More "eco ramblings" on the historical faunal conditions of the Eastern woodlands and whether they can again be rewilded in the 21st Century--Tennessee Biologist Dr. Allan Houston and I "throwing it back and forth(round 2)

-----Original Message-----
From: Dr. Allan E. Houston [mailto:ahouston@amesplantation.org]
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 9:25 AM
To: Meril, Rick

Subject: ARE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs

You bet, but the fact remains that they would not "fit" in what they would find to be an altered system; and this new paradigm, this new system, unfortunately, has in it human values, good'n'ill for and against cougars as they would live in the midst of roads and children at school bus stops (remind me to tell you of the the Montana grizzly).  You and I have perhaps two view points, each of us sharing similar dreams and realities, but having differing  portions of each. I would accuse you of being a romantic (not a bad thing) and you might accuse me of being a practical knot head (also a few needed); but I will include below a writing that I just completed to at least buffer some of my neanderthalities:

. . . .  "Anyway, the bear and I soon parted ways, amicably enough, and as I was easing back down the coulee I saw a mule deer about 40 yards to my right. I was camouflaged from head to toe, looking much like a walking bit of landscape.   She did not know what I was and stood still, unsophisticated and mesmerized, peering at me like a gabby old girl trying to get a good look at the miracle of a walking tree so she could tell it to the neighborhood later.  She owed me more than she would ever know. 

            Suddenly, I saw a coyote flash down behind a bit of sage just ahead.  I put the binoculars on him and it was not a coyote but a cougar.  And . . . there was not even an ounce of doubt . . .  the way the cat was crouching behind the grass - eyes ablaze and boring in on me - switching among the stems trying to get a better look - this cat thought I was something good to eat. 

            I knew they hunted cats in this area.  I had specifically asked.  It stood to reason that she would fear man. 

            My first impulsive thought was, "you devil, you're looking for a fight" and I took a step toward her.  She saw what I was and exploded out of the brush.  She ran to the left, away and up the mountain. She was about as long as a tan couch with a tail added.  She disappeared into the rocks in about the time it would have taken me to sneeze and wipe my nose.  I could not have made that little trip in less than half an hour.

            I took one more step and two more cougars, probably her 3/4-grown cubs, galloped off and into a copse of brush to my right.  I had interrupted these guys from taking that doe out of the microwave.

            I stood for some time.  I was amazed.  I was fascinated.  I was hooked.

I had seen Cougars in the midst . . . "



__________________________________________________________________________________________

From: Meril, Rick [mailto:Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 11:13 AM

To: 'ahouston@amesplantation.org'
Subject: Re: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs

I am enjoyong our "professorial" chats and appreciate your indulgence........Allan, just think what a sight it would be for 6 wolves to be in full pursuit of an elk across your burnt patch.........or a cougar surprising one out of the brush piles---now that would be "a sight for sore eyes"
_________________________________________________________________________________________ 

From: Dr. Allan E. Houston <ahouston@amesplantation.org>
To: Meril, Rick
Sent: Thu Mar 03 09:04:05 2011

Subject: RE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
Us professors love to burn – hate to catch it when it gets away.

No buff or wolves – just rabbits.
____________________________________________________________________________________________
From: Meril, Rick [mailto:Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com]
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2011 9:26 AM

To: 'ahouston@amesplantation.org'
Subject: Re: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs

Get the buff back and the wolf

Sounds like u had a successful and enjoyable day

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

From: Dr. Allan E. Houston <ahouston@amesplantation.org>
To: Meril, Rick
Sent: Thu Mar 03 06:05:42 2011

Subject: RE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
King Cotton came to his thrown and the grass was plowed. . . . throne . . .  (some things can't be ignored)
Burned 50 acres of NWSG last evening – no perceptible wind, 50% humidity and had 40-foot flames.  It would kill trees and make the buffalo happy.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

-----Original Message-----
From: Meril, Rick [mailto:Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com]

Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 4:39 PM
To: 'ahouston@amesplantation.org'
Subject: Re: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
Good evening mr Allan

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
----- Original Message -----
From: Dr. Allan E. Houston <ahouston@amesplantation.org>
To: Meril, Rick
Sent: Wed Mar 02 13:34:38 2011
Subject: RE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
The second growth forest was largely in place when the settlers arrived.
Remnant buffalo and elk populations were not as great as they once had been.
They too were in decline as were the top-tier predators, always on the
teetery tip of the survival pyramid.
Predators were here.  The very first court session in Fayette County in
western Tennessee was held in a settler's house and the first order of
business was to put a bounty on wolves.  But what killed the wolf off was
removal of habitat for elk and bison and that was when King Cotton came to
his thrown and the grass was plowed.
When Indian populations were decimated burning regimes largely ceased as did
the considerable social structure that maintained the long term
institutional (tribal) memory and resulting sophistication to apply
ecological tenets. The settlers in Tennessee found a forest, with open areas
still existing, but slowly being captured by forests.  These open areas were
called barrens and were the last to be claimed, the settlers thinking them
to be, because they supported only grass, poorer sites.  Instead the barrens
were the riches, being the last to be a abandoned by Indians in a regular
burning regime.
For many folks a return to "natural" means a return to pervasive forest
lands - for others, pre-Columbian grasslands - for others removal of the
Wal-Mmart across the road.
And the biggest threat to the cougar would be the eastern road systems.  If
you travel through the Everglades, "don't run over cougara' signs are
everywhere.  Often to no avail.  Genetic islands, such as in the Everglades
also would present a problem; a lack of gene flow would develop some funny
and sad looking cougars.
I am a champion of ecological integrity . . . a thing, along with stability
and beauty that Leopold warned us to treat with careful and hands.  But
integrity is hard to define - I believe it comes down to function and
membership.  Who is missing that should be there and how does the system
process inputs?  There is much to consider -- with membership alone, Yorkies
and Golden Retrievers are not original card holders.
Restoration of membership in altered systems is a tricky thought - but elk
are being re-introduced to one area in Tennessee, so successfully that small
quota hunts are now enabled.
Hurrah!

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

-----Original Message-----
From: Meril, Rick [mailto:Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 12:04 PM
To: Dr. Allan E. Houston
Subject: RE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
- Show quoted text -
agreed on Smokey........................but as the Yellowstone fire broughtto everyones attention, Western fire outbreak has been prolific foryears(even though we go to lenghts to extinguish)..................And withwarming temps, accelerated over past 30 seasons.............Dr. Allan................the Buffalo were long exterminated prior to Smokeyadvertising campaign(as u well know).................Where you live andthroughout the East, 40 to 50 inches of rainfall annually had forest as theprimary landscape component(exceptions abound,irealize)..................Remember, that 90% of the Indians were dead ofEuropean disease by 1600 Jamestown, Plymouth and New Amsterdamsettlement..........The French, Spanish, Dutch, Russian, and EnglishExplorers and trappers(16th century)smote the indigenous folks pretty goodwith small pox, fevers and the like...................If as you say, therewas a regmine of native American burning, it ceased for a good 100 yearswith Forest regrowth--yet Elk and Bison were still staples with white tails,Moose and Caribou(Northern States for the latter two) in the early and mid17th century as the Atlantic Colonies established themselves...........Wherethere were Bison, there were Bison eating Wolves................Where therewere Elk and Deer(moose and caribou), F. concolor(Cougars) were at theirheels.......................I think our big Cat and Dog could figure it out again...................andyes, the Yorkies would have to be watched constantly!_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 8:45 AM
To: Meril, Rick
Subject: RE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
Not as efficiently.  I have only now begun thinking about this, in fact have
only lately learned of it.  But there are some intriguing ideas - if the
leaves were as thick and essentially pristine as I have seen it reported, it
partly explains how the fires were hot enough to reach a "stand replacement"
intensity.  Once the trees were killed, maintenance of a savannah would have
been no more complex than application of a periodic fire regime to keep the
trees at bay.
A few years ago I took a professional trip to the big western prairies. I
wanted badly to one.  The bus rocked to a stop and we got out.  We were in a
stand of small trees as thick as a July cornfield. Our guide said, "welcome
to the tall-grass prairies."  Well, now, this did not seem right; I felt
sure that John Wayne would not have approved and would have said so.  Our
guide explained that this spot had been in prairie within living memory (and
aerial photo certainty), but with the removal of fire, trees had invaded.
We went another 8 miles (or so) and stepped out into the open grasslands
that were indeed prairie - just like I'd seen on TV, and there were buffalo
dotted around on the rolling landscape.  However and ominously, we could see
on the horizon a dark smudge of hardwoods, a line of trees that marked the
edge of the forest.  Our guide told us that at the current rate of spread,
the trees would be where we were within a decade or two.  And that the
buffalo would not live here.
Guides know everything.
Smokey the Bear killed the buffalo - if they are no longer there or where
Elk do not prosper.  The most effective advertising campaign of all time,
inadvertently killed the quail and many other ground nesting birds requiring
open grasslands - and bison.
The great Yellowstone fire was a blessing.
From: Meril, Rick [mailto:Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2011 4:54 PM

______________________________________________________________
To: 'ahouston@amesplantation.org'
Subject: Re: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
I realize earthworms were only native to more northern climes during
colonial times......but there had to be a consortium of other native
decomposers at work in the woods??

From: Meril, Rick
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 10:03 AM
To: Dr. Allan E. Houston

Subject: RE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs

agreed on Smokey........................but as the Yellowstone fire brought to everyones attention, Western fire outbreak has been prolific for years(even though we go to lenghts to extinguish)..................And with warming temps, accelerated over past 30 seasons.............
Dr. Allan................the Buffalo were long exterminated prior to Smokey advertising campaign(as u well know).................Where you live and throughout the East, 40 to 50 inches of rainfall annually had forest as the primary landscape component(exceptions abound,i realize)..................Remember, that 90% of the Indians were dead of European disease by 1600 Jamestown, Plymouth and New Amsterdam settlement..........The French, Spanish, Dutch, Russian, and English Explorers and trappers(16th century)smote the indigenous folks pretty good with small pox, fevers and the like...................If as you say, there was a regmine of native American burning, it ceased for a good 100 years with Forest regrowth--yet Elk and Bison were still staples with white tails, Moose and Caribou(Northern States for the latter two) in the early and mid 17th century as the Atlantic Colonies established themselves...........Where there were Bison, there were Bison eating Wolves................Where there were Elk and Deer(moose and caribou), F. concolor(Cougars) were at their heels.......................
I think our big Cat and Dog could figure it out again...................and yes, the Yorkies would have to be watched constantly!
________________________________
From: Dr. Allan E. Houston [ahouston@amesplantation.org]
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 8:45 AM
To: Meril, Rick
Subject: RE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs

Not as efficiently.  I have only now begun thinking about this, in fact have only lately learned of it.  But there are some intriguing ideas – if the leaves were as thick and essentially pristine as I have seen it reported, it partly explains how the fires were hot enough to reach a "stand replacement" intensity.  Once the trees were killed, maintenance of a savannah would have been no more complex than application of a periodic fire regime to keep the trees at bay.
A few years ago I took a professional trip to the big western prairies. I wanted badly to one.  The bus rocked to a stop and we got out.  We were in a stand of small trees as thick as a July cornfield. Our guide said, "welcome  to the tall-grass prairies."  Well, now, this did not seem right; I felt sure that John Wayne would not have approved and would have said so.  Our guide explained that this spot had been in prairie within living memory (and aerial photo certainty), but with the removal of fire, trees had invaded.  We went another 8 miles (or so) and stepped out into the open grasslands that were indeed prairie – just like I'd seen on TV, and there were buffalo dotted around on the rolling landscape.  However and ominously, we could see on the horizon a dark smudge of hardwoods, a line of trees that marked the edge of the forest.  Our guide told us that at the current rate of spread, the trees would be where we were within a decade or two.  And that the buffalo would not live here.
Guides know everything.
Smokey the Bear killed the buffalo – if they are no longer there or where Elk do not prosper.  The most effective advertising campaign of all time, inadvertently killed the quail and many other ground nesting birds requiring open grasslands – and bison.
The great Yellowstone fire was a blessing.

From: Meril, Rick [mailto:Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2011 4:54 PM
To: 'ahouston@amesplantation.org'
Subject: Re: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs

I realize earthworms were only native to more northern climes during colonial times......but there had to be a consortium of other native decomposers at work in the woods??

________________________________
From: Dr. Allan E. Houston <ahouston@amesplantation.org>
To: Meril, Rick
Sent: Tue Mar 01 13:40:48 2011
Subject: RE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
I am compelled to believe the burning scenario – before the earthworm was introduced the woods were "snow-drifted" with leaves and burned hot.  Some work in the south suggests a very regular burning regime.  Bison and elk – and their associated predators, cougars and wolves would not have been able to survive in any number without prairie-like conditions and we still have the seed bank from those old NWSG's.

From: Meril, Rick [mailto:Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com]
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2011 5:53 PM
- Show quoted text -
To: 'ahouston@amesplantation.org'
Subject: Re: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
David Foster(Harvard Forest in .assachesetts) and Emily Russell(lost track of her but a landscape ecologist) have looked at the research and concluded that native burning of forests was quite minimal and where it did occur was localized in nature.......The charcoal records and peat bog records do not reflect native burning as many state(circa 1000-1600AD).
The above named researchers feel that burning the woods became a regularly practiced phenomena as the indian tribes got swept into the market economy hunting furs for for the Euripean trading comoanies in exchange for rifles and other metal household items......The woods got burned to strip it of available deerskins and the like.
And I am for a re-wilding of our landscape .........An Algonquin to Adirondacks.......A Maine thru green and white mtns.........hudson highlands down the spine of the appalachians to northern Georgia across to the Glades in Florida
The Yellowstone to Yukon initiative.......the skylands in new mexico and arizona.........a great plains wild corridor..........as yellostone has shown, the wolves, bears and cougars get their wild memories back real quick.....maybe all of us human animals can finally get our gear out of "Park" and into "Drive" as it relates to acknowledging that we are a part of all of this biophelia and not at war with it.

Perhaps a "humanity" lies within us to finally understand that the more diverse a landscape, the healthier for all of us going forward...
Allan, all the best and stay in touch........
Rick
________________________________
From: Dr. Allan E. Houston <ahouston@amesplantation.org>
To: Meril, Rick
Sent: Mon Feb 28 15:17:10 2011
Subject: RE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
First – define "health"  . . . do you define that in the context of a specific time in history or within a specific state of affairs? Do you want things to look like they were in 1491 – or perhaps 2011 with a few raggedy ends of populations thrown in to enrichen?  These are very different scales.  Very different also in terms of practicalities.
We messed up about the time we became an urban population.
And, yes, trophy hunters are not at all about what they shoot – but what they do not shoot.  A priori they have made the internal commitment to let young animals walk away – indeed that the youngsters essentially carry a refuge with them and one that is particularly in force when they are under the hunter's gun. Natural predators have no such internal commitments, only the unbiased outlook of growling bellies.
Quality Deer Management is the nearest mimic to completely opportunist predation and subsistence – a balance of hunter and hunted and land.  Pretty good notion and one that is catching on.
However, back to the question -  let's examine the premise of adding the eastern (red) wolf back into the landscape. If you desire to define "natural" as being specific place in time, then we can never re-build the spatial parameters and wildlife populations that were in place at that time, i.e., the supporting cast.  Too much, too many economies stand in the way, too robust and too rigid.  Good thing, maybe.  We'd starve otherwise. So, the red wolf is pretty much a stranger to the world it would find itself injected into.  If we use a specific state of affairs, with at least a smidgeon of wolf here and there, then once again the wolf is alien to the real world to which they would be expected to belong.  Red wolves may not fit so very well anymore.  They were shy even when the world suited them. But now, poking the red wolf into the mainstream eastern habitat would be a disaster for idea and wolf alike.  A dash here and there where shy needs are best fitted, sort of like an odd spice in a good salad.
Cougars.  Well, I'm all for them – if we can keep them off the back of my neck.
The current wildlife enrichment, unfortunately is coming about with the influx of exotics, usurpers that ape and morph the original "natural" states because they can occupy released space, actors on a stolen stage and once entrenched pretty stubborn about leaving.
Anyway, adding bears and lions and four more (oh my!) to the local deer population would strain the whole structure.  The gun did not kill the last bear and cougar in west Tennessee; the plow did.  Since then, we've plowed deep, far and wide, in the way men plow, dirt first,  then pavements and buildings and lawns.  The cougar would be a stranger, an alien.  He would not know the language.  He can't speak coyote and he'd need to learn.
"Forest health at its zenith" . . . if this is at the temporal zenith often assumed, pre-Columbian, it is the time when the native American populations had a prescribed burning regime in place and, purposely, the forests had been replaced by native warm season grasslands, kept in place to support ungulates, that supported predators, two and four-footed alike.  The Indians were quite sophisticated.  They disallowed pavement and killed competitors, probably two and four-footed alike come to think of it.
From: Meril, Rick [mailto:Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com]
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2011 4:43 PM
To: 'ahouston@amesplantation.org'
Subject: Re: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
Allan
Enjoy your prose.....while not a hunter myself, I have good friends who are and respect and have empathy for the satisfaction that they derive from the "stalk"
They acknowledge that while human hunters do depress sheer deer numbers every fall, that the reductions do not necessarily mimic the depradation that bear, wolf, cougar, bobcat, lynx and coyote bring to the table......meaning that most hunters want a buck with trophy points as well as meat in their lockers......yes, fish and game institutes anterless seasons to limit females, but I believe that when the 6 previosly mentioned carnivores along with man were at it in the woods, deer health as well as forest composition health was at it's zenith,,,,,,compared to the "munched on" eastern woodlands that we have so often today. Oak regeneration stunted due to Bambi and deer densities often 15 to 20 to even 30+ per sq mile versus the 10 or less per sq mile found east of the Mississippi River, circa 1600AD.
I think Eastern Wolf and cougar rewilding should be a goal of ours to re-establish the optimum health of the Forest.........what say you?
Rick
Thoughts?
________________________________
From: Dr. Allan E. Houston <ahouston@amesplantation.org>
To: Meril, Rick
Sent: Mon Feb 28 14:19:05 2011
Subject: RE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
To my mind, I would argue that "fault" had nothing to do with your Yorkie . . . unless the coyotes were peering over the fence and you knew about them, there is no way that a man can watch over a free agent – and be able to give reasonable and pleasant freedom within reasonable boundaries – and have any guarantees that something will not go wrong, unless he is totally able to give up all of his freedom, most often an unreasonable expectation.  Coyotes are opportunists, random in time but also purposeful in intent, a creature that probes for resources and studies the track of any Achilles' heel.  Hating them for being what they are carries with it no good result – unless, of course they are about to eat you out of house and home (something that it is easy to dismiss unless it is your house).  Then a little hate can be understood.  However, recognition of their natural proclivities and taking steps to insulate the things that need protection is wise (e.g., your fence), but fences come in all kinds of shapes and a population may require occasional management.  In a similar vein, it has been said that sometimes the best way to sustain a forest is with the judicious destruction of parts of it – meaning that a mature forest must make way for a new forest and . . . that a baby forest is still a forest, just not much appreciated.
Hunting is one way that this can be accomplished. Tennessee's deer population is held in mid-explosion by hunting. Pull off that restraint and a population out of control might turn a mildly ambivalent human population into a militant rabble, totally aggravated because the petunia's are nubbed to the ground and car insurance is out of sight.
I am a hunter and some would say a trophy hunter – although my walls will give open testimony to my inadequacies in that regard.  While I have no problem with coyote hunting (have done it a time or two and have shot more than one that was too bold around the house), I confess to being moderately disturbed and perhaps as a hunter libeled,  at the fist-pumping irreverence that the philosophical image of "dead dog walking" brings to mind.  It is a disturbing trend.  I have written about hunting and what I consider to be its traditions and charms.  The pressures of TV hunting undermines some of what I consider to be important.
You are right that we should not scrooge any population off the earth – unless it is some sort of disease about to wipe us all out or is dreadfully effective at maiming.  However, it has been said that coyotes are one of the most successful species on earth and that the last man on earth will look up with his last breath and see . . . . the face of a coyote.  Ecological laws being what they are, sort of a set of suggestions, I have changed that to be either a realtor or lawyer.
Sorry about that Yorkie.  I am a Golden Retriever man – and have two – although my wife just adopted a little black refuge' that showed up in a boney, flea-bitten and tick infested package . . .  heaven help me, I have been tempted to feed the little scoundrel to the local coyotes a time or two.  A Corgi/Jack Russell mix is bound to give indigestion.
From: Meril, Rick [mailto:Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com]
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2011 11:37 AM
To: 'ahouston@amesplantation.org'
Subject: Re: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
Allan
I had the same experiece with my 10 pound Yorkie being killed by a coyote in my yard.
I left him by himself thinking 5 foot concrete walls would insulate us from predation--WRONG........up and over the fence the coyote easily accomplished
I do not hate coyotes because of this
My fault for not being outside with my dog and being vigilant
I want a multi-specied world and not just the critters that "suit us" to be thriving......makes us a bit mor human to know that a bear, wolf, coyote, cougar bobcat and lynx can have as much power as w do...............and that these creatures have as much reason for being here as we do.
Thanks for collaborating Dr. Allan.
Rick
Do u have any papers(pdf) that u might send my way on this subject?
________________________________
From: Dr. Allan E. Houston <ahouston@amesplantation.org>
To: Meril, Rick
Sent: Mon Feb 28 09:15:54 2011
Subject: RE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
My uncle once had two little bitty dogs.  He let them out one night for a last chance bathroom break.  Almost before one got off of the porch a coyote grabbed it.  The second dog ran into the yard and beyond the night light, screamed a death scream.  Both dogs gone.  The next morning, distraught and pretty much committed to hating coyotes for a lifetime, my uncle went to his mower and was about to crank it up.  He heard a whimper and looked under the mower deck. There, huddled in a corner, was the second little dog.  It was alive and overjoyed at seeing my Uncle; but it was never too keen about potty trips in the dark.
Re: pets being taken.  Likely it is not the whole population that is doing the work.  Almost certainly it is a few animals that have learned how to do it.  They become specialists, having gained an "expertise."  It is one that they can pass (teach) to their young.  Generally removal of the bad actors it effective – if they can be identified.  Once the problem becomes "population-wide," to be stopped, the coyotes must be taught that such behavior is unproductive.  Once it gets to be population-wide, it is hard to fix.
Once upon a time we had a coyote learn to kill calves.  He would wait on one side of the fence and if a cow had trouble in the birth process and laid down, he would dash in and pull the partially emerged calf into the world, under the fence and then out of the world. We identified the coyote by his odd color, began to trap, eventually caught him and the problem went away. It went away because we very quickly removed the bad actor before he had a chance to recruit a bad gang of actors.
I have little patience with the hug a coyote group and no more for the kill-em-all crowd. There is a balance.
From: Meril, Rick [mailto:Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com]
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2011 9:53 AM
To: 'ahouston@amesplantation.org'
Subject: Re: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
Thank you Dr Houston.
A lot of pets being taken precipitated the hunter(who also films a hunting show) coming into memphis and somehow the tv station decided to interview him
Rick
________________________________
From: Dr. Allan E. Houston <ahouston@amesplantation.org>
To: Meril, Rick
Sent: Mon Feb 28 07:31:18 2011
Subject: RE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
I've looked over your materials and there is misinformation on both sides.
For example the following statement is patently wrong:
"Where one coyote family existed prior to being killed off, many times two new males split the abandoned territory and each then raise their own respective families(6 to 12 pups born annually per family). Counterintuitive that killing coyotes actually increases their numbers"
Habitat that can support one family group initially will not somehow be able to support two after the original family group is killed.  And rarely are whole family groups killed. The habitat is relatively fixed and coyotes do not somehow decide to reallocate resources that are not there.  Our government does that.
What is true is that coyotes can (and we do not know just how) regulate birth rates to adjust to habitat restrictions or abundance.  For example if coyotes are hunted very hard and populations lowered, then the population can respond with a greater number of young – and - if resources become scarce (perhaps with overpopulation or sudden habitat crash), birth rates are lowered.
For this reason, coyote populations are difficult to "control," certainly in the sense that they would be hunted to the point that they went away.  If populations are lowered, there is a compensatory mechanism that allows the population to quickly fill available habitat.
I just came back from Montana where the farmers/ranchers endure heavy losses annually to coyotes.  Control efforts are widespread, government supported, conducted with poisons, trapping and even aerial shooting – and coyote populations prosper.  The control efforts lessen depredation but they do not remove the population.  That has never been accomplished – anywhere – ever.
"Habitat" is many things, but it is very nearly foremost how much there is to eat.  And pets, if the coyote is allowed to take them, become food.
Belding's views are close to the mark, but a bit overstated and any statement to make the coyote look evil is just wrong.  The coyote simply goes about making his living as best he can – and he is very good at it  - very canny and very opportunistic.
Here is the thing that you must be careful about.  Promoting the coyote as something other than a wild animal, an animal very much unattached to any good will deeds done for it, can be a mistake.  Here is an example: a number of years ago I gave the keynote speech at the world-wide Vertebrate Pest Conference.  At that meeting a member of the California Fish and Game gave a talk and slide show about a county in California that had moved from coyote tolerance to coyote "adoption," i.e., they began to believe the coyote to be somehow a benign wildlife pet, and allowed the animal certain liberties. It began with people feeding them. Long story short: the animals began to kill pets, eat their food, bluff people off of picnic meals and finally there were 42 documented bites.  The final act was a coyote that attacked a small girl and might have killed her had her dad not arrived and had she not had a heavy winter coat on. She received 80 stitches and the coyote, "locked on," would not leave and came back the next day. This was not an "evil" coyote, it was just a coyote that had lost fear of humans and with accumulating disdain adapted an already opportunistic behavior to expand "habitat." California Fish and Game came in behind the incident, killed a bunch of coyotes and thereby restored a status quo that allowed children to wait in the dark for the school bus. The statement was: "those two legged things are dangerous, leave them alone."
Now, this does not mean that coyotes are a regularly dangerous animal – they are not.  But they can be conditioned to take liberties; and people/coyote relations can get to a point where the beneficent hand that was bitten is a bit confused. This is sometimes a hard notion for an urban population of folks who are several generations removed from the farm and the day-to-day relations with animals that gives a rather practical look at things. This is not to say that sensibilities are wrong, but they need to be attended with realities. And, of course, practicalities cannot spiral into indifference.
I do not know what precipitated this.  Why this hunter is coming to Memphis.  What or where the problem might be. It is true that there is a large number of hunters interested in coyote hunting (I also do not use the word sport and I am very much a hunter).  Hunting is what it is… hunting. But for this coyote fellow to come to Memphis, inside the city limits, did something specific bring him here?
The major coyote expert in this part of the world is Dr. Mike Kennedy at The University of Memphis. He has been studying the animal since populations were first established here.
Dr. Houston

.

________________________________
From: Meril, Rick
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 10:18 AM
To: Dr. Allan E. Houston
Subject: RE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs

Bartram after all was a mid 1700's naturalist........................a good 200 years after European fur trading economy induced the Indians to abandon their historical manner of coexisting(to a degree) with the animals that shared habitat with them and instead, hunt them to extinction in exchange for European trade goods..............Is there not a woodland bison species that still clings to life in Canada?
Realize that the majority of literature supports wholesale "conflaguration" of the habitat so as to alter for desired game species....................the pollen evidence prior to 1600 does not agree based on all sources that i have sought out.......................I agree, that there are 50 first hand accounts of native burning,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,they almost all reflect 1600 and forward evidences, not the primary record prior to European contact,,,,,,,,,,,And i agree that the final extinguisher of the plains indian culture, was their food source going by the wayside(bison) in favor of cattle and railroads.
________________________________
From: Dr. Allan E. Houston [ahouston@amesplantation.org]
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2011 8:29 AM
To: Meril, Rick
Subject: RE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs

Bison need prairie – or extensive grasslands.   That's the bottom line.  They are not a browser.  And, I know of no separate species or subspecies of bison that does not require grasslands.   There is just too much archaeological, verbal tradition and early historical records not to know that fire exited as a human applied regime. Native American knew well the benefits of fire – these were a people that developed corn from essentially a grass, genetic trials that required repeated trials and considerable institutional memory.  William Bartram reported that the Indians burned and that the woodland savannahs were so open that you could "gallop a horse in any direction."  I can direct you to considerable amounts of it – and while the one study you quote may have evidence, it may also be flawed or empirical – there are indeed unanswered questions but there are also unquestioned answers.
Yep. They burned.  And the southern cracker culture than came from herding clans of Scotland and Ireland brought with them the same tendency and for the same reasons.  They also burned and for any number or reasons, but largely to maintain the NWSG's to support their stock.  In fact, the "barrens" -large open areas that had not yet been capture by the "second growth" forest (released when European diseases unleashed an unforeseen genocide on the Indians)- were the remnants of the prairie.  The early southern settlers burned, farmed small patches, killed hawks and varmints – and the quail prospered.  Then came cotton, fescue and pine.  And everything changed.
Cotton killed the bison.  Wolf too.

From: Meril, Rick [mailto:Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 01, 2011 4:53 PM
To: 'ahouston@amesplantation.org'
Subject: Re: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs

Woodland bison not requiring prairie?.........
From: Dr. Allan E. Houston <ahouston@amesplantation.org>
To: Meril, Rick
Sent: Tue Mar 01 13:40:48 2011
Subject: RE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
I am compelled to believe the burning scenario – before the earthworm was introduced the woods were "snow-drifted" with leaves and burned hot.  Some work in the south suggests a very regular burning regime.  Bison and elk – and their associated predators, cougars and wolves would not have been able to survive in any number without prairie-like conditions and we still have the seed bank from those old NWSG's.
From: Meril, Rick [mailto:Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com]
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2011 5:53 PM
To: 'ahouston@amesplantation.org'
Subject: Re: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
David Foster(Harvard Forest in .assachesetts) and Emily Russell(lost track of her but a landscape ecologist) have looked at the research and concluded that native burning of forests was quite minimal and where it did occur was localized in nature.......The charcoal records and peat bog records do not reflect native burning as many state(circa 1000-1600AD).
The above named researchers feel that burning the woods became a regularly practiced phenomena as the indian tribes got swept into the market economy hunting furs for for the Euripean trading comoanies in exchange for rifles and other metal household items......The woods got burned to strip it of available deerskins and the like.
And I am for a re-wilding of our landscape .........An Algonquin to Adirondacks.......A Maine thru green and white mtns.........hudson highlands down the spine of the appalachians to northern Georgia across to the Glades in Florida
The Yellowstone to Yukon initiative.......the skylands in new mexico and arizona.........a great plains wild corridor..........as yellostone has shown, the wolves, bears and cougars get their wild memories back real quick.....maybe all of us human animals can finally get our gear out of "Park" and into "Drive" as it relates to acknowledging that we are a part of all of this biophelia and not at war with it.

Perhaps a "humanity" lies within us to finally understand that the more diverse a landscape, the healthier for all of us going forward...
Allan, all the best and stay in touch........
Rick
________________________________
From: Dr. Allan E. Houston <ahouston@amesplantation.org>
To: Meril, Rick
Sent: Mon Feb 28 15:17:10 2011
Subject: RE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
First – define "health"  . . . do you define that in the context of a specific time in history or within a specific state of affairs? Do you want things to look like they were in 1491 – or perhaps 2011 with a few raggedy ends of populations thrown in to enrichen?  These are very different scales.  Very different also in terms of practicalities.
We messed up about the time we became an urban population.
And, yes, trophy hunters are not at all about what they shoot – but what they do not shoot.  A priori they have made the internal commitment to let young animals walk away – indeed that the youngsters essentially carry a refuge with them and one that is particularly in force when they are under the hunter's gun. Natural predators have no such internal commitments, only the unbiased outlook of growling bellies.
Quality Deer Management is the nearest mimic to completely opportunist predation and subsistence – a balance of hunter and hunted and land.  Pretty good notion and one that is catching on.
However, back to the question -  let's examine the premise of adding the eastern (red) wolf back into the landscape. If you desire to define "natural" as being specific place in time, then we can never re-build the spatial parameters and wildlife populations that were in place at that time, i.e., the supporting cast.  Too much, too many economies stand in the way, too robust and too rigid.  Good thing, maybe.  We'd starve otherwise. So, the red wolf is pretty much a stranger to the world it would find itself injected into.  If we use a specific state of affairs, with at least a smidgeon of wolf here and there, then once again the wolf is alien to the real world to which they would be expected to belong.  Red wolves may not fit so very well anymore.  They were shy even when the world suited them. But now, poking the red wolf into the mainstream eastern habitat would be a disaster for idea and wolf alike.  A dash here and there where shy needs are best fitted, sort of like an odd spice in a good salad.
Cougars.  Well, I'm all for them – if we can keep them off the back of my neck.
The current wildlife enrichment, unfortunately is coming about with the influx of exotics, usurpers that ape and morph the original "natural" states because they can occupy released space, actors on a stolen stage and once entrenched pretty stubborn about leaving.
Anyway, adding bears and lions and four more (oh my!) to the local deer population would strain the whole structure.  The gun did not kill the last bear and cougar in west Tennessee; the plow did.  Since then, we've plowed deep, far and wide, in the way men plow, dirt first,  then pavements and buildings and lawns.  The cougar would be a stranger, an alien.  He would not know the language.  He can't speak coyote and he'd need to learn.
"Forest health at its zenith" . . . if this is at the temporal zenith often assumed, pre-Columbian, it is the time when the native American populations had a prescribed burning regime in place and, purposely, the forests had been replaced by native warm season grasslands, kept in place to support ungulates, that supported predators, two and four-footed alike.  The Indians were quite sophisticated.  They disallowed pavement and killed competitors, probably two and four-footed alike come to think of it.
From: Meril, Rick [mailto:Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com]
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2011 4:43 PM
To: 'ahouston@amesplantation.org'
Subject: Re: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
Allan
Enjoy your prose.....while not a hunter myself, I have good friends who are and respect and have empathy for the satisfaction that they derive from the "stalk"
They acknowledge that while human hunters do depress sheer deer numbers every fall, that the reductions do not necessarily mimic the depradation that bear, wolf, cougar, bobcat, lynx and coyote bring to the table......meaning that most hunters want a buck with trophy points as well as meat in their lockers......yes, fish and game institutes anterless seasons to limit females, but I believe that when the 6 previosly mentioned carnivores along with man were at it in the woods, deer health as well as forest composition health was at it's zenith,,,,,,compared to the "munched on" eastern woodlands that we have so often today. Oak regeneration stunted due to Bambi and deer densities often 15 to 20 to even 30+ per sq mile versus the 10 or less per sq mile found east of the Mississippi River, circa 1600AD.
I think Eastern Wolf and cougar rewilding should be a goal of ours to re-establish the optimum health of the Forest.........what say you?
Rick
Thoughts?
________________________________
From: Dr. Allan E. Houston <ahouston@amesplantation.org>
To: Meril, Rick
Sent: Mon Feb 28 14:19:05 2011
Subject: RE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
To my mind, I would argue that "fault" had nothing to do with your Yorkie . . . unless the coyotes were peering over the fence and you knew about them, there is no way that a man can watch over a free agent – and be able to give reasonable and pleasant freedom within reasonable boundaries – and have any guarantees that something will not go wrong, unless he is totally able to give up all of his freedom, most often an unreasonable expectation.  Coyotes are opportunists, random in time but also purposeful in intent, a creature that probes for resources and studies the track of any Achilles' heel.  Hating them for being what they are carries with it no good result – unless, of course they are about to eat you out of house and home (something that it is easy to dismiss unless it is your house).  Then a little hate can be understood.  However, recognition of their natural proclivities and taking steps to insulate the things that need protection is wise (e.g., your fence), but fences come in all kinds of shapes and a population may require occasional management.  In a similar vein, it has been said that sometimes the best way to sustain a forest is with the judicious destruction of parts of it – meaning that a mature forest must make way for a new forest and . . . that a baby forest is still a forest, just not much appreciated.
Hunting is one way that this can be accomplished. Tennessee's deer population is held in mid-explosion by hunting. Pull off that restraint and a population out of control might turn a mildly ambivalent human population into a militant rabble, totally aggravated because the petunia's are nubbed to the ground and car insurance is out of sight.
I am a hunter and some would say a trophy hunter – although my walls will give open testimony to my inadequacies in that regard.  While I have no problem with coyote hunting (have done it a time or two and have shot more than one that was too bold around the house), I confess to being moderately disturbed and perhaps as a hunter libeled,  at the fist-pumping irreverence that the philosophical image of "dead dog walking" brings to mind.  It is a disturbing trend.  I have written about hunting and what I consider to be its traditions and charms.  The pressures of TV hunting undermines some of what I consider to be important.
You are right that we should not scrooge any population off the earth – unless it is some sort of disease about to wipe us all out or is dreadfully effective at maiming.  However, it has been said that coyotes are one of the most successful species on earth and that the last man on earth will look up with his last breath and see . . . . the face of a coyote.  Ecological laws being what they are, sort of a set of suggestions, I have changed that to be either a realtor or lawyer.
Sorry about that Yorkie.  I am a Golden Retriever man – and have two – although my wife just adopted a little black refuge' that showed up in a boney, flea-bitten and tick infested package . . .  heaven help me, I have been tempted to feed the little scoundrel to the local coyotes a time or two.  A Corgi/Jack Russell mix is bound to give indigestion.
From: Meril, Rick [mailto:Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com]
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2011 11:37 AM
To: 'ahouston@amesplantation.org'
Subject: Re: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
Allan
I had the same experiece with my 10 pound Yorkie being killed by a coyote in my yard.
I left him by himself thinking 5 foot concrete walls would insulate us from predation--WRONG........up and over the fence the coyote easily accomplished
I do not hate coyotes because of this
My fault for not being outside with my dog and being vigilant
I want a multi-specied world and not just the critters that "suit us" to be thriving......makes us a bit mor human to know that a bear, wolf, coyote, cougar bobcat and lynx can have as much power as w do...............and that these creatures have as much reason for being here as we do.
Thanks for collaborating Dr. Allan.
Rick
Do u have any papers(pdf) that u might send my way on this subject?
________________________________
From: Dr. Allan E. Houston <ahouston@amesplantation.org>
To: Meril, Rick
Sent: Mon Feb 28 09:15:54 2011
Subject: RE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
My uncle once had two little bitty dogs.  He let them out one night for a last chance bathroom break.  Almost before one got off of the porch a coyote grabbed it.  The second dog ran into the yard and beyond the night light, screamed a death scream.  Both dogs gone.  The next morning, distraught and pretty much committed to hating coyotes for a lifetime, my uncle went to his mower and was about to crank it up.  He heard a whimper and looked under the mower deck. There, huddled in a corner, was the second little dog.  It was alive and overjoyed at seeing my Uncle; but it was never too keen about potty trips in the dark.
Re: pets being taken.  Likely it is not the whole population that is doing the work.  Almost certainly it is a few animals that have learned how to do it.  They become specialists, having gained an "expertise."  It is one that they can pass (teach) to their young.  Generally removal of the bad actors it effective – if they can be identified.  Once the problem becomes "population-wide," to be stopped, the coyotes must be taught that such behavior is unproductive.  Once it gets to be population-wide, it is hard to fix.
Once upon a time we had a coyote learn to kill calves.  He would wait on one side of the fence and if a cow had trouble in the birth process and laid down, he would dash in and pull the partially emerged calf into the world, under the fence and then out of the world. We identified the coyote by his odd color, began to trap, eventually caught him and the problem went away. It went away because we very quickly removed the bad actor before he had a chance to recruit a bad gang of actors.
I have little patience with the hug a coyote group and no more for the kill-em-all crowd. There is a balance.
From: Meril, Rick [mailto:Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com]
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2011 9:53 AM
To: 'ahouston@amesplantation.org'
Subject: Re: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
Thank you Dr Houston.
A lot of pets being taken precipitated the hunter(who also films a hunting show) coming into memphis and somehow the tv station decided to interview him
Rick
________________________________
From: Dr. Allan E. Houston <ahouston@amesplantation.org>
To: Meril, Rick
Sent: Mon Feb 28 07:31:18 2011
Subject: RE: Coyotes in Memphis and suburbs
I've looked over your materials and there is misinformation on both sides.
For example the following statement is patently wrong:
"Where one coyote family existed prior to being killed off, many times two new males split the abandoned territory and each then raise their own respective families(6 to 12 pups born annually per family). Counterintuitive that killing coyotes actually increases their numbers"
Habitat that can support one family group initially will not somehow be able to support two after the original family group is killed.  And rarely are whole family groups killed. The habitat is relatively fixed and coyotes do not somehow decide to reallocate resources that are not there.  Our government does that.
What is true is that coyotes can (and we do not know just how) regulate birth rates to adjust to habitat restrictions or abundance.  For example if coyotes are hunted very hard and populations lowered, then the population can respond with a greater number of young – and - if resources become scarce (perhaps with overpopulation or sudden habitat crash), birth rates are lowered.
For this reason, coyote populations are difficult to "control," certainly in the sense that they would be hunted to the point that they went away.  If populations are lowered, there is a compensatory mechanism that allows the population to quickly fill available habitat.
I just came back from Montana where the farmers/ranchers endure heavy losses annually to coyotes.  Control efforts are widespread, government supported, conducted with poisons, trapping and even aerial shooting – and coyote populations prosper.  The control efforts lessen depredation but they do not remove the population.  That has never been accomplished – anywhere – ever.
"Habitat" is many things, but it is very nearly foremost how much there is to eat.  And pets, if the coyote is allowed to take them, become food.
Belding's views are close to the mark, but a bit overstated and any statement to make the coyote look evil is just wrong.  The coyote simply goes about making his living as best he can – and he is very good at it  - very canny and very opportunistic.
Here is the thing that you must be careful about.  Promoting the coyote as something other than a wild animal, an animal very much unattached to any good will deeds done for it, can be a mistake.  Here is an example: a number of years ago I gave the keynote speech at the world-wide Vertebrate Pest Conference.  At that meeting a member of the California Fish and Game gave a talk and slide show about a county in California that had moved from coyote tolerance to coyote "adoption," i.e., they began to believe the coyote to be somehow a benign wildlife pet, and allowed the animal certain liberties. It began with people feeding them. Long story short: the animals began to kill pets, eat their food, bluff people off of picnic meals and finally there were 42 documented bites.  The final act was a coyote that attacked a small girl and might have killed her had her dad not arrived and had she not had a heavy winter coat on. She received 80 stitches and the coyote, "locked on," would not leave and came back the next day. This was not an "evil" coyote, it was just a coyote that had lost fear of humans and with accumulating disdain adapted an already opportunistic behavior to expand "habitat." California Fish and Game came in behind the incident, killed a bunch of coyotes and thereby restored a status quo that allowed children to wait in the dark for the school bus. The statement was: "those two legged things are dangerous, leave them alone."
Now, this does not mean that coyotes are a regularly dangerous animal – they are not.  But they can be conditioned to take liberties; and people/coyote relations can get to a point where the beneficent hand that was bitten is a bit confused. This is sometimes a hard notion for an urban population of folks who are several generations removed from the farm and the day-to-day relations with animals that gives a rather practical look at things. This is not to say that sensibilities are wrong, but they need to be attended with realities. And, of course, practicalities cannot spiral into indifference.
I do not know what precipitated this.  Why this hunter is coming to Memphis.  What or where the problem might be. It is true that there is a large number of hunters interested in coyote hunting (I also do not use the word sport and I am very much a hunter).  Hunting is what it is… hunting. But for this coyote fellow to come to Memphis, inside the city limits, did something specific bring him here?
The major coyote expert in this part of the world is Dr. Mike Kennedy at The University of Memphis. He has been studying the animal since populations were first established here.
Dr. Houston

.
-----Original Message-----statement "statement "
From: Meril, Rick [mailto:Rick.Meril@warnerbros.com]
Sent: Sunday, February 27, 2011 12:52 PM
To: 'ahouston@amesplantation.org'
Subject: Coyotes in memphis and suburbs
Dr. Houston
My name is Rick Meril and I am The Exec VP Sls Mgr at Warner Bros Domestic Sales in Los Angeles......also a member of Project Coyote, an advocacy organization promoting human/coyote co existance(headed up by Camilla Fox and Marc Beckoff)
WMC TV in Memphis ran a story last week suggesting that killing coyotes is the optimum manner of controlling coyotes
Would u be willing to be interviewed by the tv station if they were willing to engage u in a conversation on this topic.
Thank you for considering and any commentary u may wish to share with me is appreciated.
Rick