Owls Aren't Wise and Bats Aren't Blind (33 page)

Wariness and adaptability alone, however, probably wouldn’t have saved the coyote from major reductions in its population, at least in many areas. Here’s where the coyote’s third line of defense comes into play: as soon as coyote numbers show any substantial decrease, the remaining coyotes begin to produce larger litters with a much higher rate of survival among their offspring. It’s this trait that so effectively defeats the long-term success of coyote control programs. Even though temporary reductions may be achieved locally, the coyote population soon recovers.

Because of their depredations, real or imagined, on sheep and other livestock, game populations, pets, and other things valued by humans, coyotes generally elicit the question,
“What
should we do to control coyotes?” Others, perhaps a bit more thoughtful, ask,
“Should
we attempt to control coyotes?” Actually, those are the wrong questions; the proper one is
“Can
we control coyotes?” As far as long-term control over any sizable area is concerned, the answer is a resounding “No!”

Merely consider the facts dispassionately—admittedly a difficult task when they involve a creature that inspires such diametrically opposed and passionately held views. After many decades, vast efforts by hordes of people, and the expenditure of countless millions of dollars, there are more coyotes than ever. What’s more, they’ve expanded their range enormously during that time, and now can be found almost everywhere.

I recall rather vividly the wise words of my friend Benjamin Day Jr., who at that time was chief of wildlife management for the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department. Coyotes were just becoming widespread in Vermont, and there were loud cries that we should “do something” to control or, if possible, eradicate them. In response, animal-rights activists, who had adopted the Native American term of God’s Dog, rushed to the animal’s defense and worried publicly that this recent arrival to the East would be exterminated.

When I broached these conflicting notions to Ben, he suffered a near-fit of laughter. “Consider this,” he told me. “In parts of the West where almost literally there’s not a bush to hide behind, humans have tried everything to eradicate the coyote. They’ve tried guns, traps, dogs, gassing dens, hunting from airplanes, a variety of poisons, and anything else that could be devised—all without success. If they couldn’t succeed under those conditions, how does anyone think that coyotes can be controlled, let alone eradicated, in a state that’s 80 percent forested?”

Because of the general lack of success in controlling coyotes, there are those who advocate dropping all coyote control. They believe that if we stop killing coyotes, populations will actually decline, and depredation on sheep and other valuables will be reduced. This approach has its own problems, though. For one thing, it’s an unproven theory that may or may not work. Second, even those advocating this approach admit that coyote numbers would probably increase for a time until the coyotes settled into a new and more natural equilibrium. Under those circumstances, agricultural losses would temporarily increase—something that sheep ranchers and others would be highly unlikely to tolerate.

Does all of this mean there’s no course of action that promises greater success than our present efforts? No: a multifaceted strategy might work considerably better than either the present extreme of massive coyote killing or the alternative extreme of no coyote killing.

Because only a relatively small percentage of coyotes actually cause serious agricultural damage, targeting control efforts more precisely toward those specific animals would save a substantial amount of money. That money, in turn, would likely be far more efficiently used for several things. These include providing sheep growers with trained guard dogs or llamas (the latter reputedly hate coyotes and drive them away), and helping with the cost of better fencing. Certainly this more diverse strategy won’t eliminate the problem of coyotes killing livestock, but it might well reduce it substantially. This approach isn’t sloppy sentimentality about killing coyotes; rather, it’s a practical view of value received for money invested.

Coyotes are justly famous for their vocal prowess—a fact recognized by the animal’s scientific name.
Canis latrans
is Latin for “barking dog,” and if barking is interpreted broadly to encompass a whole range of sounds, the name is certainly apt! Coyote calls range from an extremely doglike bark through high-pitched yips to full-fledged howls. The sound of a coyote family vocalizing at full volume on a dark night is both eerie and exciting!

All of this barking, yipping, and howling probably serves several purposes. It undoubtedly allows family members to stay in touch with each other, and serves as a sort of vocal territorial marking system. Also, at least in our area, coyotes tend to be most vocal in late summer and early autumn, when the pups are learning to hunt with their parents. It appears that when the family is either in hot pursuit of prey or has actually killed it, there’s much excited yipping, yammering, and howling by the whole group. At other times, perhaps, coyotes simply howl for the fun of it, or as a social activity.

Western coyotes are sexually mature and begin breeding at one year of age, but the larger eastern coyote usually takes another year to reach breeding age. Mating, at least in northern climates, takes place in February. The pups are born after a gestation that averages sixty-three days. Litter size can be highly variable, from as few as two to as many as ten, though four to six is the norm. As already discussed, if the coyote population declines substantially, both litter size and survivability of the pups will increase.

With the onset of winter, most of the pups, now nearly mature, will disperse to seek their own territories, although they may rejoin their parents to cooperate in hunting big game. Still, by the time the following spring rolls around, most of the young have gone off on their own.

Coyote are often referred to as pack animals, but they aren’t, at least not in the sense of the large, extended families that constitute wolf packs. The basic coyote social unit consists of a mated pair of adults plus their offspring less than a year old. Occasionally a yearling will remain behind to help its parents raise the next year’s litter of pups. In the West, particularly, a handful of family members may augment the breeding pair and their offspring of the year, so that the family group can contain five to seven adults and perhaps a half-dozen pups.

On the other hand, coyotes can also operate singly and in pairs, so they aren’t automatically tied to group behavior. Although the larger aggregations of perhaps a dozen coyotes can be considered a pack, they aren’t typical, and a more usual situation is a family of four to seven or eight hunting together in late fall and early winter, then gradually diminishing until they’re mostly hunting alone or in pairs.

Experiences with wildlife aren’t always serious and inspiring events; indeed, they can be downright hilarious. A coyote was responsible for an event of the latter sort not long ago. I was deer hunting and had just entered the woods. As I moved cautiously over a little knoll, a movement to my right caught my eye. My first thought was that it was a deer, but it turned out to be a coyote headed in my direction.

I stood absolutely motionless and watched as the coyote trotted past me no more than twenty-five feet away. There was no wind that I could detect, and the coyote went by unconcernedly, without so much as a glance in my direction. Then a tiny breath of air must have carried my scent to the coyote, which exploded into action.

The ground was bare, and so frantic were the coyote’s efforts to escape that, like a car spinning its wheels, its hind feet spun wildly in the leaves. Then, without warning, the coyote gained traction and shot forward like an arrow from a bow. As it accelerated, it threw a backward glance at me. This was a major mistake: a branch caught the rocketing animal under the chin as it turned its head forward, and the hapless creature was knocked half off its feet. Finally, the coyote managed to get its act together and depart with whatever speed and remaining dignity it could muster. For my part, I stood there shaking with laughter, for the whole performance was uncannily like something from a Roadrunner cartoon! So much for the notion that animals always perform efficiently.

Despite this temporary display of ineptness, the coyote is not a cartoon character. Yes, the Roadrunner will go on flattening Wile E. Coyote in the world of cartoons, but meanwhile the real coyote is here to stay. Whether one loves it, hates it, or takes a much more realistic view that this is simply a very interesting predator that is now part of our ecosystem, the coyote is an extraordinary survivor!

18

Bad Guy/Good Guy: The Timber Wolf

MYTHS

Wolves are a threat to humans.

Wolves are “good guys” that kill only the old, the weak, and the sick.

Wolves are “bad guys”—cruel, wanton killers of everything in sight.

Wolves are in danger of extinction.

Wolves are nearly always gray.

Wolves live mainly on mice in the summer.

Wolves howl at the moon.

Wolves always mate for life.

ALTHOUGH THE COYOTE IS HIGHLY CONTROVERSIAL, IT HAS TO PLAY SECOND FIDDLE IN THAT REGARD TO ITS BIG COUSIN, THE WOLF. Of all the animals on the North American continent, the timber wolf, also called the gray wolf
(Canis lupus),
has unquestionably been the most hated, feared, reviled, and relentlessly persecuted. Europeans who settled the continent regarded their new home as a howling wilderness, and sought to tame it by making it as much as possible like the “civilized” landscape that they had left behind. Predators, especially large ones, were regarded as a major component of that wilderness; accordingly, the colonists despised them and sought to eliminate them as an important part of wilderness taming. Still, they reserved a special brand of hatred for the wolf.

The reasons for this fear and hatred are complex and not entirely clear, but a major one was the attitude that the settlers brought with them from Europe. The wolf is cast as the Bad Guy in numerous fairy tales—“Little Red Riding Hood,” “The Three Little Pigs,” and “Peter and the Wolf”—and even in songs, such as “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?”

Timber (gray) wolf

Like most children of my generation, I was raised on such stories. One melodramatic tale in particular imprinted itself on my mind. It involved a huge, slavering pack of wolves relentlessly pursuing a sleigh and its human occupants across the snowy steppes of Russia. Aboard the sleigh were various supplies the family was bringing home (the frozen steppes in midwinter seem an odd time and place to be doing one’s shopping, but that doesn’t occur to a child).

Just as the wolves were about to attack, a side of bacon was dumped overboard, and the wolves stopped to devour and fight over it. They quickly resumed the pursuit, however, and soon were about to attack the horses and people again. Then the process of dumping food was repeated, and so on. Just after the last morsel of food had been jettisoned, and doom seemed imminent, the horses, with sleigh and occupants, dashed into their barn, barely ahead of the frenzied wolves!

Whether such sensational chase scenes ever happened in Europe is not known. There is speculation that European wolves might actually have attacked people for several reasons. Rabies was one, and starvation was another. Lacking the means to eliminate wolves directly, burgeoning European populations were constantly clearing more land and usurping wolf habitat. With habitat and natural prey largely gone, wolves no doubt turned to livestock as a food source—and possibly, under desperate circumstances, even to humans.

A third possible reason for wolf attacks has also been postulated. During the Middle Ages, bodies of some humans—executed criminals, outcasts, plague victims, paupers, and similarly unwanted characters—were often unceremoniously dumped without burial outside cities. Although wolves normally don’t feed on carrion, they might conceivably have done so if nearly starved. In this manner, the theory goes, they might have lost an inherent fear of humans, and then turned to killing live humans.

We’ll never know whether wolves actually killed people in Europe in those days, or whether these are merely monstrous exaggerations stemming from centuries of folklore, but let us dispense with one myth right away: North American wolves are no threat to human safety. There have been almost no documented attacks on a human by a non-rabid wolf in North America. Even the handful of attacks have been more or less provoked and involved mitigating circumstances. For instance, a wolf knocked down a hunter who was wearing camouflage and had covered himself with liberal applications of deer scent; when the wolf discovered its mistake, it promptly fled, probably more terrified than the hunter!

Wolves also enjoy—if that’s the right term—an unsavory reputation as bloodthirsty beasts that kill for pleasure. In part, this image rests on their depredations on domestic livestock, which may strike the angry livestock owner as excessive and unjustified.

Wolves do indeed kill cattle and sheep—a trait noted from ancient times, as in the fable about the boy who cried wolf once too often, or in Lord Byron’s memorable opening line of “The Destruction of Sennacherib”: “The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold. . . .” Wolves, though, like other predators, kill only in order to live and not to satisfy some perverted blood-lust. To a wolf, a sheep is only a slow, dim-witted version of a small deer, and a cow nothing more than a physically challenged moose, elk, or bison.

In recent years, the North American timber wolf’s image has undergone a major refurbishing in some quarters, though certainly not in others. Led by Farley Mowat’s popular book
Never Cry Wolf
(more about that later), the wolf has become Mr. Good Guy to many, the persecuted, misunderstood keeper of sound genetic stock in caribou, moose, elk, deer, and other species, by selectively removing the weak, the unfit, the sickly, and the old. While this image is based on considerably more truth than are the old stereotypes of wolf as Bad Guy, it’s often grossly overdone.