OSGOODE — In the absence of an officially sanctioned coyote cull, rural residents across eastern Ontario are coming up with creative ways to control the varmints.

Colleen Acres, of Osgoode, south of Ottawa, has lost 20 ewes this year to coyotes. She has three donkeys, three dogs and a llama to protect her sheep.

Last fall, she strategically left a carcass where it dropped 10 feet from the barn. That night a returning coyote was shot.

She charges hunters $100 for access to her property and refunds the money if they kill a coyote.

By mid-August last year, Mary Clouthier, of Newburg, near Napanee, had lost six lambs and moved her flock closer to home. But that meant she could no longer use her ample farm pastures. Coyotes were killing her business.

So, she collected 1,500 names on a petition to restore the wolf and coyote bounty and will soon present the petition to the provincial government.

She posted the petition at 13 locations and one in every four residents signed, virtually everybody in the village over 16.

The Osgoode Township Fish, Game and Conservation club sponsored a "Great Coyote Kill Contest" in an effort to thin out the predators. A hunter need only bring in proof of a kill, pay a $2 fee and his name would be put in a draw to win a shotgun.

One director, Paul Mussell, thought he and the club were doing the community a great favour. Twenty or more cats and dogs had been killed by coyotes in the area and a young man was attacked in an orchard. "They are killing the deer and they’re going to spread through the city," he said. Osgoode is part of the newly amalgamated City of Ottawa.

But some urbanites have turned against the scheme, to some degree inflamed by the recent front page headline of The Ottawa Sun: "Killer contest".

The president of the Ottawa-Carleton Wildlife Centre said the contest "casts shame on the city," but a contest has been running for the past two years with a prize for the biggest deer shot.

Ottawa Sun columnist Earl Mcrae depicted the Osgoode club members as uneducated buffoons. "Da club is sayin’ coyotes is takin’ ovah…" writes McCrae with sarcasm.

Coyotes killed almost 6,000 sheep last year in Ontario and the province paid out $1.3 million in compensation to farmers.