Bucking the typical rancher "kill em" mantra, Montana sheep ranchers, Richard and Katy Harjes are full-out users of non-lethal methods as it relates to protecting their sheep from Coyotes and other carnivores.........Co-existance is their mantra with the understanding that there will be up to a 2% attrition of their herd to Coyotes, Pumas and Black Bears........They found that a pack of 5 sheep-guarding dogs reduced their predator losses from 8 to 4 to 1% over a three year period........"The dogs are constantly peeing on things ... and walking along the fences," says Harjes, who figures he's training his local coyote packs as well as the dogs.....One day he stepped out of his house to see a coyote in the pasture.... In the same moment, "the [dog] did a quarter-mile sprint and the coyote took off like a shot and just made the fence.."Harjes says, someday he will have to kill a coyote to protect his sheep..... But it will be as a last resort"..........We tip our hat to the Harjes family.........They are people that should be praised in our town halls and houses of worship.........They truly exhibit awareness that we and all other creatures share this planet,,,,and as the beings with the most intelligence, it is incumbent on us to make sure that all of the life on this planet endures and survives into the millenia

Coyotes Under Fire Predator-Friendly Pioneers

New breed of ranchers prefers nonlethal control to protect sheep

All Animals magazine

by Karen E. Lange

"If we lose 1 or 2 percent, that's the cost of doing business."

Ranchers like Richard Harjes, though, have embraced nonlethal tactics. When he and his wife, Katy, started raising sheep in 2008, their Montana ranch lay in a boxed canyon dense with coyotes. There was a pack to the north, a pack to the east, and a pack to the south. Looking for a way to avoid killing coyotes or the mountain lions or black bears living around their property, the Harjes discovered the type of livestock guardian dogs long used in Europe. The first year, when they had only one dog borrowed from a neighboring rancher, losses were steep—around 8 percent of their 500-animal herd, half from mountain lions and half from coyotes. Harjes would see the carrion birds in the pasture and know, instantly, he'd lost a sheep to a coyote (the mountain lions typically carried the bodies off).

The Harjes might have gotten discouraged and quit. Instead, they bought five dogs weighing 120 to 150 pounds apiece (to the coyotes' average 25 to 30), who were bred and trained to bond with sheep and fiercely defend them. The second year losses fell to 4 percent, the third year to just 1.

"You create this standoff with dogs—the dogs are constantly peeing on things ... and walking along the fences," says Harjes, who figures he's training his local coyote packs as well as the dogs. One day he stepped out of his house to see a coyote in the pasture. In the same moment, "the [dog] did a quarter-mile sprint and the coyote took off like a shot and just made the fence."

Maybe, Harjes says, someday he will have to kill a coyote to protect his sheep. But it will be as a last resort. And so at night he listens, happily, to the coyotes' distinctive yipping and howling. Sometimes, if they're real close, he gets nervous and goes to check his sheep. Mostly, though, he trusts his dogs and enjoys the coyotes' wild songs. "If we lose 1 or 2 percent," he says, "that's the cost of doing business."