Ontario, Canada Wildlife Officials talking common sense regarding human coexistance with Coyotes--Our friend Marc Beckoff is quoted in this article as well................Once again noted how coyotes bounce back from human culling only to have bigger litters..................They are like us people............resilient under duress................so let us figure out a way to coexist..................

People need to educate themselves about coyotes

 

By Laurel A. Beechey

Coyotes are in the news and depending on whether you are a farmer or an animal lover the news of the bounty on coyote pelts is either good or bad. But what most people have in common is their lack of knowledge about the coyote and the plight it is now in.

Coyotes in the past were in Western United States however the encroachment of humans has pushed the species across North America.
Coyotes are often mistaken for wolves when in actuality they are slimmer and smaller. In most cases they have a tawny gray fur, often with yellowish legs, paws, muzzle and back of their ears. The tail is usually a light fawn colour on the underside, darker on top and has a black tip.  [Coyotes in high altitudes have different markings]  As with most species in the animal kingdom they will go through cycles and obviously right now the coyote is at its peak. Because humans choose to continually remove wildlife habitat, coyotes like raccoons, skunks and opossums have learned to live in urban settings.
In the wild these adaptable animals will eat almost anything. They hunt rabbits, rodents, rats, mice fish, frogs, and even deer. They also happily chow down on insects, snakes, fruit, grass, and carrion.  Coyotes have keen vision and a strong sense of smell. They can run up to 40 miles (64 kilometers) an hour. In the fall and winter, they can form packs for more effective hunting although the standard is usually that they travel in twos.Coyotes form strong family groups. In spring, females den and give birth to litters of three to twelve pups. Both parents feed and protect their young and their territory. The pups are able to hunt on their own by the following fall.
The first to notice the increase numbers is usually the farmer who can lose livestock, such as lambs, calves and occasionally if in large packs cows. Understandably the farmers regard them as destructive pests. Marc Bekoff, who has done intense studies on coyotes states that scientific research has shows over and over that coyotes actually do very little damage to livestock, claiming disease and unsanitary conditions cause more livestock death than all predators put together.
As the coyotes have been forced into an urban setting they have changed their menus to include cats, small dogs and other small pets, understandably urbanites get upset too, although to some the 'natural' way to decrease the feral cat, rat and mouse populations is acceptable. Cities like Chicago have a large coyote population
Despite billions of dollars in predator control, over 60 years in the US, it has been found that the coyote populations have not decreased. It seems like a few other species that the more you kill or remove coyotes from their habitat the quicker they re-produce and have an increase in litter sizes. So culling only depreciates the numbers for a small window of time then you have increased numbers. Coyotes are also classified as an apex predator, [when larger wolves are not present] which means they are at the top of their food chain and therefore have a crucial role in maintaining the numbers of species below them. Take a look at the menu list above that they control for us.

Some have used the fatal attack on Taylor Mitchell, 'supposed' by coyotes to create fear and legitimatize the pelt bounty cull on coyotes. Taylor is the second fatal coyote attack ever recorded! In a 45 year period there were 142 attacks [not kills] on humans in the US by coyotes. Compare that to 1000 attacks by dogs, every day and in 2010, 34 fatal dog attacks.

Most animals don't attack unless they are threatened or starving. Humans are invading more and more wilderness every year, hiking and skiing. What do you expect these animals to do?
I have just been to a wildlife conference, here in Ontario and after attending the 'Scoptic Mange epidemic in Coyotes and Fox' I would say you can follow the MNR's usual advice to 'let nature take its course' because the mange will do the killing for them.What we need is for the MNR to come up with ways to teach humans to co-exist with and manage wildlife without wholesale slaughter.