Essex on Lake Champlain
\"Essex
  • About
    • Essex, New York (Town)
      • Essex Maps
      • Essex, New York Weather
      • Town of Essex Government
      • Close
    • Essex on Lake Champlain (Blog)
      • Contributors
      • Sponsors
      • Testimonials
      • Get Involved
      • Close
    • Close
  • Books
  • Blog
  • Calendar
    • Add an Event
    • Upcoming Events
    • Close
  • Essex on Lake Champlain
  • Connect
    • Social Media
      • Facebook
      • Twitter
      • Google +
      • Pinterest
      • YouTube
      • Flickr
    • Newsletters
    • GET INVOLVED
    • CONTACT
        • Your Name (required)

          Your Email (required)

          Subject (required)

          Your Message

      • Close
    • Shop
    • Search
        • Search
          • Close
        • Categories
            • Agriculture (516)
            • Architecture (76)
            • Arts (348)
            • Business (122)
            • Daily Doodle (62)
            • Dining (151)
            • Doodle Quotes (5)
            • Doodlebomb (3)
            • Education (295)
            • Entertainment (361)
            • Environment (28)
            • Essex Doodles (62)
            • Events (1665)
            • Exercise (54)
            • Government (247)
            • Health & Wellness (133)
            • Heritage (395)
            • History (181)
            • Hyperlocal (29)
            • Landscape (35)
            • Lifestyle (197)
            • Lodging (16)
            • Music (271)
            • Nature (255)
            • News (1186)
            • Nightlife (18)
            • Obituary (9)
            • Opinion (44)
            • Outdoors (176)
            • People (113)
            • Philanthropy (79)
            • Real Estate (3)
            • Recreation (211)
            • Resources (7)
            • Services (7)
            • Shopping (95)
            • Sports (22)
            • Transportation (71)
            • Worship (17)
          • Close
        • Archives
            • June 2018 (21)
            • May 2018 (30)
            • April 2018 (28)
            • March 2018 (30)
            • February 2018 (31)
            • January 2018 (26)
            • December 2017 (23)
            • November 2017 (25)
            • October 2017 (22)
            • September 2017 (32)
            • August 2017 (35)
            • July 2017 (30)
            • June 2017 (30)
            • May 2017 (35)
            • April 2017 (31)
            • March 2017 (33)
            • February 2017 (30)
            • January 2017 (35)
            • December 2016 (30)
            • November 2016 (37)
            • October 2016 (43)
            • September 2016 (53)
            • August 2016 (49)
            • July 2016 (59)
            • June 2016 (70)
            • May 2016 (57)
            • April 2016 (64)
            • March 2016 (69)
            • February 2016 (56)
            • January 2016 (46)
            • December 2015 (39)
            • November 2015 (43)
            • October 2015 (61)
            • September 2015 (57)
            • August 2015 (61)
            • July 2015 (54)
            • June 2015 (41)
            • May 2015 (67)
            • April 2015 (66)
            • March 2015 (72)
          • Load More
          • Close
        • Contact us
          • CONTACT US

              Your Name (required)

              Your Email (required)

              Subject (required)

              Your Message

            • Close
        • Close
      • Log In
        • Log Into Calendar
        • Log Into Blog
        • Close
      • Skip to primary navigation
      • Skip to main content
      • Skip to primary sidebar
      • Skip to footer

      Essex on Lake Champlain

      Essex, New York Community Blog Since 2011

      • Lifestyle
        • Agriculture
          • CSAs in Essex, NY
            • Essex Farm
            • Full and By Farm
          • Farmstead Catering
          • The Hub on the Hill
          • Reber Rock Farm
        • Outdoors
          • Champlain Area Trails (CATS)
          • Pok-O-MacCready Outdoor Education Center
        • Entertainment
          • Champlain Valley Film Series
          • Whallonsburg Grange Hall
        • Arts
          • Adirondack Art Association
          • Essex Community Concerts
          • Champlain Valley Film Series
          • Essex Poetry Open Mic
        • Music
          • Essex Community Concerts
        • Shopping
        • Recreation
          • Champlain Area Trails (CATS)
        • Health & Wellness
          • Lake Champlain Yoga & Wellness
          • NEW Health
        • Nature
          • Champlain Area Trails (CATS)
        • Education
          • CFES Brilliant Pathways
          • Pok-O-MacCready Outdoor Education Center
        • Nightlife
        • Worship
      • Events
        • Christmas in Essex
        • Downtown Essex Day
        • Fourth of July in Essex, NY
      • Dining
        • Chez Lin & Rays
        • Essex Ice Cream Cafe
        • Essex Inn on the Adirondack Coast
        • Farmstead Catering
        • Old Dock Restaurant
        • The Pink Pig Cafe
      • Lodging
        • Essex Inn on the Adirondack Coast
        • The Cupola House and Cottage
      • Transportation
        • Essex-Charlotte Ferry
      • Heritage
        • Architecture
          • Essex, New York Architecture: A Doodler’s Field Guide
        • Historic Essex
        • History
        • People
        • Government
          • Essex Post Office
          • Town of Essex Government
        • Vintage Essex Trivia
        • Vintage Essex Artifacts
      • Directory
        • Adirondack Art Association
        • Champlain Area Trails (CATS)
        • CFES Brilliant Pathways
        • The Cupola House and Cottage
        • Essex-Charlotte Ferry
        • Essex Farm
        • Essex Ice Cream Cafe
        • Essex Initiatives
        • Essex Post Office
        • Farmstead Catering
        • Full and By Farm
        • Historic Essex
        • Lake Champlain Yoga & Wellness
        • NEW Health
        • Pedal Power
        • Reber Rock Farm
        • The Hub on the Hill
        • Town of Essex Government
        • Whallonsburg Grange Hall
      • Show Search
      Hide Search
      You are here: Home / Nature / Wrong to Kill Coyotes, Wolves and CoyWolves

      Wrong to Kill Coyotes, Wolves and CoyWolves

      January 30, 2016 By John Davis Leave a Comment

      Wildlife Camera: Eastern Coyote or CoyWolf
      Wildlife Camera: Eastern Coyote or CoyWolf (Credit: John Davis)

      I have previously introduced a large charismatic canid increasingly evident in the Adirondack Park that some wildlife observers are calling the CoyWolf. This hybrid of the Coyote, the Eastern Wolf, and the domestic dog unfortunately is threatened despite its important evolutionary and trophic dynamics.

      Against all ecological and ethical wisdom, most states in our country currently have open killing seasons on Coyotes. The Coyotes and CoyWolves we’re seeing in the Adirondacks and Vermont are being heavily persecuted, which may not much depress their numbers (Coyotes practice compensatory reproduction) but upsets their social dynamics, and causes untold individual suffering.

      Killing these apex predators is wrong for several reasons:

      1. It doesn’t work. If people are concerned about Coyotes or CoyWolves killing livestock or house pets, it is better to let the big dogs attain stable, self-regulating populations. Conflicts with domestic animals are most common in predator populations that are being persecuted, such that the young do not have mature role models to teach them to hunt and keep clear of people.

      Coyote by Larry Master (www.masterimages.org)
      Coyote by Larry Master (www.masterimages.org)

      2. Apex predators, particularly top carnivores, are essential members of healthy ecosystems. They help hold herbivores in check and prevent them from over-browsing plant communities. Not yet so much here in the Adirondacks where we still sometimes have cold snowy winters, but in many parts of the East, our deciduous forests are being browsed to the ground — to the detriment of songbird and wildflower populations as well as the trees themselves — by unnaturally high populations of White-tail Deer. We all love deer, and they too are important parts of forest ecosystems, but they have grown too abundant and lazy in the absence of their predators, especially Cougar and Wolf.

      Coyotes do not fill the whole niche left by our past eradication of Cougars and Wolves, but they are beginning to fill some of that void. (As I’ve written elsewhere, we should recognize Cougar and Wolf recovery as top priorities for our region, too; and by the way, if Wolves returned, they’d hold in check Coyote numbers.)

      Hunting by humans does not mimic hunting by native carnivores, for human hunters usually target the big strong “trophy” animals, whereas natural predators select out the weak. Plus, the mere presence of top predators keeps herbivores more alert and healthy and less prone to congregating in and over-browsing sensitive habitats.

      Coyote by Larry Master (www.masterimages.org)
      Coyote by Larry Master (www.masterimages.org)

      3. So long as there’s open killing season on Coyotes, the real top dog, the Wolf, has very little chance of successfully recolonizing our region from their remnant populations northward in Ontario and Quebec. All too often in areas Wolves are trying to recolonize, they get shot by hunters claiming they thought they were shooting a Coyote.

      This has happened several times in the last few years in the West, most infamously in late 2014 when a gunner shot a female Wolf in southern Utah, then got off without penalty (despite the Gray Wolf being listed under the Endangered Species Act) when he told wildlife officials he’d thought he was shooting a Coyote. This Wolf had traveled all the way from Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon and had been named Echo by some of the school kids who were rooting for her. (I was lucky enough to see her, fleetingly, after fortuitously following part of her dispersal route southward.) Probably still looking for a mate, Echo drifted back north a little way into Utah, where she was shot for resembling a Coyote.

      Right now, if a Wolf were to brave the major roads crossing southern Ontario just north of the St Lawrence River (and perhaps cross the frozen river in a cold winter) and make it southeast into our beloved Adirondack Park, all too likely she’d soon be shot for looking like a Coyote.

      Wildlife Camera: Eastern Coyote or CoyWolf
      Wildlife Camera: Eastern Coyote or CoyWolf (Credit: John Davis)

      4. Contrary to popular assumptions (based on outmoded but deep-seeded fears), native carnivores actually make our lives safer. Attacks by native carnivores on people are so rare as to be statistically irrelevant. Deer — excessively numerous because of loss of predators — kill nearly two hundred Americans a year (mostly from car/deer collisions); domestic dogs kill about twenty; all native carnivores in the US combined, maybe two in a bad year.

      On the other hand, full complements of native carnivores help hold in check the vectors of zoonotic diseases. The prime example of this now is small rodents and deer spreading Lyme disease in fragmented ecosystems deficient in native carnivores. Lyme disease is a real threat to human health, exacerbated by our intolerance of wild predators.

      Coyote by Larry Master (www.masterimages.org)
      Coyote by Larry Master (www.masterimages.org)

      5. Perhaps most important, native carnivores bring beauty and wholeness to our wild neighborhoods in ways aesthetic, ecological, recreational, ethical, and even spiritual. We will be a richer and happier people when we learn to coexist with all our native neighbors, Coyotes, Wolves, CoyWolves, and Cougars included.

      To get a taste of the joys of having these big toothy animals around, go out and follow their tracks in the snow someday this winter. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll see tracks of Cougar or full-bred Wolf (if you do, please contact me!). But if you walk the protected lands and frozen waters along the Split Rock Wildway you will see plenty of tracks from Coyotes and/or CoyWolves, and likely also from Red or Gray Fox, Bobcat, Fisher, Mink, or River Otter.

      Back-track a coursing Coyote, and he or she (or both, for they often travel as couples in winter) will teach you much about what they hunt (often rodents and rabbits, occasionally weak or old deer), what attracts their attention, where they scent-mark their territory, and much more. You will begin to learn the ways of one of our cleverest and handsomest neighbors.

      [Special thanks to Lake Placid based nature conservation photographer Larry Master (www.masterimages.org) for permission to feature several of his photographs in this post.]

      Note: The content in this blog post was repurposed and a revised version is included in John Davis’s book Split Rock Wildway: Scouting the Adirondack Park’s Most Diverse Wildlife Corridor published by Essex Editions on Nov. 21, 2017. Learn more about the book and where to buy it at essexeditions.com. Watch the book trailer below. 

      Related articles
      • Return Wolves to Increase Public Safety (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
      • Misplaced Fear of Cougars (and Other Predators) (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
      • Will Cougars Return to the Adirondacks? (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
      • We Should Welcome Cougars Back (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)
      • Restore the Adirondack Wolf (www.essexonlakechamplain.com)

      Share this:

      • Facebook
      • Twitter
      • Pinterest
      • Email
      • More
      • Print
      • LinkedIn
      • Pocket
      • Reddit
      • Tumblr

      Filed Under: Nature Tagged With: apex predators, Coyote, Coywolf, coywolves, Eastern coyote, Wildlife, wildlife preservation

      About John Davis

      John Davis is a wildways scout, editor, and writer. He lives with his family in Split Rock Wildway, where he care-takes Hemlock Rock Wildlife Sanctuary when not roaming farther afield. He is a volunteer land steward for Eddy Foundation, which has secured and opened to the public about 3,000 acres in the eastern Adirondacks; a board member of Champlain Area Trails and other outdoor/wildlife organizations; a co-founder of Wildlands Network; and is the Executive Director of The Rewilding Institute. He is the editor of many conservation publications and author of Big, Wild, and Connected: Scouting an Eastern Wildway from Florida to Quebec—about his 7,600-mile traverse of the proposed Eastern Wildway in 2011. His 5,000-mile traverse of the Rocky Mountains from Sonora, Mexico, to British Columbia, Canada, is featured in the film Born to Rewild. His second book, Split Rock Wildway: Scouting the Adirondack Park’s Most Diverse Wildlife Corridor is a rambling look at some of the charismatic and enigmatic wildlife thriving in the wooded hills and adjacent waterways linking Lake Champlain with the High Peaks.

      Reader Interactions

      Leave a Reply Cancel reply

      Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

      This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

      Primary Sidebar

      Essex, New York Architecture: A Doodler’s Field Guide 

      Essex, New York Architecture: A Doodler's Field Guide

      View all Essex Editions books...

      Follow Essex, NY on FacebookFollow Essex, NY on TwitterFollow Essex, NY on PinterestFollow Essex, NY on YouTubeFollow Essex, NY on FlickrFollow Essex, NY on RSS

      Search

      Top 10 Contributors

      • Katie Shepard (595)
      • Geo Davis (394)
      • Whallonsburg Grange Hall (257)
      • Champlain Area Trails (CATS) (207)
      • Essex Farm (205)
      • Olive Alexander (190)
      • Sara Kurak (165)
      • Fort Ticonderoga (142)
      • Tom Mangano (142)
      • Lakeside School (116)

      Footer

      Resources & Policies

      • About Essex on Lake Champlain
      • About Essex, New York
      • Essex, NY Weather
      • Disclosure Policy
      • Privacy Policy
      • Submit a Story
      • Contact Us

      Popular Essex, NY Searches

      • Essex, NY
      • Essex, New York
      • Essex on Lake Champlain
      • Essex Charlotte ferry
      • Essex ferry schedule
      • Essex Charlotte ferry schedule
      • Full and By Farm
      • Essex Farm
      • timber rattlesnake
      • Essex NY fireworks
      • Christmas in Essex, NY
      • Champlain Area Trails

      Local Links

      • Adirondack Art Association
      • Belden Noble Memorial Library
      • Champlain Area Trails
      • Champlain Valley Film Series
      • Essex Community Concerts
      • Essex Theatre Company
      • Historic Essex
      • Rosslyn Redux
      • The Crater Club
      • Town of Essex Information
      • Whallonsburg Grange Hall

      Copyright © 2022 Essex Editions

       

      Loading Comments...