coyotes and human knee jerk responses

John Harrigan's Woods, Water & Wildlife: Coyotes, wolves, and double standards

 

By JOHN HARRIGAN
Woods, Water and Wildlife
Sunday, Jun. 27, 2010

Broaching the subject of coyotes and wolves is sailing into shoal waters. Coyotes in particular invoke almost visceral hatred and anger among some people, while wolves occupy a wilderness-evoking, almost worshipful niche in the range of human emotions.

When I write about coyotes, I'm certain to get angry letters, because when we hear them yip in summer we steal out onto the deck to yip back, and because we get along with the coyotes living around our farm. They know the rules (hot fences, pasture guard-dogs), and we do not persecute them. Why train a whole new bunch?

Nor do we seem to lack for game. The coyotes take their slice of the pie, we take ours. We sometimes drop farm tools for shotguns, and have little trouble bringing home something for supper.

 

Yet I've been upbraided at social occasions for being a witless in- cahoots-with-Officialdom coyote-lover, ignorant of the fact that coyotes kill deer. My response that I have nothing to do with Officialdom, and that (duh) of course coyotes take deer, and that they are evolving into more of a pack-hunting, ever-bigger brush-wolf and thus are getting better and better at it, tends to fall on deaf ears.

The end-nut of the thing is that I have nothing to do with "coyote policy," whatever that is, and don't think there should be any policy anyway. The coyote just is, and we don't really count in the equation. It's a responsive breeder that will survive the most ruthless eradication efforts. And it is occupying the niche left vacant by our own ruthless persecution of the native wolf.

And therein we turn the page into a whole new chapter in the book on human perception, how we regard the wolf. The March issue of National Geographic carried a lengthy piece, "Wolf Wars," which garnered lots of letters, eight of which ran in the July issue -- a huge number for a single topic. It points up the extreme emotions the wolf brings to the fore.

There is this: We farm, and have been pretty heavily into the sheep business, and know our canines, and are sure we've had at least three visits from wolves.

And there is this: "Officialdom" quietly believes that at least disperser males, and perhaps denning females, are in the general territory, to the point of deer-yard-kill investigations and summer howl-listening surveys and winter tracking checks in northwestern Maine.

There is so much more to this story, more than there is space here to relate. But two thoughts prevail. Why do we think we can or should dictate the story that unfolds in field, swamp and woods? It can, will and should go on without our meddling.

And how can we profess to love, adore and worship the wolf while we shoot, snare, trap and poison its poor close-cousin the coyote, like just another rat at the dump?

John Harrigan's outdoors column appears weekly. His address is Box 39, Colebrook NH 03576. His e-mail is hooligan@ncia.net.