Coyote Scare

Cheryl P. wrote:

The authorities shot the coyotes - or some of them, at least, that
killed that hiker in Cape Breton a while back. There weren't many
complaints - I think the young woman's mother said that she wouldn't
have wanted the animals killed for doing what comes naturally, but most
people seemed to think it was a really bad idea to let coyotes who had
gotten the idea that they can safely prey on humans survive.

I'm sure she didn't want the coyotes killed out of revenge, but there
was a much more practical reason for doing it.

Joyce

--
Teach a child to be polite and courteous in the home and, when he
grows up, he'll never be able to merge his car onto a freeway.

"Cheryl P." wrote in message
...
Christina Websell wrote:
"Cheryl P." wrote in message
...
Sherry wrote:
On Aug 23, 3:42 pm, Will in New Haven
wrote:
I was bringing the dogs out for their walk the other morning and it
was not quite dawn and raining, not great visibility. However, the
dogs alerted me that something was going on. Samantha, the Shi Tzu
puppy, was barking in a hostile manner that I have seldom heard from
her before and Bear, the goodwill ambassador Lab, was growling deep in
his chest in a manner that I had never heard from him before. No tail
was wagging.

Down the street, where Little Man the cat lives, there were two dog-
shapes looking up at the porch. I made sure that the dogs were well-
held by their leashes and that neither could get farther away from me
than a few feet. And then we headed down the street.

As we approached, with both dogs in full cry now, the coyotes looked
at us and ran off. I think it was Bear and I that scared them but
Samantha puffed out her little chest and took the credit.

Little Man was on a railing, _above_ his porch, and was probably quite
safe the whole time. But he still seemed happy to see the varmints
leave.

I have listened to the "song-dogs" quite happily on occasion and I
admire them for their cleverness and I understand that they are only
doing what comes naturally. But when they threaten our pets I get
hostile.

--
Will in New Haven
I understand. You have to respect a species that not only survives,
but
thrives, despite encroachment of their territory and efforts to
exterminate
them. But I get hostile too.

Sherry
Coyotes aren't bothered in the least by human presence! The coyotes have
made massive encroachments into human territories that the coyotes have
never lived before!

And, yes, they can be a fatal threat to pets. Even to humans sometimes.

If that happened to me, I'm sorry to say I would allow a piece of lead to
go into their ear from my *fox man*, if they were threatening Boyfriend's
life or mine.
Feel free to disagree. I do not mind.

Tweed

The authorities shot the coyotes - or some of them, at least, that killed
that hiker in Cape Breton a while back. There weren't many complaints - I
think the young woman's mother said that she wouldn't have wanted the
animals killed for doing what comes naturally, but most people seemed to
think it was a really bad idea to let coyotes who had gotten the idea that
they can safely prey on humans survive.

I don't know if they located the ones that tried to drag away another
young woman quite recently. She survived with minor bites.

It's always a bad idea to let them get away with preying on humans, they
pass the habit on to their offspring.
Unfortunately, they need to meet their maker sooner rather than later.
I don't like the idea of killing, really, but sometimes it's necessary if
the animals go outside the norm.
A cat-killing fox would go the same way here on my property. It's abnormal
behaviour and does not need to be perpetuated by allowing it to breed.

wrote in message
...
Christina Websell wrote:

"Cheryl P." wrote in message

Coyotes aren't bothered in the least by human presence! The coyotes
have
made massive encroachments into human territories that the coyotes have
never lived before!

And, yes, they can be a fatal threat to pets. Even to humans sometimes.

If that happened to me, I'm sorry to say I would allow a piece of lead
to go
into their ear from my *fox man*, if they were threatening Boyfriend's
life
or mine.
Feel free to disagree. I do not mind.

No disagreement here. If an animal threatened one of my cats' lives, I'd
hurt them if I had to - and if I could. I don't have a gun, though, so
that might be difficult.


I don't have one either, they are illegal here except for licensed people,
like for farmers, vermin control, sporting, like shooting game.
Fox man has several guns as vermin control is his business.
Hand guns are a no-no. We do not need them for self-protection as no-one
else has them either (except perhaps the criminal fraternity in the drugs
war, and they will find them from somewhere anyway)
Our police (mainly) are not armed.
Although there are some who are who can be called on in an emergency who
are, my cousin's husband is one of a few who can be. He is highly trained in
firearms duty, gets called all over the country just in case but has never
actually had to shoot anyone yet.

Christina Websell wrote:

wrote in message

No disagreement here. If an animal threatened one of my cats' lives, I'd
hurt them if I had to - and if I could. I don't have a gun, though, so
that might be difficult.

I don't have one either, they are illegal here except for licensed people,
like for farmers, vermin control, sporting, like shooting game.
Fox man has several guns as vermin control is his business.

Oh, I misunderstood you. Actually, I didn't get the reference to "fox
man" in your last post, which was an important piece of information, it
turns out. I was imagining you going after the fox yourself with a
shotgun.

Our police (mainly) are not armed.

I find this amazing - and, from the vantage point of a much more violent
society, hope-inspiring. I know the UK has its share of violence, but
here in the US, an unarmed cop is inconceivable.

People here (myself included) think about life in some other countries
where there's a lot of political unrest, terrorism, war, etc, and wonder
how people can live with/through such things. But we live with huge
amounts of violent crime and most of us are just numb to it.

Joyce

--
Mother teach me to walk again
Milk and honey, so intoxicating
-- Sarah McLaughlin

William Hamblen wrote:
On 2010-08-23, EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) wrote:
Oh wow! The poor things must have been desperate! Of course, they'd
not be "invading" our turf, if humans had not appropriated THEIRS, but
that's no reason to be complacent about pets at risk.

Coyotes are not native to New Haven. They're the newcomers.

Bud

Granted, but they'd not be invading if their original habitat were still
untroubled.

On Aug 24, 6:51*pm, "EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)"
wrote:
William Hamblen wrote:
On 2010-08-23, EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) wrote:
Oh wow! *The poor things must have been desperate! *Of course, they'd
not be "invading" our turf, if humans had not appropriated THEIRS, but
that's no reason to be complacent about pets at risk.

Coyotes are not native to New Haven. They're the newcomers.

Bud

Granted, but they'd not be invading if their original habitat were still
untroubled.


You are extending a general concept that is true of most wildlife to a
unique animal.

Coyotes swarm all OVER most of their original habitat. The coyote
population is not threatened anywhere. It is the absence of wolves
and, to a lesser extent, cougers that gave coyotes the freedom to
cross the Mississippi and enter the exotic east, where they had never
lived before.

They are still extremely numerous in the west. About the only largish
area to see a decline in coyote population in many years is
Yellowstone Park and a fairly large surrounding area in the Rocky
Mountains. The coyotes there found the reintroduced wolves of
Yellowstone and Idaho a little more than they could handle.

Even cities and parks, let alone farms and suburbs, are fairly good
coyote-country.

--
Will in New Haven

EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) wrote:


William Hamblen wrote:
On 2010-08-23, EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)
wrote:
Oh wow! The poor things must have been desperate! Of course, they'd
not be "invading" our turf, if humans had not appropriated THEIRS,
but that's no reason to be complacent about pets at risk.

Coyotes are not native to New Haven. They're the newcomers.

Bud

Granted, but they'd not be invading if their original habitat were still
untroubled.


Yes, they would. They're still extremely common in their original
habitat, as far as I know (hence my earlier comment about the west must
be empty of coyotes since they've all moved east!) I'm not even sure
that the absence of wolves is that important to the coyote's expansion,
since some people think they coyotes have interbred with wolves and
dogs, which is why the eastern coyote is bigger and more aggressive than
the western one.

Coyotes are just very good at living around humans.

--
Cheryl P.

On Aug 25, 6:25*am, "Cheryl P." wrote:
EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) wrote:

William Hamblen wrote:
On 2010-08-23, EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)
wrote:
Oh wow! *The poor things must have been desperate! *Of course, they'd
not be "invading" our turf, if humans had not appropriated THEIRS,
but that's no reason to be complacent about pets at risk.

Coyotes are not native to New Haven. They're the newcomers.

Bud

Granted, but they'd not be invading if their original habitat were still
untroubled.

Yes, they would. They're still extremely common in their original
habitat, as far as I know (hence my earlier comment about the west must
be empty of coyotes since they've all moved east!) I'm not even sure
that the absence of wolves is that important to thecoyote'sexpansion,
since some people think they coyotes have interbred with wolves and
dogs, which is why the easterncoyoteis bigger and more aggressive than
the western one.

Coyotes are just very good at living around humans.

Coyote-dog crosses are often a one-generation phenomenon, if that.
Male dogs just don't stick around to raise the babies and a female has
a terrible time raising a litter alone. The other way around works
better, male coyote and a bitch, but the male offspring still don't
seem to take on parental care like a pure coyote or wolf would.

The "wolf barrier" appears to be quite real. The area in Minnesota
where the timber wolf hang on has not been invaded by coyotes. Coyotes
do live alongside wolves in the Rockies but very nervously and wolves
kill a great many. Of course, all the wolves in some areas have coyote
mitochondrial DNA, so the barrier isn't impermiable.

Another factor helpin in the coyote invasion of the east is the
clearing of old forests. Coyotes prefer open country, farmland, scrub,
suburbs and even cities to the deep woods. In fact, the area around
our complex is heavily covered in trees and we hadn't seen any coyotes
in our immediate are in years, although they have been all around us.

--
Will in New Haven

Will in New Haven wrote:


Coyote-dog crosses are often a one-generation phenomenon, if that.
Male dogs just don't stick around to raise the babies and a female has
a terrible time raising a litter alone. The other way around works
better, male coyote and a bitch, but the male offspring still don't
seem to take on parental care like a pure coyote or wolf would.

The "wolf barrier" appears to be quite real. The area in Minnesota
where the timber wolf hang on has not been invaded by coyotes. Coyotes
do live alongside wolves in the Rockies but very nervously and wolves
kill a great many. Of course, all the wolves in some areas have coyote
mitochondrial DNA, so the barrier isn't impermiable.

Another factor helpin in the coyote invasion of the east is the
clearing of old forests. Coyotes prefer open country, farmland, scrub,
suburbs and even cities to the deep woods. In fact, the area around
our complex is heavily covered in trees and we hadn't seen any coyotes
in our immediate are in years, although they have been all around us.

I could see the absence of wolves being helpful once they reached the
island of Newfoundland, since we haven't had any wolves for a very long
time so there's an ecological niche open. Apparently, they (the coyotes)
have settled in very happily, what with the caribou, moose (or rather,
young and sickly caribou and moose), enough lambs to make at least one
farmer get out of the sheep business entirely and other miscellaneous
smaller animals like hares. Reports are that most of them are in good
condition, plump and well-fed. But I wasn't sure about the interaction
with wolves where wolves exist, especially given the reports of
interbreeding and their increasing size and aggressiveness.

I'm impressed that they managed to get across the Cabot Strait on their
own. Sure, Arctic foxes and polar bears get to the island sometimes, but
they start much further north, where the ice is more prevalent and
solid, and the polar bears are expert long-distance swimmers as well.
--
Cheryl P.

Cheryl P. wrote:
EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque) wrote:


William Hamblen wrote:
On 2010-08-23, EvelynVogtGamble(Divamanque)
wrote:
Oh wow! The poor things must have been desperate! Of course,
they'd not be "invading" our turf, if humans had not appropriated
THEIRS, but that's no reason to be complacent about pets at risk.

Coyotes are not native to New Haven. They're the newcomers.

Bud

Granted, but they'd not be invading if their original habitat were
still untroubled.


Yes, they would. They're still extremely common in their original
habitat, as far as I know (hence my earlier comment about the west must
be empty of coyotes since they've all moved east!) I'm not even sure
that the absence of wolves is that important to the coyote's expansion,
since some people think they coyotes have interbred with wolves and
dogs, which is why the eastern coyote is bigger and more aggressive than
the western one.

Coyotes are just very good at living around humans.

So are rats and cockroaches - They'll probably inherit the Earth, when
mankind's ignoring of global warming wipes out the alleged "higher" animals!