I’m out and about, or here or there, or somewhere that’s not farm-ish, or somewhere that is farm-ish, and people learn that we raise no small amount of poultry, free ranging on our farm…

 

“I bet you worry about the coyote, yeah?”

“Aren’t you worried about coyote?”

“You probably have to worry about the coyote, right?”

 

Absolutely, I’m worried about the coyote.

 

But NOT for the reasons you’d think.

 

I don’t worry about the coyote taking poultry or baby livestock. I don’t worry about coyote running off with the barn cats. I don’t worry that the coyote are going to lure Larson or any of the other goon squad house dogs out into the woods and unalive them.

 

I don’t worry about the coyote as it relates to the coyote’s behavior.

 

I worry about the coyote as it relates to humanoids, the false narratives spread by humanoids, and the humanoids that love to talk big about suppression and infrared and if it’s brown it’s down.

I worry about the people on NextDoor and Facebook and Instagram and where ever else people congregate to yap about anything and everything, often without much regard for the truth. Social media has the capacity for so much good… but a lot of it has replaced the old school telephone party line, or the church prayer list, or the PTA phone tree. It’s the end cap of the snack aisle at the neighborhood grocery store where traffic jams of buggies ensure shoppers hear the latest gossip about So & So. Lots of people, excited beyond reason, to share what they think they know, and to hell with the consequences so long as they aren’t the ones to suffer them. We’ve become a culture with access to a tremendous amount of accurate information but so many times, very little interest in availing ourselves of it.

 

And before anyone reading this rolls their eyes and mumbles something about “city folks” or “tree huggers” or some other pejorative remark about people who seem to care about wildlife and the environment, let me just interject that MANY times the worst offenders when it comes to a reluctance to embrace fact based information as it relates to coyote, in particular, are the very folks who profess ethical stewardship of land and resources. Now you can roll your eyes at ME…but I said what I said.

 

Canis latrans, your average run of the mill eastern coyote, was not brought here by the government to reduce deer populations. You can thank some of the hunt clubs for the few they brought in, BUT the real reason we seen them east of the Mississippi River at this point is simple: we extirpated the apex predators and Mother Nature absolutely abhors a vacuum. If you create a hole in the habitat, she’s gonna fill it. Furthermore, evidence supports coyote movement based on HUMAN activity. We’re pretty trashy…we generate a lot of waste and that waste attracts rodents and guess who loves a hearty meal of rodents? Coyote.

 

While coyote (like all wildlife) are most interested in the easiest meal available (eg the cat food left at feral cat colonies or out on your back deck for the stray that comes around), coyote eat LOTS of small mammals – mice, rats, bunnies, musk rats…small reptiles, birds, insects, dead things, and dumpster diving for human garbage. Will the coyote make off with your toy poodle or shih tzu or cat if that’s the easiest meal? 100%. Which is why you should be supervising the aforementioned teensies. But that’s your responsibility.  It’s also your responsibility to supervise your larger dogs…because coyote aren’t luring them to the woods to unalive them…your unattended doodle or lab or golden or whatever enters territory the coyote claim are interlopers - and coyote defend against interlopers. They don’t acknowledge specs on a land deed; it’s your responsibility to supervise your pet. Without coyote filling that apex predator slot, what do you think happens to populations of rodents and small mammals? And when those populations explode, what’s the answer? Poison? Glue traps? Some other horrible death that often includes the death of an unintended target…like songbirds or owls or other raptors? Coyote fill a niche in the ecosystem that humans created by wiping out the animals Mother Nature already had in place.

 

But I totally understand that the presence of coyote can freak people out; I’ve been there. When I was depending on confidently conveyed but oh-so-wrong information about the coyote, I was fearful. And then I realized that wrong information producing nothing much other than fearfulness, isn’t actually helpful in any way. Facts and accurate information – whether it’s about spiders or snakes or coyote – do a lot to combat worry and fear. So, here are a few facts about coyote that you can depend upon:

 

Eastern coyote vocalizations make it sound like there’s dozens of animals in their “pack.” It should make you feel better to know it’s usually just the parent animals (a single pair of breeding animals; 1 male, 1 female) and maybe two to three juveniles/non-breeding coyote, and sometimes older pups who have earned the privilege of mobility away from the den. That’s it. If you’re on a fishing boat and one of the crew tells you his buddy has a pack of fifty to sixty coyote hunting his cattle farm every night, just nod and say wow and keep fishing while knowing that isn’t true. (This oddly specific example generated by real life and no one is arguing with crew when you’re in blue water off shore.)

 

Eastern coyote can have a mishmash of DNA but they are not some giant dire-wolf coy-dog Franken-K9 of astounding size. Average size is 35-40 pounds. That’s the same size as current farm resident Scout, a beagle cross, with a nose for trouble and counter surfing. Because genetics are super cool, you’ll find coyote in an array of color schemes and body shapes; some are more leggy than others, giving them a more German Shepherd type look, especially when they’re in winter coat. But they just aren’t that big. For point of reference, the Pyrenees in this picture (the infamous Hazel), weighs about 85 pounds. Our largest livestock guardian dog is a fit 120 pounds. We know dogs around here, big ‘uns and little ‘uns…and coyote just aren’t anything more than a really average medium-ish size. Coyote are incredible survivalists not by brut force or Schwarzenegger strength, but by their wits. They are (in the voice of Casey Affleck in Good Will Hunting) wicked smart.

 

There is a wonderful book about animal intelligence by Frans De Waal, titled Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? It’s worth a read and shines light on the gaps in our immediate understanding about how animals interact with the world and their environment. Intelligence is not simply a pyramid with humans at the top of the brainiac chain. Once you view coyote as something other than an over-embellished killing machine that’s trying to take over the world, their brilliance becomes evident. In addition to complex vocalizations and social structures, they are excellent problem solvers and have astounding memories. They rapidly adjust their behaviors in response to their environment…plasticity instead of just evolutionary. This is why you will find them living successfully in ALL types of environments – from the wildest of wilds to urban settings where they’ve been known to accidentally “shop” at the corner bodega. Because they are so smart and happy to shape-shift in order to survive, the best way to navigate coyote is to co-exist and embrace non-lethal management.

 

Now that the camo-crowd is fully wound up over the mere mention of non-lethal management, let me dump some more important info…

 

Coyote are reproductively responsive. This means that if/when their family numbers come under lethal pressure (eg the one breeding female in a family group gets picked off by that guy you off NextDoor who offered to show up at night and “solve” your so-called coyote problem), the family group responds by increasing the odds of survival. Non-breeding females will come into estrus and breed; litter sizes will increase. Efforts at indiscriminate lethal management actually just make any problems caused by the presence of coyote, worse. Outsmarting the coyote; however, and managing the resident family group, has much more positive effects for everyone involved. Habitats are not destabilized when you learn to manage your residents (remember Mother Nature hates a vacuum and she always bats last…unaliving the entire family of coyote simply means the habitat now has space for a new family). And there are a lot of easy-enough ways to effectively manage coyote without resorting to pew-pewing everything.

 

Because we are involved in livestock guardian dog rescue/rehab/rehome, I do no small amount of consult with folks who are considering adding LGD to their farm/homestead. The first thing I always ask is what they’ve already got in the way of deterrents to dissuade the wildlife from taking poultry or livestock. I always, always, always recommend the following deterrents to manage the wildlife: strategically placed electric fencing (addition to existing fencing or stand alone on step in posts; compost bins, chicken coops, and rabbit hutches can also be “wrapped”), fladry, solar-powered predator eye lights, apex predator urine (you can also use things like hair from the barber shop floor in knee high stockings, hung at perimeters and moved frequently; pungent smelling bars of soap hung the same way can effect wildlife traffic patterns), portable radios (again, move them around to different locations), motion lights, motion activated sprinkler systems (only where it doesn’t freeze), and hazing. Coyote – and all foraging/hunting wildlife – depend in part on stability. They don’t like the strange and unusual; wildlife is generally quite risk averse. If the habitat feels risky and unstable, they tend to avoid it. This is why you change things up with the portable radios and smelly things. And if you actually see the coyote…grab some baking pans and head to the yard, yelling at the animal and banging those pots and pans together. Disrupt and be loud and stinky about it.

 

If you’ve gotten this far into today’s ramblings, you’re probably still wondering why I am worried about coyote. I’m worried about coyote because, like all the wildlife (and US), they have a place in the ecosystem. Whether we like it or not, the ecosystem has a design…those pesky mosquitoes and ticks that cause us such trouble, are actually food for animals we deem cute or cool enough to live alongside us. Dragonflies consume mosquito larvae; birds eat ticks. Remove food sources with Captain Death Cloud pesticides and you’ve just taken a hard hit at the songbirds you enjoy…or the magical dragonflies that bring a smile to your face. Coyote are no different; they aren’t here to heist the family car, steal your hard-earned cash, or knock up your daughter…they aren’t criminals. My worry comes from the fact that SO many people have decided that they are criminals and then the humans behave accordingly…freaking out and posting reactively on social media; others grabbing an array of lethal tools and heading to the scene of “last seen.” While the misinformation runs rough shod over facts, the developers continue to wipe out swaths of green space, cutting forest to the ground, bulldozing the horizon, and recreating a new habitat that is suitable only for novel fescue and HOA rules that serve the good of nothing except aesthetics. Warehouses line interstate corridors in the hopes of housing the stuff we just can’t live without, and the promise of economic prosperity and jobs…a promise that is all too often mythical, and the cost to the environment rather high and permanent.  All this meddling with the natural world and its non-human inhabitants appears rather unchecked at this point…the area where I live, becomes more and more brown and asphalt black every day. Where are the voices to speak up against destroying the environments that support life? The silence is deafening.

 

So, yeah, I worry about the coyote.

 

For additional information from people who are in the know, we recommend a trip to www.atlantacoyoteproject.org. Lots of great, accurate info you can depend upon.