With newborn Coyote pups coming into the world now(coyotes breed only once each year with with pups being born from the end of March into early May), the male and female breeding pair become highly vigilant(same behaviour that us human animals display) and protective of their newborn family members.............And with "mom and dad" coyote taking turns going out hunting to "put food on the table" for their family, it is important to know what to do to minimize conflict should you come across a "song dog or two" while out on a walk, run or hike.............Janet Kessler who pens the informative COYOTE YIPPS blog provides the following effective coyote-conflict preventive prescription ----"Simply harassing a coyote with screams, flailing arms and making yourself look big is often not effective".........."Coyotes get used to this and eventually ignore it as meaningless and quirky human behavior"..........."It's best actually to, 1) approach or charge towards the coyote, and to, 2) do so menacingly as though you're out to get them, by eyeballing them with eye-to-eye contact and yelling "SCRAM, get out of here!"............"Often, your piercing gaze into their eyes alone is enough to get them to move on"................"If they absolutely do not move, it will be because pups are close by"............"In this case, it's best to keep the peace by respecting their need to keep you out of the area they won't move from: just back away rather than provoke an incident, without running"..............."If one follows you, turn and face the coyote — he or she is unlikely to come closer now that your eyes are glaring at them".............. "However, if the coyote just stands there, again, try charging in his direction as described above to get him off of your tail"............."As always, prevention is the best medicine — always keep your distance in the first place"

https://baynature.org/article/how-to-get-along-with-coyotes-as-pups-venture-out/

How to Get Along With Coyotes As Pups Venture Out

Janet Kessler; August 6, 2015

Until now, coyotes have been safely keeping their biggest secret to themselves: their pups. But they will soon be taking the youngsters on wider and wider treks away from their dens, usually when it’s dark and when we humans aren’t around. If you are vigilant, even now you might be able to spot a youngster with a parent through an opening in the foliage if you are lucky.

Coyotes are among the 3-5 percent of mammal species that mate for life, and parents raise pups cooperatively. Except for loners and transients, coyotes live in nuclear families not so different from our own.

Coyotes live in family units, not packs of unrelated individuals. We have a number of coyote families living in the city of San Francisco. Coyotes mate for life, and both parents raise the young and watch out for their safety — we’re talking about real family life here. It’s hard not to admire a species that puts so much effort into maintaining their own monogamous relationship and into the care and safety of their youngsters. Parents play with, bring food to, groom, defend, lead family outings, teach, tease and discipline their youngsters, not so differently from the way humans do: coyote life is about family life. Each family claims a territory from which other coyotes are kept out. This insures that there will be enough resources for the family unit.

How to get along with coyotes? Treat them as you would any other wild animal, such as a skunk or raccoon, by moving away from them and keeping your dogs away from them, which can only be done by leashing up! Leashing will keep your dog from chasing a coyote, and it will keep your dog close to you, thus discouraging a coyote from coming in closer to your dog. Coyotes will do their utmost to avoid humans and human encounters, so the issue isn’t about you. However, although they’ll shy away from people, they may give territorial messages to dogs who come too close, the same as they do to any other non-family coyote who might potentially threaten their territorial claims: this could result in a nip to your dog’s haunches — cattle-dog fashion — to get the dog to leave the area. And small pets may look like any other prey to them: so please leash your pets in known coyote areas and don’t allow them to roam free. Coyotes have been spotted wandering through virtually every park in San Francisco.

Everyone with a dog should know how to shoo off a coyote who has come too close — it’s know-how that’s needed just in case there’s an unexpected encounter. Simply harassing a coyote with screams, flailing arms and making yourself look big is often not effective. Coyotes get used to this and eventually ignore it as meaningless and quirky human behavior. It’s best actually to, 1) approach or charge towards the coyote, and to, 2) do so menacingly as though you’re out to get them, by eyeballing them with eye-to-eye contact and yelling “SCRAM, get out of here!” Often, your piercing gaze into their eyes alone is enough to get them to move on.

However — and this is an all-important caveat — if they absolutely do not move, it will be because pups are close by. In this case, it’s best to keep the peace by respecting their need to keep you out of the area they won’t move from: just back away rather than provoke an incident, without running. If one follows you, turn and face the coyote — he’s unlikely to come closer with your eyes glaring at him. However, if he just stands there, again, try charging in his direction as described above to get him off of your tail. As always, prevention is the best medicine — always keep your distance in the first place.

Never run from a Coyote-they will chase you

GREETINGS: When coyotes greet each other there is a lot of body and snout contact, as well as squealing and wiggling. Here you see the daughter on the left in her wiggly-squiggly mode

For a basic review of coyote behavior and simple coexistence guidelines, take a look at “Coyotes As Neighbors”, a YouTube video presentation found at the top of the page of the coyotecoexistence.com website, or press this link to go directly to YouTube: https://youtu.be/euG7R11aXq0. By knowing about coyotes, you’ll be able to deal better with an unexpected contingency. If you have specific issues, please contact the folks at coyotecoexistence@gmail.com. They are there to help you.

Janet Kessler's COYOTE YIPPS BLOG--www.coyoteyipps.com

Black Bears emerging from their winter dens are some of the least fussy eaters in the animal kingdom, opportunistically dining on everything from a rotting winter-killed deer to springtails to willow branches and catkins............."While many of us think that Bears depend on meat for protein due to their fondness for newly born deer fawns, during the early Spring, new grasses, forbs, stems, leaves and sedges of some two dozen wetland, meadow and forest plants make up the bulk of the Bruin calorie intake"

https://northernwoodlands.org/articles/article/tracking-tips-grazing-bears

Tracking Tips: Grazing Bears

by Susan C. Morse

Spring 2019

April 15, 2019

0 Comments

Photos by Susan C. Morse

By the end of April, black bears have shrugged off winter’s dormancy and are getting hungry. They may get lucky and discover a winter-killed deer and get to indulge in its valuable protein. More often, however, they glean tiny foodstuffs, breaking willow branches and climbing aspens to reach the catkins, or even slurping from a pond’s surface to eat concentrations of minute springtails. In sunny openings where things are greening up, the tender new leaves and stems of succulent vegetation are voraciously grazed by eager bruins.

 Later on, these plants
become less


digestable and their nutrient
values decline as they “harden” with increasing
 amounts of lignin
and cellulose.

Forbs are next on the menu. In our region
(New England),
 the flowers, stems and
leaves of nearly two dozen wetland, meadow,
and forest plants may be
plucked by a bear’s prehensile lips, or delicately
 snipped by their incisor
 teeth. This sign reminds us of grazing livestock
or the nipped-looking
evidence we associate with the selective feeding
habits of whitetail deer.
Bears seek out palatable clover plants that are
extra nutritious because
 they provide high amounts of protein,
calcium, and phosphorus.

A bear ate these and hundreds of other
 nearby dandelion flowers.
 Bears eat prodigious quantities of flowers
 throughout spring and
 early summer, including hawkweed,
yellow goatsbeard, twisted
stalk, golden saxifrage, sweet cicely, wild
calla, pickerelweed, skunk
cabbage, jack-in-the-pulpit, swamp thistle,
 blue violets, jewelweed,
and the invasive non-native coltsfoot
 we increasingly find along
 roadsides.

Springtime bear feces are green when
fresh; over time they will
turn blackishgreen or even solid black.
Poke one with a stick to
reveal its still bright-green interior and
recognizable vegetative
contents.

Look for bear tracks, grazed vegetation,
daybeds, and scats in
 wetland habitats including riparian zones,
 beaver flowages, seeps,
and even around small vernal pools. Saturated
 soils support a greater
abundance and diversity of the graminoids and
 forbs that bears relish
at this time of year. Plan to investigate these
 habitats after the end of
June, when female bears with their young cubs
are safely dispersed
 throughout the forest and are less vulnerable
to being disturbed
 and frightened.

Susan C. Morse is founder and program director of Keeping Track
in Huntington, Vermont.

The America's largest native feline, the Jaguar, can kill any creature in its domain...........A Caiman, a massive crocodilian, can kill a Jaguar via a fatal bite or by drowning...............However, Caiman most often end up as dinner for Jaguars when the two go toe to toe in a a cage match" .........Below you can view some intense and outstanding videos displaying the prowess of Jaguars ability to kill Caimans both in the water and on land.........."Jaguars are built for power, not for speed"............Thus, they possess herculean-type upper body strength with crushing jaw power"..........."Jaguars are able to hold onto larger, powerful prey like caiman because of the way they hunt"........... "Other big cats kill their prey by clamping their jaws around the neck and suffocating it".......... "However, Jaguars kill by puncturing their victims with powerful bites"........ "Additionally, they're the most aquatic of all big cats'.........."Like Navy Seals, they quickly are able to gain the advantage and win the day both at sea and on land".........In the 17th and 18th centuries, Jaguars ranged across all of South and Central America, calling the USA home from San Francisco down to Arizona and across Texas into Florida and into the Carolina's............"Today, 'Jags' carve out a living from the northern tip of Argentina to the U.S.-Mexico border(a couple as of the last decade seen in Arizona),"............"The Brazilian Pantanal nature reserve is the only region in which they're fully protected across their range"

View to watch a video of a Jaguar stalking and killing a massive Caiman in the Pantanal

region of South America

https://youtu.be/7GEQwO_cS9w

click link below to view a 2nd video of a South American Jaguar stalking and then doing an "Olympic-Style"dive into a river to kill a Caiman

https://youtu.be/38qH3-fj988

https://www.earthtouchnews.com/natural-world/predator-vs-prey/watch-jaguar-takes-down-massive-caiman-in-tense-underwater-battle

Watch: Jaguar takes down massive caiman in tense underwater battle

Earthtouch News, April 26, 2019

Big cats – like lions, leopards and tigers – are among the few animals with enough brawn and moxie to take on a full-grown crocodilian. While these predators certainly target the occasional toothy prey, jaguars are likely the most frequent croc killers. A recently released clip from National Geographic's docuseries Hostile Planet showcases the jaguar's caiman-ending prowess.

The clip kicks off with a jaguar lurking jaw-high in a stretch of murky water while Bear Grylls narrates. "With each step a trap could snap shut," he explains, reminding us that this river is filled with teeth. The jaguar closes in on its target and lunges below the surface disappearing momentarily in a splash of white. It returns with a hefty caiman clasped between its jaws.

The jaguar administers an impressive chokehold, but to dispatch prey of this size, it will need to resort to its trademark killing bite delivered to the back of the head or skull. These burly cats are built for tackling sizeable prey. In the cat family, they are stocked with some of the strongest jaws for their size and have the brawn to back it up. 

tudies in the Pantanal – a swathe of wetland covering 70,000 square miles (181,300 square kilometres) in the centre of South America – have shown that jaguars target caimans across a broad size range. Indeed, the latest footage is not the first time we've seen the big cats take on reptilian prey.

Netflix also served up a helping of jaguar-caiman action recently in a sequence filmed for the David Attenborough-narrated series Our Planet (it's a predation bonanza if you're a jaguar fan!). In this instance, the jaguar launches an aerial attack from the river bank and pin-drops on an unsuspecting caiman:

The Best Preventitive Medicine to optimize your health is spending time in the garden and in "Park-Like settings, whether they be a Botanical Garden or a Nature Preserve............."All of us have had the experience of wandering through a lush garden or a timeless desert, walking by a river or an ocean, or climbing a mountain and finding ourselves simultaneously calmed and reinvigorated, engaged in mind, refreshed in body and spirit"................."The importance of these physiological states on individual and community health is fundamental and wide-ranging".............."In 40 years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical “therapy” to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens"---Dr. Oliver Sacks(Beth Abraham Hospital in NYC) before passed away in 2015

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/18/opinion/sunday/oliver-sacks-gardens.html

By Oliver Sacks

  April 18, 2019

·          

o     This is an excerpt from “Everything in Its Place,” a posthumous collection of writings by Dr. Sacks.

As a writer, I find gardens essential to the creative process; as a physician, I take my patients to gardens whenever possible. All of us have had the experience of wandering through a lush garden or a timeless desert, walking by a river or an ocean, or climbing a mountain and finding ourselves simultaneously calmed and reinvigorated, engaged in mind, refreshed in body and spirit. The importance of these physiological states on individual and community health is fundamental and wide-ranging. In 40 years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical “therapy” to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens.

The Enid A. Haupt Conservatory at the New York Botanical Garden.CreditCreditCharlie Rubin for The New York Times

The wonder of gardens was introduced to me very early, before the war, when my mother or Auntie Len would take me to the great botanical garden at Kew. We had common ferns in our garden, but not the gold and silver ferns, the water ferns, the filmy ferns, the tree ferns I first saw at Kew. It was at Kew that I saw the gigantic leaf of the great Amazon water lily, Victoria regia, and like many children of my era, I was sat upon one of these giant lily pads as a baby.

New England and Mid-Atlantic Native Plant Garden

As a student at Oxford, I discovered with delight a very different garden — the Oxford Botanic Garden, one of the first walled gardens established in Europe. It pleased me to think that Boyle, Hooke, Willis and other Oxford figures might have walked and meditated there in the 17th century.

Southeastern Native Plant Garden

I try to visit botanical gardens wherever I travel, seeing them as reflections of their times and cultures, no less than living museums or libraries of plants. I felt this strongly in the beautiful 17th-century Hortus Botanicus in Amsterdam, coeval with its neighbor, the great Portuguese Synagogue, and liked to imagine how Spinoza might have enjoyed the former after he had been excommunicated by the latter — was his vision of “Deus sive Natura” in part inspired by the Hortus?

The botanical garden in Padua is even older, going right back to the 1540s, and medieval in its design. Here Europeans got their first look at plants from the Americas and the Orient, plant forms stranger than anything they had ever seen or dreamed of. It was here, too, that Goethe, looking at a palm, conceived his theory of the metamorphoses of plants.

Midwestern Native Prairie Garden

Padua’s botanical garden, in Italy was founded in 1545 by Francesco Bonafede, professor of botany in the medical school of Padua’s university.CreditDavid Lees/Corbis, via VCG, via 

Padua’s botanical garden, in Italy was founded in 1545 by Francesco Bonafede, professor of botany in the medical school of Padua’s university.CreditDavid Lees/Corbis, via VCG, via 

When I travel with fellow swimmers and divers to the Cayman Islands, to Curacao, to Cuba, wherever — I seek out botanical gardens, counterpoints to the exquisite underwater gardens I see when I snorkel or scuba above them.

I have lived in New York City for 50 years, and living here is sometimes made bearable for me only by its gardens. This has been true for my patients, too. When I worked at Beth Abraham, a hospital just across the road from the New York Botanical Garden, I found that there was nothing long-shut-in patients loved more than a visit to the garden — they spoke of the hospital and the garden as two different worlds.

I cannot say exactly how nature exerts its calming and organizing effects on our brains, but I have seen in my patients the restorative and healing powers of nature and gardens, even for those who are deeply disabled neurologically. In many cases, gardens and nature are more powerful than any medication.

Pacific Northwest Native Plant Garden

My friend Lowell has moderately severe Tourette’s syndrome. In his usual busy, city environment, he has hundreds of tics and verbal ejaculations each day — grunting, jumping, touching things compulsively. I was therefore amazed one day when we were hiking in a desert to realize that his tics had completely disappeared. The remoteness and uncrowdedness of the scene, combined with some ineffable calming effect of nature, served to defuse his ticcing, to “normalize” his neurological state, at least for a time.

An elderly lady with Parkinson’s disease, whom I met in Guam, often found herself frozen, unable to initiate movement — a common problem for those with parkinsonism. But once we led her out into the garden, where plants and a rock garden provided a varied landscape, she was galvanized by this, and could rapidly, unaided, climb up the rocks and down again.

Southern California Native Plant Garden

I have a number of patients with very advanced dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, who may have very little sense of orientation to their surroundings. They have forgotten, or cannot access, how to tie their shoes or handle cooking implements. But put them in front of a flower bed with some seedlings, and they will know exactly what to do — I have never seen such a patient plant something upside down.

My patients often live in nursing homes or chronic-care institutions, so the physical environment of these settings is crucial in promoting their well-being. Some of these institutions have actively used the design and management of their open spaces to promote better health for their patients. For example, Beth Abraham hospital, in the Bronx, is where I saw the severely parkinsonian postencephalitic patients I wrote about in “Awakenings.” In the 1960s, it was a pavilion surrounded by large gardens. As it expanded to a 500-bed institution, it swallowed most of the gardens, but it did retain a central patio full of potted plants that remains very crucial for the patients. There are also raised beds so that blind patients can touch and smell and wheelchair patients can have direct contact with the plants.

Rocky Mountain Front Native Plant Garden

Clearly, nature calls to something very deep in us. Biophilia, the love of nature and living things, is an essential part of the human condition. Hortophilia, the desire to interact with, manage and tend nature, is also deeply instilled in us. The role that nature plays in health and healing becomes even more critical for people working long days in windowless offices, for those living in city neighborhoods without access to green spaces, for children in city schools or for those in institutional settings such as nursing homes. The effects of nature’s qualities on health are not only spiritual and emotional but physical and neurological. I have no doubt that they reflect deep changes in the brain’s physiology, and perhaps even its structure.

---------------

Oliver Sacks was a neurologist and author of many books. Above is an excerpt from the forthcoming collection of his essays, “Everything in Its Place.” He died in 2015.

"As so many of us have come to know, coyotes are one of the most vocal mammals"........"And their yipps, barks and howls are often pronounced during mating season that occrs sometime between late January and March"................."The mated-for- life(monogamous breeding Coyote pair are territorial and the pair howls and yips let other coyotes know that they have established a territory---Do not tresspass!!!".............."The alpha male will initiate a howl while his alpha female mate joins in, interspersing his "song" with yips, barks, and short howls of her own"............“Beta coyotes (the children of the alpha pair from previous years) and current year pups may join in if they are nearby, or respond with howls of their own"........... "Mated coyote pairs in adjacent territories may then respond, announcing their own territories".............."At such times, it can sound like a cascade of howls across the landscape"................."So many of us mistakenly think that our home region is absolutely overrun with coyotes based solely on the howling that we hear"..............."But this is an auditory illusion called the “beau geste” effect"..........."Because of the variety of sounds produced by each coyote, and the way sound is distorted as it passes through the environment, two of these tricksters can sound like seven or eight animals"............."Fooled we are as Coyotes are self-regulating carnivores, existing at levels that their prey animal and berry base allows,..............As an example, a recent study conducted by researchers at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in New York estimates coyote densities range from a low of about 1 breeding pair/10 square miles in the Lake Plains upstate region to around 2.5 pairs/10 square miles in the Adirondack Mountains and surrounding St. Lawrence and Mohawk River Valleys"..........."In suburban landscapes, researchers from Cornell University found coyote pairs inhabited natural areas at a density of about 4.5 breeding pairs/10 square miles"

https://blog.nature.org/science/2019/02/13/the-howling-why-youre-hearing-coyotes-this-month/

MATTHEW MILLER

FEBRUARY 13, 2019

The Howling: Why You’re Hearing Coyotes this Month

you can listen to a wide array of coyote language by clicking on this link

http://www.soundboard.com/sb/Wild_Coyote_sounds

Coyote spotted in Yosemite National Park, California. Photo © Rachel Stepien

I stepped outside last night to take some glass bottles to the recycling bin. The evening was clear, cold and seemingly silent. I hurried with my task, no wanting to linger in the chill. And then a howl rippled through the air. Coyote. The sound echoed through the neighborhood, carrying clearly from a nearby hillside.

I stopped and enjoyed the vocalizations. The long howls were interspersed with sharp yips, sounding like multiple animals. It lasted for several minutes.

I never tire of that sound, no matter how many times I hear it. And this time of year, I enjoy the coyote concert frequently.

Photo © Dan Dzurisin / Flickr

Coyotes are one of the most vocal mammals. And they’re also now found widely, so if you live in North America, there’s a good chance that you have some roaming near you.

You can hear them at any time of year, but you may notice increased activity in February and March. And, if you’re like me, you’ll find the howling particularly resonant on a cold winter’s night. Here’s what’s going on.

Photo © Ian Shive

he Pair Bond

Quite simply, it’s breeding season. While the exact timing varies, depending on geography, coyote breeding season generally occurs between late January and March. Coyotes are generally monogamous, forming strong pair bonds for several years. Some researchers state that the coyotes will remain together until one of the pair dies.

Coyotes are also territorial. The pair howls and yips to let other coyotes know that they have an established territory and not to intrude.

Coyote researcher Brian Mitchell describes the sounds you’re likely to hear at this time of year:

“Group yip-howls are produced by a mated and territorial pair of “alpha” coyotes, with the male howling while the female intersperses her yips, barks, and short howls. “Beta” coyotes (the children of the alpha pair from previous years) and current year pups may join in if they are nearby, or respond with howls of their own.”

Photo © Dru Bloomfield / Flickr

Mitchell also notes that other nearby pairs may then respond, announcing their own territories. At such times, it can sound like a cascade of howls across the landscape

According to Mitchell, this is not the only time of year that coyotes establish their territorial boundaries. The pups are born later in spring, and will form a loose family group. A pack of coyotes howling is an iconic sound of the American West, and it likely serves dual functions. Mitchell writes:

“The group yip howl is thought to have the dual purpose of promoting bonding within the family group while also serving as a territorial display. In other words, the coyotes are saying “we’re a happy family, and we own this turf so you better keep out.” In a sense, the group howls create an auditory fence around a territory, supplementing the physical scent marks left by the group.”

Song Dog

Howling may be the most recognizable coyote vocalization, but these canids actually have a wide repertoire of sounds. (One of the animal’s more endearing nicknames is “song dog”). Researchers generally identify 11 vocalizations that serve a variety of functions, from alarm to warning to socialization.

There is much we don’t understand about the coyote’s calls. Their “language” is likely far more complex than we can comprehend. Researchers like Mitchell note that coyotes have accents that vary geographically and even among family groups, much like humans. And coyotes can recognize another coyote by its distinctive call.

Even though coyotes are one of the most common and adaptable predators in the world, there is much we don’t understand. And there’s also a lot of contradictory information – and complete nonsense – written about coyotes.

There are two reasons for this. Coyotes are relentlessly persecuted throughout their range. A lot of people kill or attempt to kill coyotes, and oftentimes they present their own opinions as fact.

For instance, people often grossly overestimate the number of coyotes in an area. When a couple of coyotes begin calling, their sounds can vary rapidly in pitch and sequence, which can sound like a lot more coyotes than actually are there. Coyote howls often echo against hillsides, compounding the confusion.

This actually may provide a benefit to coyotes. As they establish their territory, sounding like a big pack may deter other coyotes from entering the territory.

I have often heard local hunters describe areas “absolutely overrun with coyotes,” based solely on the howling they’ve heard. Most likely, they were fooled by just a few animals.

A Flexible Lifestyle

I suspect there is another reason for a lot of the contradictory information about coyotes and their behavior. It’s because coyotes behave differently depending on habitat, interactions with humans and other factors.

Coyotes are one of the most adaptable predators. They are found in the Idaho wilderness near my home, but also can live in the midst of large cities like Chicago and Los Angeles. They live in farm country, in suburbs and in urban parks.

he reason that they can thrive in so many different habitats is that they are very flexible and adaptable. They will change their diet and their habits to fit the environment.

So a coyote’s territory and pack bonds are likely different on the public lands of the Rocky Mountains than they are in a suburban neighborhood.

One of the differences some researchers have recognized is that urban coyotes likely vocalize less. I live in an area surrounded by a large wildlife management area and a river greenbelt. I hear coyotes regularly. If you live in a city, you may not hear coyotes as much – but that doesn’t mean they’re not there. They have just found it easier to survive by being quiet.

If you do happen to find yourself in some wide-open spaces this month, step outside in the night and have a listen. You may enjoy one of the great sound shows in nature, the chorus of yips and howls. The coyote survives and thrives despite us, and its howling serves as a reminder to the wildness still in the world.

Matthew L. Miller is director of science communications for The Nature Conservancy and editor of the Cool Green Science blog. A lifelong naturalist and outdoor enthusiast, he has covered stories on science and nature around the globe. Matt has worked for the Conservancy for the past 14 years, previously serving as director of communications for the Idaho program