Our Place in the Natural World
Burt’s post this morning got me thinking about predators in the natural world and the way we interact with them. In the past few years I have considered myself lucky to see coyotes frequently while in the outdoors. I don’t fear them and I find them to be beautiful and fascinating creatures. Anytime I spot one I consider it a good day.
Many of the hunters I know would encourage me to shoot those coyotes. They will cite the supposed decline of small game populations and threats to livestock. The justifications they give fail to convince me. This leads me to a post from Mindful Carnivore on the subject. There Tovar quotes Aldo Leopold:
Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. That is to say, you cannot love game and hate predators; you cannot conserve the waters and waste the ranges; you cannot build the forest and mine the farm. The land is one organism.
This strikes me as intrinsically true and certainly worth further consideration. For me, the coyote has always felt like part of my natural world, not an intrusion into it. I admire their beauty, their tenacity and the ability to adapt. I have never thought of them as competition. This is not because I under-value their skills, but because I don’t feel entitled to the game they may take. Tovar discusses the same idea:
When hunters talk about what impact coyotes do or don’t have on white-tailed deer numbers, isn’t the entire discussion built on the very idea of “game”? On the notion that deer—almost like cows and sheep, or Fido and Sylvester—are, at least in part, off-limits to coyotes?
What are the consequences of believing that certain wild animals should be killed and eaten only—or at least mostly—by two-footed predators, not four-footed?
This passage struck me like a thunderbolt. I have been thinking the same thing for quite some time but was unable to articulate it so well. Previously my excuse to landowners for not killing coyotes at their request was that they looked too much like dogs and I couldn’t do it. This is true but I also added that I don’t shoot anything I won’t eat. Both are good reasons but not the moral standing I was looking for.
Lately I have thought a lot about the notion of trespassing or poaching with regards to land and wild game. I recall the stories from medieval England of men being executed for killing the king’s deer. This leads me to present day and the attitude of landowners towards trespassing. There are two kinds of trespass, intentional and unintentional. In the latter case, most of the time if a hunter wanders over a property line by accident land owners will be understanding. I have been guilty of this myself in public land with poorly defined boundaries. When confronted the conversation was uncomfortable but all was forgiven when the landowners heard my honest apology.
What if an animal was killed during the trespass? In this case we use the term poach to describe animals taken without permission or outside of approved seasons. In the case of accidental poaching, the same result would probably come about. The landowner would be unhappy and there might be some harsh words, but most likely all would be forgiven.
Readers no doubt see what I am getting at here. The coyote does not trespass intentionally and it certainly does not poach game intentionally. They no more understand property lines and the concept of ownership than would a small child, yet so many hunters and landowners would pronounce a death sentence for their offense. I cannot even get my head around this. It strikes me as not just unethical but immoral.
Modern hunters often find ourselves justifying our sport. We talk in grandiose terms about the spiritual connection we feel to the natural world. I have certainly spoken often about how a day afield is one of the most intense spiritual experience I have. In using such high language, how can we then justify killing animals that trespass unintentionally and maybe kill prey that we seek ourselves? Are we so egotistical that we now claim dominion not just over domestic game, but wild game as well? I plan to continue letting coyotes pass. If they beat me to a kill, it’s a blessing for them and a reminder that I am not alone in my pursuits.
* This post first appeared at The Big Stick in 2010. I have updated it slightly for today.
Great post Mike. Sadly to many hunters make all hunters look bad with their Kill all the Predators talk. People still very invested in wolf kills here. The stated justification is always straightforward that wolves kill moose and people like to hunt moose. Its still a common feeling that killing the competition for game is fine. As an old Alaskan Gov once said “we can’t let nature run wild.”Report
Is Alaska in danger of running out of moose?Report
sigh…no not even close to running out of free range Bullwinkles. However hunters want to take a lot of moose and there are only so many to go around. While Alaska is huge it is harsh so the land has a limited carrying capacity. A lot of people in the outlying areas of AK rely on game to get by and also treasure the ability to live off the land. More and more people have moved out of wilderness areas. With advances in snowmachine/ 4-wheeller tech people can get to all sorts of places to live and hunt. There are fewer places animals can get to that people can’t access. Many people feel they should be able to take as much game as they wish so they can live out their frontiersman fantasies.
There aren’t actually enough moose for bears, wolves, wolverines and people to all have what they need. For all of the deeply held Alaskan Libertarian beliefs many folk completely believe in the gov controlling and regulating animals for the benefit of hunters and fishermen. We have a continuing struggle over how many moose can be hunted and how many fish commercial, recreational and Native people can take.
There was just a survey of wolf populations in Denali National Park. There are only 57 wolves in 6 million acres of wilderness. Partly that is due to the hardness of the land. But there is also wolf hunting all around the park so some of the wolves have been killed when they ventured over park boundaries.Report
Thanks, that was a really informative response that anticipated what could have been a series of follow up questions.Report
I had a bull moose in my driveway this morning. Made me late for my Dr’s appt. If the snow isn’t deep, I’d put money on the moose over the wolf in a fair/unfair fight. One kick and the wolf is in a bad way. Deep snow, whole other story.Report
Burt since I had your email address, sent you a pic from my cell phone.Report
I hope this works: This is Ward’s Moose.
I’ve had deer in my yard before but never anything quite this massive. I rather expect my dog would bark at it until she realized how big this
fellapretty young lady really is and then tuck her tail between her legs and hide behind me.Very cool, thanks for sharing it!Report
It’s a chocolate moose!Report
Last winter i pulled out of our garage and quickly stopped. I called The Wife telling her there was a mom moose and calf in our yard. The dumb dogs hadn’t made a sound. She took a bunch of pix.
We see moose here frequently. They can be scary. I’ve been charged by an adolescent moose, which was no fun at all, while i was xc skiing. They usually don’t do anything when you pass but still require caution.Report
This isn’t my first moose in the yard, in fact this is likely the colt from several years ago. One time the cow brought her two calves and they hung out every single day until she took off and ditched them in my yard. The calves (male and female) kept coming back for a few more days looking for mom but she and poppa had hit the bricks. Probably wanted to show them a safe place to hang out until they got bigger. Coyotes bothered them a bit, but once they hit their full size nothing in the woods around here wants to mess with them, and that includes the cougar.
Around my house I’ve had racoons, skunk, porcupine, deer, moose, coyote, cougar, bald eagle, great horned owl, lots of critters. The coyotes used to run back and forth outside my fence while my border collies ran back and forth on the inside. The coyotes would run with three legs acting like they were injured but the border collies are too smart to go chasing after them (yes they could easily get out of the yard, the fence is only 4 feet tall).
Coyotes around here are well fed, there’s a cougar that only eats the best parts of the deer it kills and the coyotes eat the rest. When the cougar gets bored with venison it eats a coyote or two. I’ve found all the kills and plenty of tracks, but haven’t seen the cougar, although I’ve found its tracks less than 100 yards from my property. Fortunately it seems to prefer coyote to collie.Report
You’ll never see those things, cougars are crazy-stealthy.
Coyotes are sneaky bastards, aren’t they? “Come, chase me, I’m hurrrrrt.””Report
I was in Death Valley a couple weeks ago and saw a coyote. Very cool.Report
cougars will fucking stalk you. for miles upon miles. letting you see them out of the corner of your eye.
Damn cats.Report
The only two legitimate reasons I can think of to apply attrition to a predator population is when the natural limits on the predator population have been removed, or the predator represents a significant threat to life or property. The first is almost always a case of an imported predator.
The second is what most people think they’re talking about when they talk about coyotes: “they’re a significant threat to my sheep/pets/cows/whatever.”
But that usually doesn’t stand up to further investigation. A small pack of coyotes is going to eat far more in the way of rodents and pests, which is usually fairly advantageous, than it is going to eat your sheep.
Sure, they might eat one of your sheep. Well, uh… get a dog? Problem mostly solved?
In the meantime, they’re eating tons of rats and ground squirrels and other critters that carry parasites that can infect your sheep, or carry disease, or eat your crops, or whatever.
If you’re shooting coyotes to keep them from taking 1 lamb per season and you’re putting gobs of rat poison around your barn, which occasionally causes you to lose a chicken, you’re digging a hole and filling it up. Especially if you’re spending more to eradicate the pests than you’re losing in the occasional lamb death.Report
I agree with this, mostly. It depends on how large the coyote population. Where I lived as a kid, the population got large enough to mostly eliminate the population of rats, squirrels, and other rodents in the area.
Then they started going after family dogs, getting into trash, getting way too comfortable around relatively stupid humans who looked at them with a mindset of “oh look, a cute doggie.”
What happened next was that their trash-foraging got them into fights with possums and with raccoons, which led to rabies outbreaks in the local coyote population. Wasn’t pretty when that started spreading. County authorities had to put out a pretty strong response with authorized trappers and hunters to cull the coyote population significantly as a public health threat.
Now, admittedly, that is in a suburban area that was only somewhat marginally closer to being rural than to being urban. And my calculations for the barely-populated stretches of, say, Montana would probably be quite different. No need to cull the predators of a national park, or semi-wild area, unless it came to a similar health-related issue where the infected animals needed to be identified and put down for the good of the larger population (including, in the case of a rabies outbreak among pack animals, perhaps the good of the predator population itself).Report
We have a problem similar to that (although not to that scale) in Pasadena.
Coyotes come down from the hills, especially when we’ve had a dry spell. This is a legitimate problem, and should be addressed.Report
That got me to thinking.
We have two packs of coyotes around where I live. One pack is fairly big. Sometimes they come in to the edge of town.
This is farming country; corn & soybean. A few orchards around; apples, I think.
Between the next towns east and west is a 36 miles span; and from north to south, 27.
I grew up in the desert; ranch country, horses mostly. A lot of oil wells. Some peanut farming up north, and pecans.
Between the next towns east to west is a span of 99 miles, and 43 from those north to south.
The desert country was settled in the late 1600’s, and this place in the early 1800’s.
I’m sure it has to do with the availability of water; the sort of crops that are grown, the nearness of the towns, the packs of coyotes coming up in to the edge of town.
Back in NM, you don’t have to worry so much about coyotes. They tend to keep their distance from humans, and they don’t take cattle or horses unless they’re small and sickly anyway, and if the coyotes are really, really hungry.
A lot more lizards in NM, which tend to support birds; a lot more small mammals here.
I’m sure it’s the water.Report
It’s definitely the water in the Pasadena area (although closer to the hills up in Altadena they sometimes come down for the garbage, like the bears who show up from time to time in the foothill communities).Report
The controversies on this point I’ve heard of are about wolves, not coyotes. A pack of wolves can indeed take down a steer, which represents a significant asset loss for a rancher. So yes, I can understand ranchers being upset at wild wolf introduction programs. But at the end of the day, I also say, “That’s what insurance is for.” So far as I know, livestock can be insured against a risk like this and when it’s announced that wolves will be introduced into an environment that seems like a pretty clear signal to consider buying that insurance.
And reintroduction of apex predators, particularly wolves, can have significant and non-obvious effects on the environment. While it may not always be easy to get along with other participants in the environment, I suspect that on the whole, we’re better off for doing so.Report
Patrick,
Personally I think most of the coyote hunters just use it as an excuse that doesn’t really stand up to serious scrutiny. They like to kill coyotes because predator hunting is exciting. They respond well to calling and a lot of people like to use high-powered rifles and test their sniping skills. It bothers me a LOT.
Every year I attend the townhall meetings our state Fish & Wildlife folks hold and every year I ask them if they are willing to say coyotes need management through hunting. In five years they have never been willing to go on the record with an affirmative. They simply say the population can support hunting.Report
Right, this matches my reading of both the coyote stories (when I hear them) and the wolf control stories.
It appears to mostly be about “getting your gun off”. I’m not married to this stance, but I haven’t yet seen much of a call to change it.Report
Can’t speak to coyotes (I assume you’re right), but wolves up here have materially represented a threat to livestock. There was a big to-do in this county where a pack did a real number on the local sheep population.Report
I know wolves can bring down sheep and cows which certainly affects ranchers. But people want to kill wolves for taking down wild animals like moose and caribou. I’ve heard people passionately assert that wolves are vermin and should be almost completely removed. There is a threat to livelihood and then there is just crazed fear and plain old fun of shooting wolves from airplanes.Report
Out here, at least the going attitude is “Hunt them, trap them, I don’t care” and more than a little bit of frustration that the government reintroduced them and let them repopulate to the extent that they have in the first place. Less “Oh, boy, wolves, lemme hunt!” and more “I wish they weren’t here.”
The hunting tourism angle, though, is not entirely lost the local community. That being said, last winter was a disappointment as far as that goes and that did not deter local sentiment.Report
Nice post, Mike.Report
Good points all. When you introduce man into an environment, you pretty much have to manage everything else, and him. In my area, the deer are out of control because of lack of predators. They local predators, foxes, bears, etc. are very diminished and the coyote is slowing making in roads east from the west.
And as mentioned, coyotes will take cats and other small domesticated animals. (i’m not a big fan of letter your cat wander outside either) so they can pose a problem. I think the key is that you have to manage the resources so ALL have an opportunity. Otherwise, the system gets even more out of balance.Report
the deer are out of control because of lack of predators.
Also because we’ve created ideal deer habitat, lots of “edge” environments. They’re less fond of either strictly open space or deep woods. Essentially, at least in the midwest, we inadvertently went out and build perfect deer neighborhoods.Report
Yes. Back in good ol NJ the white tale’s love the medians on the big N-S highway, the Garden State Parkway. They have open spaces for grass to grow with trees nearby for cover. Parks, the kind people like to take walks in, are also often great places for deer.Report
Yep, and with all the green spaces that are connected, the deer have corridors to move into suburban areas. Unintended consecquences are a bitch.Report
Indeed – it is only a slight exaggeration for me to say that I pass as many deer carcasses on a given morning’s commute via suburban and exurban back roads as I pass homes. For some stretches, it’s not even an exagerration at all.Report
Damon sez: ” (i’m not a big fan of letter your cat wander outside either)”
Oh, this, yes, particularly in the city.
In a rural area, it’s slightly different, but in my neighborhood the outdoor cats are serial killers on the bird population. They also crap in my yard and pee on my lawn furniture and in the kids’ sandbox.
If I put my dog in your yard to do his business and pee on your lawn furniture, you’d rightly want to shoot my dog and/or me. In fact, you want to get people up in arms in any neighborhood, take a dog for a walk without cleaning up his mess (rightly so).
And yet cat owners don’t even consider this.Report
This was an excellent post, Mike, thanks for pulling it from your archives.Report
Modern hunters often find ourselves justifying our sport.
It’s a function of population pressure, I think. Human population. There just aren’t that many places left where a hunter can go, into the wilds so to speak, and feel like his behavior in that area is negligible. But I hear what you say in the rest of the paragraph. As the perhaps overly elaborate justifications for killing wild animals continues to increase – because the range of wild animals continues to decrease – hunters will continue to find themselves looking for the right language to express the value (subjective, I think) of what they’re doing.Report
This is brilliant, I have found myself arguing a mirror case to environmentalists. That human hunters are part of the system we have to deal with rather than an external problem to be removed so it is fascinating to see a hunter argue the same for wild predators.Report
Great stuff Mike. Couldn’t agree more.Report