We have coyotes here. Over the past few months, they have been getting a lot more aggressive. Example. A guy jogging was attacked by three coyotes on the road next to ours. My neighbor's chickens were attacked and killed by the creatures IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY with the guy gardening next to them. I've seen them trying to creep up on our bird flock every once in a while.
My mom was annoyed and started posting stuff like "Careful, keep your pets inside" and such, and a bunch of people wrote things like "Well can you shoot them?" and this friend of ours, who's a total animal rights peep, writes "We can't shoot them! We evaded their territory and they just want food!" We've been here and owned a farm here for over a century. She is wrong also cause coyotes don't have territory. They range for over 5 thousand miles in their life, and never stay in one spot for more than a week. I understand her love of animals, i love them too, but we should co-exist. They can go after rabbits, but I will kill them if they try to kill my pets.Plus, if 'you' want the coyotes to be able to do whatever they want, would you like us to cramp myself, the cows, the chickens, my cats, and my dogs into my 1800's farm house? She doesnt understand what being on a farm means. You have to protect your land. You have to take risks. You have to make the hard decisions. A city-grown person does not have the right to say what we should and shouldn't do. It's either their (the coyotes) life, or one of the farms, or even mine. So pease keep in mind people, don't tell other people what to do. Sharing your beliefs are great, but forcing them upon someone is not.
TheYoungTraveler
Hey Annie, I am a rancher too; we have sheep, Llamas, chickens, dogs and a couple of cats, and we have never lost an animal to a coyote. We use the llamas to keep them off the sheep and the dogs to watch the chickens during the day. We pen them up at night in a predator proof aviary. We've also got the occasional mountain lion coming through here and this set-up worked when they were making kills in the area. I've gotten some interesting information from www.projectcoyote.org. You might want to check it out. A single coyote can eat as many as 1800 rodents per year which is a very popular service around here. It turns out that killing coyotes can cause their family groups, (which are monogamous) to become unstable and they start breeding faster, resulting in many more coyotes. I think these animals play an important role in our environment and we can certainly do things that minimize negative encounters with them. Anyway, that’s my two cents. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteI compleatly agree, the only problem here is that we dont have really any protection from coyotes. Having a 1800 hundreds farm does not come in handy for our poor chickens when trying to not get eaten by a wild animal, but oh well. And thank you for the link, too, I found it extremely helpful.
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