The killing of two coyotes at the Vashon Sheepdog Classic has prompted some to call for a community conversation about how to best live with the island’s increasing coyote population.

Shortly after dawn the first morning of the sheepdog trials last month, organizers found the bodies of two sheep who had been killed in the event field by coyotes the night before. Later, they found the carcass of a third sheep, also taken down by a coyote.

“We were shocked and saddened by the attacks,” said Maggi McClure, who has served as the primary organizer of the event for the last five years.

For assistance, McClure turned to the Wildlife Services division of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which sent officials out to the event at Misty Isle Farm to assess the situation and protect the sheep, in the end killing two coyotes from a family group of six that came to the field that night.

“I am so grateful to have their help in keeping the rest of the flock safe,” McClure said, noting she felt a strong need to protect the 300 sheep, which were brought in for the event from a ranch in Brownsville, Oregon.

“The role of the sheepdog trial is to maintain the health and integrity of the flock. We have to be as compassionate with those sheep as we can be,” she said.

Not far from the event field, however, Michael Tracy lives on 17 acres near the Christianson Creek ravine and says he and some of his neighbors are disturbed by the killing of the coyotes.

“People who live around here, we consider ourselves very lucky. This is one of the more wild areas of Vashon-Maury Island. … I am shocked and upset that this action was taken against coyotes in our area,” he said.

When Tracy moved to Vashon three years ago, he heard coyotes howl around his home, but thinks hunters killed some or all of that family. In February, he began to hear coyotes again and believes they were denning on his property or near it. In July, during the Bioblitz, a 24-hour species survey on Vashon, he and others were careful not to disturb the coyotes, he said, adding that in some ways he and his neighbors felt that they had adopted the coyotes.

“We were glad the family had reestablished itself here,” he said. “We just know how important it is to have a top predator. It completes the whole idea of having a healthy environment on Vashon Island.”

Originally found only the American Southwest, coyotes’ range now stretches from Alaska to Panama. They appeared to have established themselves on Vashon only about a decade ago, and for a long time were seldom seen. Now, according to  Andy Cleland, a wildlife specialist and urban coyote coordinator with the USDA, the animals are on Vashon to stay, bringing with them benefits, such as rodent and deer control, and challenges, including potential tension between livestock and pet owners and those who say they would like the island to remain as wild as possible and the coyotes to be left alone.

Cleland was one of the two USDA officials who came to the sheepdog trials to provide assistance after the sheep were killed.

When responding to a call, he said, he and his colleagues always look first for non-lethal means of intervention, but he noted that non-lethal methods typically work best with young, inexperienced coyotes — the opposite of what he encountered at the Vashon field.

“These were some of the cleanest takedowns of sheep I have ever seen,” he said.

The human and canine presence at the field was notable, he added, with volunteers, dog handlers and dogs all staying overnight there. Typically, he said, that alone would have deterred most coyotes, and it indicated to him the need to “kick start” an intervention.

As night fell, organizers moved the sheep to one end of the field, and about an hour after dark, Cleland said, six coyotes came to the field and began to feed on the carcasses from the previous night, located at the field’s other end. One coyote, however, bypassed the carcasses and was headed toward the sheep, clearly hunting.

The agents intervened and shot the coyote, later determined to be a mature female and most likely the coyote that had killed the sheep the night before.

Typically, Cleland said, the shooting of one coyote deters other coyotes from returning, but just two hours later, the remaining five coyotes appeared at the field again.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Cleland said. “Just by the fact that these coyotes were here, we had observed atypical behavior.”

As another coyote began to hunt, it was shot too, this one a juvenile, likely six to seven months old.

After that, the coyotes left the field and were not seen again, which was the goal, according to Cleland.

“We are not after coyote eradication. We are after behavior modification,” he said.

Like Tracy, some other islanders have expressed concern over the killing of the coyotes and have wondered about potential alternatives to killing the wild animals, such as fencing the sheep at night or using guard dogs.

Cleland, though, said that neither of those options for a weekend trial would have worked, even though they may be effective in a more permanent setting.

There were no facilities to pen the sheep at the field, he noted, and the sheep would have broken out of an electric fence enclosure. Guard dogs were not a reasonable solution either, he added, as they must be raised with sheep and trained accordingly.

“You cannot just take a guard dog and expect it to guard the sheep,” he said.

In addition to struggling with the coyote attacks at Misty Isle — a place McClure said she knew coyotes had been spotted but had never heard of an attack nearby — she has been having difficulty with her own flock of sheep on Maury Island, having lost seven to coyotes since April.

“That is more than I have lost to dogs in the last 10 years,” she said.

So far, she said, she and the two women she owns the sheep with have not killed any coyotes, though they know there are at least three juveniles nearby. They have bought llamas, which are said to deter coyotes, and have resorted to locking the sheep up at night, which, as they stand in mud and waste, is a recipe for disease. She has seen coyotes on her property for three years, she said, even among her sheep, but has not had any problems until the numerous losses this spring and summer.

“It’s been a very expensive and upsetting year, for sure,” she said.

Vashon Nature Center’s director Bianca Perla said said she was surprised to hear of McClure’s difficulty, as the center has not received reports of coyotes in that area. The center, which has been informally tracking coyotes since 2011, has had reports of them from Wax Orchard Road  the north end, and Perla said she would like to be notified when people hear or see the animals or evidence of them.

Perla, who lives near Tracy and was familiar with the coyotes he discussed, calls the deaths of all the animals a “heavy-hearted incident,” but one that might produce some positive results.

“It was an eye opener for me. We need to start looking at living with coyotes and options for people to keep livestock safe,” she said. “The good thing that came from this is that it woke us all up and provided this focus and momentum that we should take forward.”

Indeed, people interested in the coyote issue on all sides are suggesting a community conversation, an idea Cleland also endorsed.

“I feel that we will continue to see a rise of conflicts with coyotes (on Vashon), and it is in everyone’s interest to be informed,” he said.

If the island has not yet reached its carrying capacity for coyotes, it will within a few years, he added. Vashon is 37 squares miles, and Cleland said he expects the island’s capacity would be one family group, with two to nine coyotes, for every 3 or 4 square miles.

Both Cleland and Perla say that to co-exist with coyotes, who are notoriously wily and adaptable, it is human behavior that will make a difference.

“The big success comes from keeping them wild and acting wild and keeping them afraid of human beings,” Perla said. “How we handle our pets, livestock, trash piles, recycling and compost — not letting them have access to those things — will determine how successful we are at keeping them wild.”

Cleland concurs, saying that coyotes are a product of their experiences and when people see coyotes, they should do some something to deter them, whether it be making noise or throwing stones nearby.

“Whatever we have to do to make that coyote feel afraid, that is what we have to do,” he said.

Tracy, the neighbor who was upset about the killings, noted that dealing with coyotes and other top predators can be a contentious topic.

“We know in so many Western states it has become like open warfare,” he said. “We do not want that. We do not want it to be a fight, us against them.”

Perla agrees. “Vashon is about innovation. We have good thinkers and reasonable people, and it would not be so in other communities,” she said. “We might be able to solve this, or at least try.”

As for McClure, she said she will be ready for the popular sheepdog trials next year and will enlist night volunteers to keep any coyotes a safe distance away.

“We were just caught off guard,” she said. “We’re ready now. We won’t have another issue. We will have folks patrolling. It won’t happen again.”