PICTON — As municipalities across eastern Ontario grapple with an explosion of menacing coyotes, Prince Edward County is hounded by increasing attacks and a more sophisticated predator.

"There has been a drastic change in the last 10 years," said county livestock evaluator Roger Redner. "We used to never get kills when animals were in the barn. Now we get kills every month. It’s unbelievable. The coyotes are so smart. If there’s a barn full of sheep, the coyotes will run around the barn continously. The sheep know they are there and are so stressed they run up against a door of the barn. They bust out and bang, they’re dead."

In some cases, coyotes simply wait for sheep to be let out to pasture, he said. Meantime, beef farmers have to get their cows that are about to freshen into the barn or they will lose their calves, he said. While coyotes used to travel in packs of four, he says they now travel in packs of up to 20. The county last month announced it will pay a bounty for killing coyotes.

One farm in October lost 15 sheep in one night and two nights later lost seven more, he said. "The first night coyotes totally consumed four animals, about 300 lbs. of meat," he said. "There had to be 12 to 20 coyotes there to clean up all that meat. When I got there that barnyard looked like a battlefield. There were carcasses all over the place. It was unbelievable."

He added: "You tell me what farmer can stand all those losses. If that’s not a case of those coyotes being totally out of control, I don’t know what is."

Redner, who keeps track of predator kills, noted that predators attacks have more than doubled in five years. In the county last year predators, mostly coyotes and wolves, killed 1.5 animals per day in January and almost two animals every day in October. Over the entire year, the county lost 374 animals to predators, he said. "I see the sad and ugly part of nature."