I am not someone known for outbursts or raw, unmitigated anger. Monday, January 16 was a rare exception. While walking with my dog in the woods on our farm near Hanover, I was startled by three gunshots very close by. Earlier I had heard hounds baying but gave them little thought, thinking that the sound was coming from a farm on the concession road behind us. But when I heard the gunshots, I immediately put two and two together. A coyote hunting party was on our property, I thought, and illegally. It happened once before several years ago.
I began running through the snow toward the area from where the shots had come, intent on intercepting the hunters. Before long I came across snowmobile tracks - the hunters had driven over a cedar split rail fence from a neighbouring property to access our farm. I followed the tracks and soon found two snow machines parked in the woods. No hunters were in sight. Soon, however, a hunter dressed in camouflage winter apparel and carrying a rifle emerged some 20 meters away over the lip of a ridge.
The hunter saw me only when he approached the snowmobiles, and said nothing. I greeted him and asked him his name. He told me. "What are you doing here? I asked. "Hunting coyotes," he said. "Have you permission to hunt coyotes on this property?" I asked. He replied, "I don't know whose property I'm on." "Well it's mine," I said, "and you are trespassing! You have no right to be here!"
At this point in our "conversation," I am yelling. And I mean yelling. I dropped more than a few F-bombs during several minutes of admonishing the interloper. Suddenly another hunter, also shouldering a rifle, appeared from below the ridge. At a distance I asked him his name and he told me. Then he turned and disappeared back over the hill, leaving his buddy to face my wrath. The hunter I'd cornered also told me there were a few more members of his hunting party "out there somewhere" meaning in the woods.
I'm not proud of the extent to which I lost my temper, and I might have been putting my own physical wellbeing at risk, but I was furious. Consider this: Coyote hunting parties like the one I encountered are common in Grey-Bruce and all of southern Ontario. They consistently trespass on landowners' property. They seem to think they can go pretty much wherever they want. Why? Because, as the perennial excuse goes, "They have to follow their dogs."
Typically these hunters run dogs with collars fitted with GPS tracking devices which tell the hunters where the dogs are once they've caught the scent of and begun to pursue a coyote. Driving four-wheel-drive trucks in summer and snowmobiles in winter, they follow the GPSed dogs. But in the process they run amok over other people's property, often without permission. I and many other landowners are sick and tired of the utter disrespect for private property that these hunters display, time and time again.
Second, my wife and I walk our dog on our farm every day and often in the woods. Each year we allow neighbours to hunt deer on our property for one week, and they do so responsibly. For the rest of the year, we want to be able to walk without fear of stray bullets. I was only about 100-150 meters away from where the hunters discharged their guns. We weren't aware of each other's presence. Accidents happen, and have happened, in those kind of situations. I consider that my life was put in danger.
Third, hunting coyotes using GPS technology is, in my view, cowardly and inhumane. The animals have no chance. They are run to the point of exhaustion and then shot. And for what? A few bucks for the bounty or pelt? The hunters typically like to defend their actions saying, "We're doing a community service because coyotes kill a lot of sheep, calves and other farm livestock." Nonsense. Coyotes do take some livestock, but if left alone (as Ministry of Natural Resources officials have told me), they will find a balance in nature with their natural prey, which include rabbits, deer and rodents, making it unlikely, or at least rare, that they'll pursue farm animals. I doubt that many of these good 'ole boy coyote hunters understand the natural predator-prey dynamics that govern coyote behaviour and predation habits and patterns. They're probably not interested. Their chief motivation is having fun, and I find that utterly reprehensible.
Sadly, as MNR officers have told me, most people who file complaints against these hunter-trespassers don't pursue the pressing of charges. The reasons can be several, perhaps most often because they might upset a neighbour or friend who also is party to coyote hunting. This isn't bravado speaking on my part - it's resolve borne of personal experience of a fundamentally disrespectful, irresponsible and dangerous act - but I'm not in the least reluctant to punish the hunters that trespassed on my farm on Monday, and to the fullest extent possible. And I am doing so. Also, if I can have an impact on helping to curtail coyote hunting, which is governed by a provincial statute, I will do that too. I'm exploring my options.
- Gary Kenny
