"Mammalian carnivores are particularly vulnerable to extinction in fragmented landscapes"............Norm Bishop followed up on John Laundre's comments yesterday about the role Coyotes play in the landscape..............Norm supplied me with this CROOKS AND SOULE mesopredator paper that discusses in full what occurred in Southern California when coyotes were removed from a particular landscape............Bird species and small critters suffer as smaller mesopredators like racoons and skunks increase their density greatly without coyotes to keep them in check

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Norman Bishop <nabishop@q.com>
Date: Thu, Feb 23, 2012 at 10:14 AM
Subject: Your comment on night hunt proposed for coyotes
To: John Laundre <john.laundre@oswego.edu>
Cc: Rick Meril <rick.meril@gmail.com>

Hi, John.

Thanks for your comment on Rick Meril's site about the subject.  It reminds me of Crooks and Soule's article, attached.  Great.  What the easterners are promoting is more skunks, raccoons, and house cats.

CLICK HERE TO READ CROOKS & SOULE MESOPREDATOR PAPER

From John Laundre

Coyotes are the ONLY "large" predator we have in the East and as such play an important role in the ecosystem. To treat them as vermin indicates the lack of ecological knowledge game agencies and the hunters that run them have of ecological processes. Even IF coyotes impacted deer, which no study has shown yet, that is their role! Until hunters realize this and push for predator conservation, i.e. reasonable hunting regulations WITH seasons and limits, I am ashamed to call myself a hunter. I thought hunters were against the wanton killing of wildlife or does that just apply to the species they like? As they say, if your not with us, your against us and it is time hunters prove they have some of that hunter conservationist philosophy they claim to.

Norm B.