Coyote Hunt Club Continues to Expand

(Doug Prichard is a 1961 graduate of OHS)

OCEANA: A slow and agonizing death suffered by a nephew's coon hound opened Doug Prichard's eyes to a growing menace of coyotes in West Virginia and stiffed his resolve to radically thin their ranks.

Prichard now has taken his Smokie Coyote Hunt Club into 20 counties across the state.

Ultimately, he wants a chapter in all 55, convinced the private club is the answer to minimizing the ranks of coyotes to the point they no longer are threatening livestock, game animals and domestic pets.

A registered Treeing Walker named Smokie was savaged by a pack of coyotes about five years ago, stripping him of his hide and hair.

Smokie's pain was so intense he couldn't raise his head to drink water. A year later, the registered dog was gone.

"I've got about two years invested in them now," Prichard said of the coyotes.

"I've learned a whole lot about coyotes. I probably know about as much about coyotes, except for the game biologists. I know their habits, what they do, how they do it. Coyotes have a pecking order, just like chickens. When they're born into a pack, they know where they fit into that pecking order."

Prichard has attempted to get money from county commissions and the state to provide some of the $25 bounty his club pays on coyotes shot by members.

A membership goes for $10, so the first coyote brought in more than covers the fee. So far, the club has paid a bounty on more than 2,000.

"They're definitely a big problem in West Virginia," he said.

"When a game biologist tells you that any time you see coyotes in the day time, and that they have to forage on garbage and stuff, you've got too many. We've got way too many."

A state publication last year put the population at 55,000, but Prichard is convinced that number is far too low. Out of 50,000, one-fifth are female, capable of producing at least five pups apiece.

"No one knows why the coyote stayed out West so long without coming here," Prichard said.

"And all of a sudden, he came here and he's doing great. The coyote we've got here is a bigger coyote, primarily because he's mixing with the red wolves, the eastern wolf, the gray wolf, and they're also integrating with the common dog in places. There are eight different varieties and we have all eight of them."

Prichard cites statistics showing 70 percent of fawns this year will be victimized by coyotes and other predators, including some bear, and this will doubtless have an impact on West Virginia's multimillion-dollar deer hunt.

"They've eliminated the groundhog in West Virginia almost to the point where you can't see one any more," he said.

"They're doing the same thing with other game. No one hunts squirrel in West Virginia any more except the coyote mostly. He's reduced the turkey population to half or better in places. And now, he's starting to prey on cats and dogs."

Within his hometown, Prichard says, about 300 cats were killed within the past two years by coyotes.

Prichard says a state program run through the Department of Agriculture covered only 10 counties at a cost of $260,000, targeting areas where sheep and cattle had been singled out by coyotes.

"We can do a better job," he insisted.

"We can do a more effective job. We can do it cheaper. If we can get the state and counties to help us, the money will come right back to them."

Prichard wants the counties to provide $10,000 apiece and a $5,000 allotment from the state for all 55.

As the coyote population grows, he warned, it's only a matter of time before coyotes attack humans, as they've been known to do in New Jersey and North Carolina.

"It's going to happen here, and it's going to get worse," he predicted.

Prichard has another project in mind — a 38-minute documentary to be shown to pre-schoolers, kindergartens and first- and second-graders, teaching how to respond if approached by a dog, coyote, wolf or fox.

"We don't want to eliminate the coyote," he said.

"We want to reduce the population down to a safe level so they don't have to compete so much for the food supply."