Wolf Biologist Cristina Eisenberg checking in with us on her thoughts about the October 2009 Coyote(s) that killed Taylor Mitchell in Nova Scotia.......Cristina is constantly in the field doing her research and I agree with her statement that when you are around large carnivores, "you need to learn to read their cues, treating them with respect, being humble, and changing your behavior as needed".......... "It also involves never letting your guard down and assuming that these animals are harmless"..............."Unfortunately, when you encounter a carnivore in the wild, you usually have no way of knowing what their previous experiences were with humans".................Cristina is accomplished in her first hand knowledge of our large charismatic Carnivores and her message that follows is prudent, pragmatic and realistic in its outlook and tonality

From: Meril, Rick
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2011 5:50 PM
To: 'Eisenberg, Cristina'
Subject: RE: Post about Taylor Mitchell's death by coyote attack

Cristina………..

Thank you for your kind words about the blog………………You ring of authenticity, humility, insight and experience in your thoughts expressed below…………..I concur with your sentiments!

Please let me know when your new book on  CARNIVORES IN THE WEST  is published…………And, I would enjoy reading your chapter in the MIT Press ANTHOLOGY ON WILDNESS as well…………..

Do well in the field and look forward to our next communication.

Rick
______________________________________________________________________________

From: Eisenberg, Cristina
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2011 4:33 PM
To: Meril, Rick
Subject: Post about Taylor Mitchell's death by coyote attack

The Wolf's Tooth
http://islandpress.org/bookstore/details9e95-2.html

 Dear Rick,

I want to tell you how much I appreciated your post about Taylor Mitchell's death by coyote attack. Living with large carnivores, be they coyotes, wolves, wolverines, lynx, bears, or cougars, requires that we relearn the "etiquette of the wild." By this I mean that we need to relearn what humans of an earlier era knew about coexisting with carnivores safely.
Places like Glacier National Park and Yellowstone that have a full complement of large carnivores are not like a Disney movie. While I have had hundreds of encounters with grizzly bears while doing fieldwork, and many encounters with wolves and cougars, I have never been attacked, and only had one encounter with a predatory bear. Most of these meeting have been peaceful and have taught me much.

Being safe around large carnivores means learning to read their cues, treating them with respect, being humble, and changing your behavior as needed. It also involves never letting your guard down and assuming that these animals are harmless. Habituated carnivores are highly dangerous. Unfortunately, when you encounter a carnivore in the wild, you usually have no way of knowing what their previous experiences were with humans. It is inadvisable to hike alone in areas where there are large carnivores.
 I always carry bear spray (which doesn't work on wolves or cougars very well), I carry a big stick or measuring tools for fieldwork that can be used as sticks, and I always keep my senses open. That said, just about all my meetings with large carnivores have been peaceful. I have learned that humans and carnivores, who are both at the top of the food chain, have powerful relationships that can involve mutual respect. Over the course of several years of field work and more than a thousand field days, working in areas that have the highest density of large carnivores in North America, I have never had to use my bear spray. These large carnivores have been my guides and teachers as a scientist.

My next book for Island Press is about the large carnivores in the West and how to live with them (their ecology, public policy, and stories of their recovery). I also have a book chapter forthcoming about the scientific lessons I've learned from large carnivores in a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press anthology on wildness.
Thanks for all you do to disseminate useful and essential information about large carnivores.
 Cristina Eisenberg
PhD Candidate
Boone & Crockett Fellow
High Lonesome Ranch Research Director
Oregon State University
College of Forestry