing deadline set for April 11, 2011.
This strategy aims to increase compensation for farmers for loss of crops and livestock due to wildlife predation,
But it aims to decrease the cost of compensation by increasing opportunities to kill ‘nuisance’ wildlife through increased hunting opportunities. It also expands the list of wildlife that can be killed.
The list now is expanded to include: cougars, lynx, bobcat, ravens, eagles, hawks, crows, turkey vultures, weasels, raccoons, mink and elk.
This strategy is ill-conceived. For example, turkey vultures eat only dead things. And farmers are no longer required to learn preventive methods to avoid wildlife predation. Consultations were limited to select agricultural organizations.
Our voice is now critical. Wildlife protection organizations will be sending detailed responses. However, it will be the response, however brief, from members of the public like you that will make the difference. Please take a few minutes to send in your comments.
If you are having problems reading this email, click here to view on the Wildlife Ontario website.
The clock is ticking for Ontario’s coyotes and other wildlife. A proposed Agriculture-Wildlife Conflict Strategy will soon determine whether the mindless and cruel persecution of wildlife continues in Ontario or whether our province joins other more civilized jurisdictions in implementing progressive strategies that promote coexistence.
Please use the online form posted on the EBR to send your comments to Yves Tremblay at the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs before April 11, 2011. It is crucial that they hear your views and not just those with hunting, farming and natural resource interests. Click here to bring up the form, enter your information and click “Save” to send. HELPFUL TIP: We suggest that after you click the “Save” button that you copy and paste your letter from the confirmation page into an email for Step 2. If you do not know how to ‘copy and paste’, simply re-type your comments into the email. Step 2: Please also send your comments by email With subject line: “Agriculture-Wildlife Strategy Must Respect Biodiversity” to: 1) Premier Dalton dmcguinty.mpp.co@liberal.ola.org It is just as important to copy cc: 4) Andrea Horwath, ahorwath-qp@ndp.on.ca
Tips for letter writing You can draw on some of the points below but it is important to put the points in your own words or, at least, reorder them so it doesn’t appear to be a ‘form’ list. And, please do not forward this page as it will NOT count as ‘personal’ opinion and could hurt the campaign’s efforts.
Background Information: Contact Premier Dalton McGuinty Hon. Linda Jeffrey, Minister of Natural Resources Hon. Carol Mitchell, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Andrea Horwath, Leader, NDP Ontario MPP’s |
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# The Agriculture-Wildlife Conflict Strategy
This strategy is written to support the stake holders, i.e. farmers. Not condo dwelling city folks.
# It is, therefore, essential that the proposed Agriculture-Wildlife Conflict Working Group
The ministry of natural resources exists to give a voice to Ontario, and works with farmers, hunters and trappers alike to meet those needs. Hunters and trappers are tools used by the MNR to effect changes necessary to keep a sustainable population of a given species, they do NOT make the rules.
# Sustainable farming in Ontario needs to work with nature, not be at war with it.
Expensive fences and “guard animals” do not work, and in fact guard animals only increase losses at the farmers year end. This results in small farms going out of business (with the thin margins that exist as it is) and larger corporations providing substandard products at a lower rate to cover the loss in production.
# No one owns nature.
As mentioned before, the MNR exists to give a voice to Ontario, it sets the catch limits, NOT hunters and trappers. Hunters and trappers are the tools used to manage populations of wild life.
# Livestock losses due to coyote predation in Ontario are insignificant.
Insignificant to you perhaps, but these losses result in farms going under. This is because that 1% of total loss in sheep happens on <0.1% of the farms. Losses at one farm can be huge, and a neighbouring one non existant. Applying a rule accross the board does not work.
# The Strategy must be based on conflict prevention. Farmers have to take responsibility for protecting their livestock assets, just as any other business is required to protect its assets
The difference here, is that these losses result in higher priced food on your plate. Or lower quality factory farmed food. Feel free to pick which you prefer. A loss at walmart means your 60" plasma tv may cost a few bucks more, but, on a farm it may mean some lower income Ontarians have to eat cheaper, less healthy food.
# Farmers need to build in a “cost of doing business” loss
Again, which would you prefer, a higher cost cut of meat on your plate, or one from a factory farm (which will also increase it's prices when the competition dries up). Hunting and trapping is a low cost alternative to raising prices to predation. Remember, just like EVERY other business, farmers will not take this loss out of their own pocket. The consumer always pays.
# Clearly, the majority of livestock producers are taking measures to protect their assets.
All countries use hunting and trapping as a method of predator control. The same way we do it. It is supplemental to high maintenance fences, and high cost guard animals. It would be stupid to put your eggs in one basket betting on that fence being up all night when you are asleep, or at the shop or away from the farm for a moment.
# Without a serious commitment to conflict prevention
Escalating costs that are paid by your taxes are the least of your concerns. As coyotes tend to draw prey away after killing, there is often nothing to be brought in for inspection to be paid out. At the end of the day, predation will result in higher food costs.
Granted that coyotes due prey upon, at times, livestock, the whole sale illegal coyote hunt that has gone on in Ontario for years, is one that could if not controlled result in too great a reduction in a species. With any legalized hunt, a quota is set, specific licensing is issued…it is not a free for all for wanna be cowboys (often times office workers) to go out and have what they consider a fun weekend. Experienced licensed hunters shoot to kill, inexperienced hunters often just injure and the animals are left critically injured, wander off and are left to die excuriatingly painful deaths, all for a fun weekend and the stroking of egos.
As for Factory Farms it is well known the horrific conditions and treatment of Factory Farm animals across Canada and North America period. The suffering that these animals endure so that one can have that tender slice of veal (Calves are force fed, remain in confined pens unable to move; pigs are left their whole lives in gestation crates unable to move, downed cows are kicked, beaten and left to die where they fall). Factory Farming is a brutal industry and inhumane industry. Canadian laws governing the care of animals to slaughter houses is ridiculous, animals crammed into trucks, barely able to move, can remain in same trucks for up to 48-52 hours without rest, feed, water and able to move. They arrive injured, sick, exhausted, all so that a nice thick steak can be BBQed. Stricter regulations must come into effect, alternative methods to Factory Farming utilized in this country, as already utilized in Europe and elsewhere. The same applies to Battery Hens.
I lived in the rural communities of Ontario of Gloucester, Metcalfe and Edwards for over 30 years and not once did I ever see a coyote nor hear complaints about coyotes.
The cost of food goes up almost every day in this country, and one cannot base this rise in cost solely on coyotes. Fuel, transportation costs have all risen, everything in this country is trucked in from somewhere, be it from the train depot, a shipyard or a farm. Putting a lid on fuel costs would go a long way to reduce food and dry good costs. With the US not basically guaranteed 60% of our processed oil/fuel products, thanks to Harper, a Canadian can now expect our fuel costs to rise incredibly (example being gas prices go up every single long weekend in this country, ever wonder why….. more travelers on the road).
Wildlife management can be an effective tool to curb over population of a species, thereby preventing undue suffering of a species through starvation and disease, agreed, however wholesale illegal hunts is something totally unacceptable. Humans continue to encroach on wildlife habitat and destroying it. Living in harmony with the creatures that find themselves forced off their home territories is a must.
Thank you for your comment.
The problem is the hunt ISN’T illegal. The MNR (the guys who make up the laws) are explicit in that you can’t be paid to hunt. By requiring entrants to pay for a ticket, and this is the only means in which they can gain, they are not being paid for the hunt itself. (This is the same process that goes on with trophy fishing and big buck contests … but they never see any attention, coyotes being the cause du jour).
Wildlife management has always included hunts, and the catch numbers allowed for by the MNR reflect the carrying capacity of the area (WMU) as well as the observed population. Hunters and trappers do not set this number. The MNR is the one that has decided that there are enough numbers to allow for unlimited catch numbers. Now, this isn’t to say that populations are to be wiped out; as I mentioned earlier, one area may have large numbers, whereas a few km away, there aren’t any. This along with the fact that between 11-13% of hunts are effective means that while a hunter may take 10 in a season, many many others do not. The end result is an evening of the population. This decrease leads to less pressure in the typical (forested) habitat of the coyote, resulting in less disembarkations into residential and farming areas.
Your particular anecdotal experience with the coyote population is not necessarily indicative with the experiences of others, again this is a result of their sporadic densities.
Following your emphasis as to the treatment of animals on farms (particularly factory type), bare in mind the videos presented by PETA and their ilk are also not indicative of the common practices on farms, and in fact, many of those films that they present are doctored or staged, a practice for which they have found themselves in trouble numerous times.
For a list of publicly available news articles reflecting their willingness to torture animals to make their point:
http://www.furcommission.com/news/newsC7.htm
Thank you for the links which you provided. I will most certainly check them out for myself. Are you yourself located in Ontario?
Yup, eastern Ontario.
Now, don’t get me wrong here, I am not advocating wiping out any population, and quite frankly no hunter/farmer/trapper is. First of all, this would be terrible for other populations as well (deer and rabbit population growth without predation would be massive).
On a more economic aspect, this would effectively put us out of business. As a trapper, my income comes exclusively from the pelts I take from my kills. Keeping a healthy population means I can continue to do so year after year.
As a farmer, this is the same technique I use for my livestock and long term crops. I leave the population as large as the land will support, and take those as necessary to keep a healthy population thriving on it. Sometimes, we get too many cattle in a year, and we take more than others. as a ball park, we can typically see 2000lbs per acre. Anything more than that, and they don’t thrive. Trees are a bit different, but the concept is the same, so many trees of a given length per acre before the water and soil mean bent trees and yellowing.
I did not realize you were a trapper as well as a farmer. What pelts do you harvest? Are you a dairy farmer or beef? Or is it a mixed bag of cattle and crops? That is the one thing that I miss, since having moved North. Fresh produce, being able to stop in at a roadside market to purchase fresh corn, tomatoes, beans etc. Also visiting the local berry farms and orchards. The growing season here is limited to about 2 months period, if one is lucky.
I have actaully seen more and rescued far more wildlife back home in Ottawa area than I have seen here in the six years I’ve been in the North. I can recall high populations of deer back home, Metcalfe, Greely, Gloucester areas. So many road kills between Renfrew and Ottawa, it was almost everyday one would see deer on the highway, and or bounding down Bank St. South. Luckily many people used live traps to catch ground hogs (veggie garden invaders) as well as racoons, so I would pick them up and relocate closer to where I lived, alot of green space for them. Baby squirrels, tiny fox kits, birds of prey, doves, I’ve cared for them all; not to mention all of the domestic animals dumped in the rural area. Unlike Ottawa, there is no wild bird or wildlife sanctuary in the North to aid in rehab and there are no truly fully equipped animal shelters in the North. We have only one veterinary hospital located in Yellowknife. If an animal is sick or critically injured, they must be flown to Yellowknife..most often however the animal is just abandoned….I’m continuing my work to change that.
I am thankful that you exercise logic and pre-planning in how you harvest and also use the land. Crop rotation ensures that your soil is not depeleted of nutrients and allows for successful harvests. Recognizing that predators play a major part in natural control of herbivores is important. Without coyotes, wolves, lynx and other predators, so many such as deer would wind up starving to death once their food sources had ben exhausted due to high population.
I wish you all success for your crops. Please keep in touch.