Canis lupus hominis

Posted in Absolute Piffle, wild dogs, wildlife, working dogs | Tagged coyote, coyote coursing, Governor Rick Perry | 8 Comments

8 Responses

1. on April 28, 2010 at 11:41 am Independent George

   I was thinking rocket skates and an anvil.

   
   
   • on April 28, 2010 at 12:03 pm retrieverman

     From Acme?

     
     
     • on April 28, 2010 at 3:04 pm Independent George

       This calls for a link to a classic.

       
       
2. on April 28, 2010 at 12:25 pm pibble

   Good one, Independent George!

   I always take my pistol with me when I jog…

   What is WRONG with these people? Why is it that I have no problem chasing coyotes from my backyard with a little flailing of my arms and some shouting? And I have four barking dogs with me. He had to kill the poor thing? Jeesh.

   
   
   • on April 28, 2010 at 3:03 pm Independent George

     I’m a bit more sympathetic to him. David Barron wrote about this in ‘The Beast in the Garden’.

     At the population level, flailing your arms and shouting largely works because other people have been shooting on sight; the coyotes are necessarily selected for being afraid of humans. Once people stop shooting at them, you eventually reach the point where flailing your arms won’t work.

     I don’t support hunting coyotes per se, but this was not an entirely unreasonable act.

     
     
3. on April 28, 2010 at 3:54 pm Kenneth

   I live in Coyote country (Wyoming) I generally leave Coyotes alone. I love to listen to their caroling at night. Every once and awhile you get one that develops a taste for dogs and cats, this includes the endangered Swift Fox which here in south eastern Wyoming is one of the few places left that has a fairly good population of them. The Wyoming Game and Fish has trapped out a few of them to send to captive breeding programs that have returned these handsome little house cat sized dogs to areas where they have not been found for many decades. The main reason why the Swift Fox became endangered was the once wide spread poisoning of Coyotes, the poor little Fox was killed right along with the intended target. If I have a bad coyote I will destroy that individual animal and no more. I am not interested in selling the pelt so I have special load for my .375 H&H that will vaporize the coyote in question, an instant kill. I don’t like doing this but I think this a whole lot better then the poor animal suffering and dying after eating a poison bait, or a leg hold trap. Most sheep operations in the area now use dogs from in Eastern Europe bred to protect the flocks, and it works very well.

   
   
   • on April 29, 2010 at 6:41 am pibble

     @Kenneth – I live on the outskirts of a very small city, and I enjoy hearing their song as well! They do steal cats and small dogs on occasion, but for the most part, they live way in the woods and live off of the wildlife as we would expect them to.

     This unfortunate story was in the news recently, where a farmer in our state thought it would be smart to poison the critters: http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/news/crime/windsor-poison-hot-dog . Unfortunately, he disregarded the food-chain effect.

     @Independent George: I supposed you’re right; if the coyote is bold, a back-up plan is needed.

     
     
4. on April 29, 2010 at 6:16 pm Kenneth

   When the Sheep ranchers strarted to use the traditional approach of protecting their flocks, dogs bred for this job, they found not only was it very effective but also much, much cheaper. Instead of killing, coyotes, Red and Swift Fox, Buzzards, Golden Eagles, Bobcats, etc with poison they just kept the Coyote at a distance and in most cases didn’t even have to kill them. This is the way to do it.

   
   

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