Posted on 12/27/2017 5:04:54 AM PST by x1stcav
Dennis Murphy sniffed the bobcat urine he uses to lure his prey. He checked the silencer on his AR-15 assault rifle and loaded a few snares into his Ford pickup.
“Let’s go kill some coyotes,” he said.
But he wasn’t heading for the wilderness. Mr. Murphy’s stalking ground is on the contentious new frontier where hunters are clashing with conservationists: cities and suburbs.
Coyotes are largely associated with their ancestral bastions in the wild lands of the American West, but they are highly adaptable, and in recent years they have been colonizing large population centers throughout North America. The hunters have come after them, stalking the predators in settings like strip mall parking lots, housing tract cul-de-sacs, and plazas in the shadow of skyscrapers.
The growing popularity of urban hunting is igniting a fierce debate over the perils and benefits coyotes pose in populated areas, and whether city dwellers ought to adapt to living alongside a cunning predator that has thrived since one of its top adversaries, the gray wolf, has been all but wiped out in much of the continent.
(Excerpt) Read more at mobile.nytimes.com ...
Thanks. I hope it passes social media censorship in Europe.
“He checked the silencer on his AR-15 assault rifle...”
Ffffft. With the puff of a pillow falling onto the floor, the dog was mortally wounded, writhing and twitching, its mouth wide open in helpless surprise, its life blood sprayed in a mist onto the pavement and surrounding fences.
Michigan allows nonstop hunting on them. At will. No tags required. And my neighbors are happily out doing just that now and then.
They keep them so low in numbers that we never see them in this very rural area. We feed a plethora of wildlife, including a fox and the barn cat from down the road. Had a few grouse in our tree the other day. Lots of potential food for coyote is present and accounted for here, thanks to the love of hunting and our great neighbors.
All it takes is a hunting culture set free. So sad for those poor dogs and cats that ended up as coyote food.
Now that coyotes are interbreeding with wolves in Canada they’ve gotten larger and more agressive in much of the eastern US. A couple of years ago in my town a cop shot a coyote that was approaching a woman in a graveyard (he happened to be passing by, she was totally oblivious) and the thing turned out to be almost 100 pounds. I’ve seen many others that look at least that large. In Concord (mega-wealthy and insanely liberal) this past summer I saw a large coyote lounging in a field about 60 yards away from a bike path and stopped on a bench to see how people would react. Many people going by, all full of oohs and aahs, one lady expressed concern that the sun might be too hot and if only there was some shade for it to sit under!
Where we live, we are helping wildlife. 90% of our eaters are birds, many chickadees, doves, and cardinals. It was -10 this morning and we have about 10 inches of snow on the ground.
I thought cats provided that function.
Smack in the west burbs of Chicago. They’re everywhere here, and are getting pretty big. I mean like small German Shepherds big. Small dogs are being picked off right out of backyards in front of folks.
They’ve lost all fear of man. Last year our neighbor saw one at her child’s bus stop trying to take his lunch.
L
That would be a wolf.
I feed the birds too.
I’m referring to animals of prey. For some reason some people up here think they need to be taken care of. Very misguided.
Gee, look what I missed by not reading the article.
What poetic language, what picturesque descriptions...
...what a load of bovine excrement.
I guess they put signs up for the cats so they know where they can safely cross. :-)
Maybe you are right, though, about the interbreeding.
Yea, the hybrids here in N.E. are much more wolf-like. Handsome animals that I wouldn't want to run into unarmed. I hear them often in the fields and saw a pack of them moving through the back yard one moonlit winter night.
Not coincidentally, rabbits, once so plentiful they were almost tame to a human walking amongst them, have become a rarity. Rarebits.
Coyotes definitely take over when left unchecked. We HAD a number of wild turkeys, rabbits, ruffed grouse and a few “gone wild” house cats roaming the woods we own but since early this past fall, most have all but disappeared. Many coyote tracks in the snow these days leads me to believe the coyotes have done what they do. We often hear them howling at night as well so its time to get out the night vision goggles, the .17 HMR and get busy. (Sorry but house cats ARE on the same list as coyotes by the way).
A few years ago a guy shot one within a mile of Downtown Pittsburgh.
Last year our neighbor saw one at her child’s bus stop trying to take his lunch.
I’m in Dupage...
The coyotes here in southern NH are much bigger than western coyotes. They live in the suburbs. That makes it more difficult to hunt them because of their proximity to houses. You are not allowed to discharge a firearm within 500 feet of a residence not your own. They live on housecats. Between them and fisher cats they keep the housecat population in check.
I recall the aligator hunts in and around suburban Louisiana cities.
They roam the streets near the canals, in the back with lights and rifles. Just feet from people.
When a danger exists, the gun is always there to protect the innocent.
Yes, an awesome breed. I had an Anatolian/Pyreneese mix and she was amazing goat keeper and all around protective of all my animals. She died of bone cancer in 2014 at the age of 11 yrs. I had her since she was 10 wks old. Gretchen was the dog of dogs. Miss her terribly.
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