Clear to partly cloudy. Low 29F. Winds light and variable..
Clear to partly cloudy. Low 29F. Winds light and variable.
A coyote stands on a driftwood structure.
Duncan, right, makes a practice of standing between his human and potential danger — in this case, a neighborhood coyote.
A coyote stands on a driftwood structure.
In my last column, I waxed rhapsodic about how wonderful it is to live with coyotes. I admire these clever, adaptable canids, even when I’ve lost chickens to them. The wonder of getting to hear the local coyote family singing — to include when sirens blare down the road — is well worth the occasional inconvenience of shoring up whatever weakness in the fence allowed the coyotes in.
There are ways to live in harmony with these animals, but it starts with setting aside human ego. For too long, those of us who live here but are non-Indigenous have tended to approach nature as a subordinate, and other beings as lesser.
The value we place on each species is proportionate to what resources we can extract from them. The less cooperative and complacent the species, the less its valued. Living with coyotes necessitates being willing to compromise.
To do that, it’s important to learn to think like a coyote. I live on several acres of woods and fields, with plenty of shelter for the local coyote family. Here, we’ve dropped several species of tempting prey — sheep, ducks, chickens and a guard llama whose job is to whistle threateningly at anything remotely dangerous.
Every acre that’s been turned to agriculture means one less acre full of tasty voles, shrews and mice for coyotes to snack on, so I can’t blame them for looking longingly at a slow, fat chicken. Some neighbors no doubt let their cats roam outside, and both the cat and its kibble are fair game for a hungry coyote.
I’ve seen more than one small dog racing off-leash far ahead of its owner on trails or the beach, and they’re no match for an animal that may be used to wrestling raccoons or trying to tip over porcupines.
Got a good list of things a coyote might like? Good. Now consider how to keep them away from it. “Good fences make good neighbors,” as Robert Frost once wrote, and the farm is full of 5-foot welded wire fencing, hung up on beams and posts, with electric hot wires as needed. A chicken wire with the foot buried a few inches below the soil just outside the fence line discourages digging underneath.
The chicken coop’s ventilation is covered not in chicken wire, but 1/4-inch hardware cloth reinforced with screws and metal washers every foot. It would take a very determined coyote to make a night raid on this place, and in my mind any coyote that managed to find a way deserves a meal for showing me what I could have done better.
Duncan, right, makes a practice of standing between his human and potential danger — in this case, a neighborhood coyote.
I have no cats, and only one geriatric German shepherd who’s happy to snooze in the sun in her fenced-in yard, even as the coyotes sing nearby. But if there were felines here, they’d be inside-only, other than excursions on a harness and leash.
Not only is that safer for cats, but they won’t be contributing to the 2.4 billion birds slaughtered by outdoor cats in the United States every year. I already don’t let my old dog off leash outside the yard, even if she probably could handle a coyote or two despite her arthritis.
The coyotes, for their part, give my home a wide berth. Oh, they’ll dig around in the compost heap if there’s something new in there. But they have left the garden alone, and the leavings from the bird feeders. If they did become too brave, I have a rack of metal pots and pans I can bang to scare them off and remind them that it’s much safer to be afraid of us. Better to be an old coyote than a bold coyote.
Do I feel I’m missing out on anything? Not really. These are such small changes to make in my routine and my home. And the payoff is worth it, for I get to enjoy seeing and hearing my coyote neighbors singing, and watching them turn their head just once to check before retreating into the forest.
I get to share this place with them, and the bears, the deer and all the other amazing beings that were here long before I was. It’s a small price to pay for being immersed in such beauty.
Rebecca Lexa is a naturalist, nature educator, tour guide and writer living on the Long Beach Peninsula. Find more about her work at rebeccalexa.com.
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There are definitely coyotes. Once I left the house to walk my son to school and on our grass was the body of a cat, without the head. I see many many signs of missing cats… wondering if the coyotes got to many of them, sadly.
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