Mary Sands with Nancy Zierenberg

 

 

Dance of the Coyote: The Weirdness of Coyote-Killing

Coyote: American Spanish, from Nahuatl cóyotl (Aztec, loose translation for "trickster").

Coyote in Myth

I had a dream about coyotes—after having re-read Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "A Coney Island of the Mind"—and everything turned surreal. A picnic basket with a coyote, its hair lining the basket like a blanket. Emerald leaves above with milk, heavily swaying and allowing sunlight to bounce in. Nothing Bosch-like or scary, but out there. A canoe bringing a hunter who had a bag of limes. Coyote gulping green liquid, milk-leaf-green and lime green. Go away, I said, to the hunter. It didn't matter. Dream over, anyway.

I dig coyotes in the way that one appreciates the taste of a blackberry. But it goes deeper than that. Once I was hiking in a nearby canyon. In a meadow was a coyote family romping around. The sun was low in the sky. Their coats were glinting golden. The parental animals seem to be playful and guiding to the younger ones. I felt akin to the scene, as though if only life could really be, and not just appear, just that way. Coyotes: one of the few mammals that mate for life.

Another time I was out on a nightly walk, down in a new subdivision that rubs up against the Pacific foothills (which are ravaged with mountain biking trails). I walked down a long, paved street and had a habit of then walking up into a grassy area that overlooked the rim of a canyon, and then beyond where there are more foothills. Since it was dusk, I decided to stay off the dewy grass and just gaze over the view from the sidewalk. Turning around to hike back up the hill, I caught a glance of movement a few feet behind me. I thought it was a small dog. I turned and saw a coyote following me. He was so small that I shouldn't have been frightened—and he was not aggressive, just trotting along content-like. I felt as though he might follow me curiously if I stayed there. Still, I felt I'd invaded his turf—the sidewalk and me!—and crossed the street to watch him at a safer distance. I still hike down that hill, and sometimes look in the muddled bushes of the canyon rim, hoping to make some kind of magical human/animal connection with that same song-dog.

Abundant in myth and literature, Coyote is one of those animals that has been blamed for evildoings as well as has been spoken of in praise. Southwestern Indian culture particularly is full of coyote legend. In Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest, J. Frank Dobie said:

"No sharp line of time or space, like that separating one century from another or the territory of one nation from that of another, can delimit the boundaries of any region to which any regionalist lays claim. Mastery, for instance, of certain locutions peculiar to the Southwest will take their user to the Aztecs, to Spain, and to the border of ballads and Sir Walter Scott's romances. I found that I could not comprehend the coyote as animal hero of Pueblo and Plains Indians apart from the Reynard of Aesop and Chaucer." (August, 1995.)

There are many coyote legends, like the Lummi's (Pacific Northwest) that says the Coyote liked to show off to the girls by juggling his eyeballs. One day he threw one so high it stuck in the sky (Arcturus). The Zuni in the Southwest have a legend called "Coyote and Eagle Steal the Sun and Moon" that includes Coyote as part conspirator in the cosmology of winter and lightness. Idaho's Kalispel have a legend called "Coyote as the Moon"; at least Coyote tried to be Moon for a while. But he was too noisy and was replaced. Other myths like "Coyote Steals Fire" and "Little Friend Coyote Blackfoot" are big starting in our childhoods (if we're lucky to hear them passed on in some way).

These legends and sometimes mystical, mysterious Coyote auras find their way into contemporary art too. When I think of Coyote, there is a dreamlike aspect: a fissure on the earth, hot desert, howl face against the moon, a coyote crouched near plums. In an article titled "A Taste for the Tune of Words": The Beats, Music & Communications Technology" Wesley Britton wrote, "... [Jim] Morrison produced a 50 minute movie titled HWY, a spontaneously created 'film poem' celebrating hobos and containing images of coyotes and chanting Indians in the desert, a project reminiscent of 'Pull My Daisy.'" And then later in that article, Coyote is mentioned again:

In Gary Snyder's 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning Turtle Island, the poem "Call of the Wild" attacks America's policy regarding Viet Nam, linking defoliation, and bombing in Asia and North America, but it also levels a blast at "The ex-acid heads from the cities/Converted to Guru or Swami" with "shiney dopey eyes." The hippies eschew meat, "dream of India, of forever blissful sexless highs" while sleeping in "oil-heated Geodesic domes stuck like warts in the woods". Prophetically, the youth give up their natural way of life as does the Indian who calls in the government to kill the Coyote, ironically indicating that true Native Americans and supposed disciples of their way of life from two generations are equally superficial in their claims of authenticity, both old and young denying the wildness in themselves (1997).

Part of Gary Snyder's poem "Piute Creek" reminds me of that aloof glance from Coyote eyes:

In the moonlight
Slips into Juniper shadow:
Back there unseen
Cold proud eyes
Of Cougar or Coyote
Watch me rise and go.

(Riprap)

The coyote, also known as Old Man Coyote, is, according to William Bright, "perhaps the most conspicuous figure in the oral literature of the Native American peoples of the western North America and meso-America" ("The Natural History of Old Man Coyote." In Recovering the Word: Essays on Native American Literature. Ed. by Brian Swann and Arnold Krupat. Berkeley: U of California P, 1987.) This animal, known for its sly and intelligent nature, is highly adaptable and cunning. It is weird that the animal is so targeted.

A Paiute myth (sinouav means wolf in Paiute) says: Sinouav was unhappy. He had no song. One day he was digging roots when Coyote happened past. Sinouav offered him food in exchange for a wonderful coyote song. That night Sinouav sang and sang. Soon all his people said he sang the song of Sinouav, not Coyote. That night Coyote crept into camp, found the prideful Sinouav and took back his song. Even now, Sinouav has no song, only a lonely howl.

Coyote in Reality

The coyote's legendary and literary history sadly is a metaphor for its misfortune today. Its plight has been chilling. Weird, illogical, rampant. While it's true that coyotes are predators, they have been unjustly accountable for predation far beyond actuality. Their main diets consist of small rodents, vegetation, rabbits, fish, and carrion. When these things are not available, a coyote will attack a small pet (whose family has migrated into its habitat)—and will take down larger animals such as deer and calves, but not usually. When it does, it's likely that the animal has already been injured, is ill or old, or is in some way already weak.

Coyotes keep rodent populations out of crops and eat carcasses of other animals, which helps to reduce the spread of certain diseases. Coyotes also suppress fox populations, which in turn benefits bird populations, and so on. But historically, the coyote has been blamed for much more than it has been responsible as far as predation goes. And because of this, they've been targeted and scapegoated so much that people (hunters, ranchers, governmental agencies, etc.) have justified, legalized, and practiced cruel methods of "predator control"—and have done so without taking into consideration everything else—like more factual numbers of coyote predations, natural ecosystems and how coyotes are part of that, and better ways of wildlife management.

When Bill Hotchkiss's great book Dance of the Coyote came out in 1987, I found it in Purdue University's library. I didn't know then that I'd inadvertently found a book that was so in-tune to things I'd be reading and studying years later and that I'd have trouble finding the book again (it's now out of print, but Amazon.com Zbay had one copy not too long ago, which I immediately ordered).

Dance of the Coyote was published 13 years ago, and it introduced many things: a fond dedication to a few great writers, including Robinson Jeffers and Gary Snyder; the ponderance of the ghost of Jim Bridger (who's been described as one of the last "great mountain men" and a legendary trapper of the 1800s) coming back to haunt and kill modern-day predator hunters; the unlikely love affair between a game warden named Sam and a named Tamar, who was traipsing around the West accompanied by two wolves; a scheme to free the white Elko Bear (embellished a bit in the novel); and a quest to save animals being mass-hunted.

It's evident that Hotchkiss was bugged by the incredulous mass murder of coyotes, wolves, and other animals of the West in order to appease ranchers' fears that the cause of most of their animals' population decline was the result of unruly coyotes and other predators. Hotchkiss broke the myth (probably not for the first time) that coyotes were not to blame for as many livestock deaths as they were. It's evident that Hotchkiss researched this deeply before publishing his novel. The novel's main characters hated the government's cruel and unjustified stances on the killing of coyotes, including the most interesting contradiction I think, that under stress, coyotes will actually breed more—thus the killing of coyotes in order to wipe them out inadvertently causes more coyotes to kill.

Some excerpts from the book, as Sam Thurston, the game warden, is musing:

"By the time the Congress of the United States had been made fully aware of wolf predation and got around to passing what it deemed necessary legislation, the wolves were nearly gone. But since the First World War brought with it a demand for increased beef production, funding was set in place to allow for the extermination of the very wolves that in most places had already vanished. The Department of Agriculture was embarrassed: it had been presented with money to pay for the killing of wolves, but there weren't any wolves left to eradicate. That was when the biological survey lads discovered the notorious coyote, convincing themselves in the process that the song dog was the vicious killer.... Horror stories began to circulate, tales of mutilated sheep, lambs eaten as soon as their mothers dropped them, calves slaughtered, full-grown cows with udders slashed out, even rumors of bands of coyotes attacking and killing children....In any case, a new bureaucracy was born, ultimately to be called Predator and Rodent Control, PARC...."

"...[Congress] passed legislation calling for the destruction of all mountain lions, wolves, coyotes, bobcats, prairie dogs, gophers, ground squirrels, jackrabbits, and other animals injurious to domestic animals or that carried disease."

"...[After PARC had been transferred to the Department of the Interior and after World War Two] the poison 1080 was introduced, a product (no doubt) of wartime research, and was found to be highly effective in killing canines. Whatever ate dead coyotes also died. And whatever ate dogs that had also eaten the poison died. And whatever ate these also died."

(Dance of the Coyote, by Bill Hotchkiss; Bantam Books New York, 1987)

Compound 1080 was developed in Poland as a moth-proofing agent. According to the Predator Defense Institute:

Use of 1080 in the U.S. as a predacide and rodenticide began in the 1940's. ... The LPC consists of a 2"x 6" inflatable rubber bladder with Velcro straps that hold the collar in place under the throats of livestock, primarily sheep or goats, where the attacking animal usually strikes. Coyotes which ingest 1080 may not show immediate symptoms, and often linger between 2 to 7 hours before dying. Throughout this time symptoms reveal extensive suffering including convulsions, dry heaves, disoriented running, biting their flanks and yipping. Death occurs slowly, as the victim succumbs to cardiac or respiratory failure, or progressive failure of their nervous system.

This poison is odorless, tasteless, and colorless. One collar has the potential to kill 26 small children (weighing 35 pounds or less). 1/500 of an ounce can kill a 150-pound person. Because the poison remains in the skin, and other parts of the body, its second- and third-generation (and beyond) mortality rates are highly possible. This poison's dangerous toxicity resulted in the the EPA slapping a label on it that reads:

Dispose of collars and other wastes contaminated by 1080 (carcasses, wool, hair, vegetation, soil, leather clothing, and water) under three feet of soil... at least one half mile from human habitations and water supplies...Incineration may be used instead of burial for disposal in the field"

According to Nancy Zierenberg:

Recently released figures show 85,938 coyotes were killed by ADC that year [1999]. ADC spent over $53 million on their programs, and they admit spending almost $30 million of that on protecting agriculture. They say that they killed 30,875 coyotes by aerial gunning, the most expensive "control" method. Next was use of the M-44 (sodium cyanide ejector); over 18,000 coyotes were killed with these, which very much endangers pets and anything else that happens to pull on or trip over the ejector stake.

The Animal Protection Institute, incidentally, has a plea up to protest a coyote hunting contest that is going on in Utah. Here's a partial description:

In contest hunts, participants compete to see who can kill the most coyotes within a specified period of time. The winners receive prizes. This particular contest is already underway and is planned to continue until June.

Coyotes, in that state, are not considered "protected," which somehow makes this contest rationalized. Businesses that sponsor the hunt will give $2,000 to those who bring in the most coyote tails or pairs of ears. The site gives information about how you can protest.

More from Nancy Zierenberg:

First, very little has changed in the poison world since 1987. Though President Nixon banned predacide use in 1972 through executive order, the livestock growers pulled considerable weight then as they still do, and use of strychnine and 1080 have crept back into use from their unending political pressure. 1080 is currently allowed only to be used in "livestock protection collars", Velcro harnesses used on goats and lambs. Two rubber bladders are attached on either side of the throat piece and are filled with 1% solution of 1080. When a coyote bites the throat of one of these animals, it receives a lethal dose and dies somewhere between two and eight hours later, often far from its last meal. The coyote is seldom recovered, as required by the EPA. Actually, the technical bulletin says that every effort must be made to recover the bodies of coyotes killed by the poison, but from the few records kept since 1987, this is rarely the case.

I believe (from reports that we gained through the Freedom of Information Act) that 1987 was the first year that the permitted states were required to keep records on the collar use. Those states were TX, WY, NM, MT, and SD. The records also indicated that it was often not used in accordance with the EPA label. The EPA was generous in excusing the misuse. Though we tried, we could never get full records of the people who were killed by the poison. Many of those were termed "suicide victims". We also received records of some nontarget animals killed, but I have no doubts that these were just the tip of the iceberg.

Currently, as far as I know, there are nine states registered to use the toxic collars. Besides the five listed above, ID, VA, WV, UT, CA, and OR all went through a registration process within the last five years. California has dropped their experimental program (only allowed in three northern counties) after only a year due to a citizen's initiative specifically banning use of 1080, cyanide, and leghold trap use (exceptions apply, however). Oregon dropped its controversial program due to Governor Kitzhaber's request to the Oregon Dept. of Agriculture to drop its 1080 program. He is a medical doctor and was reminded of how dangerous this poison was by local activists.

EPA has recently streamlined the registration process for use of the collar by granting a registration to USDA/APHIS/WS to use and distribute not only the collar, but also to utilize the pure product for "research" in their predator testing labs (National Wildlife Research Center in Ft. Collins and the predator lab in Logan, Utah). As far as I know, there is only one supplier in the U.S. for pure 1080. That is still Tull Chemical Co. in Oxford, Alabama, a family owned business since 1955. Their registration has been pulled for non-compliance of EPA restrictions, but was allowed to again produce the poison for APHIS/WS to act as the distributor. They also ship internationally, mostly to Australia, New Zealand, some countries in Africa, Mongolia and other countries.

The 32 coyotes killed this last fiscal year [by 1080 collar poisoning] is all the ADC reported for the national figures. They go by how many collars were actually punctured, as the coyotes are seldom found. I think the low numbers reflect all the hoops that ranchers are told they must jump through to use the collars. I believe this is due to the public and media attention to this method raised by objections in California and Oregon. If no one was paying attention, more ranchers would be inclined to try the stuff. The coyote prejudice runs deep.

As far as livestock lost to predation, very little solid numbers exist, as few kills are really verified as to whether they were caused by predation, birthing problems, starvation, poisoning, respiratory problems, disease, whatever! All the statistics gathered by the National Agricultural Statistics Service are done by rancher survey...over the phone interviews or through the mail. And these are often done at the first of the calendar year, many months after lambing or calving season when most losses occur. So if the rancher does not keep accurate records, then it truly is all guesswork. I know people who have overheard or talked with ranchers who said that they purposefully inflate those numbers so that the ADC program will keep getting adequate funding. Coyote populations are also guesswork, as anyone with a hunting license (and in some states, no license is needed) can kill coyotes. I don't believe any state keeps records of numbers of coyotes killed. One point to note is that before ADC, coyotes only existed west of the Mississippi and barely into Canada. Since ADC and associated ranching interests virtually exterminated the wolf, grizzly, black-footed ferrets, and put serious dents into populations of mountain lions, prairie dogs, foxes, eagles, etc., the coyote has been able to fill empty predator niches in every state except Hawaii.

Animal Protection of New Mexico is a good resource for those interested in the subject.

Not only did Bill Hotchkiss point out in his book that coyotes breed more under stress, studies have shown that no amount of coyote predator control has decreased coyote populations. Dr. Robert Crabtree, who has done several studies, showed that coyote populations have increased as a result of control practices. He found that when predation decreases group sizes of coyotes, the ratio of food increases, meaning that the females and pups are healthier. With improved chances of survival, territories are more likely to be immigrated to, resulting in pairs of coyotes that produce litters that have a high rate of survival.

While the use of the 1080 collar has been controversial and in some states banned, it is still used world-wide—and not only for killing coyotes. Other methods of coyote-killing include other poisons, aerial gunning, steeljaw traps, neck or leg traps, and denning (the killer follows the mother back to her den and murders her and her pups, in varied, gruesome methods, including strangling, shooting, using a hook or barbed wire to entrap, smoke bombs, and hitting with shovels and other blunt objects).

So, I say to those who get off on killing the coyote, for whatever reason, leave it alone. Keep your cats inside at night. Use guard-dogs and electric fencing to help keep your weak or small or ill cattle or sheep safe from predators. It is so much simpler than aerial gunning, using dangerous poisons, and setting steel traps to try to reduce an animal's population—for fun or profit. Understand the benefits in keeping an ecosystem well-balanced. Leave wilderness its space by considering it a necessary factor in our lives. Recognize the facts and trends: Murdering coyotes does not decrease their populations. Why keep up this weird justification for mass-murder of song-dogs? They'll keep coming back! If you are concerned, stop ADC for starters.

***

The other night, my boyfriend and I were driving back to our neck of the woods from visiting his grandmother. The matters of life and impermanency were grating through my mind when we drove through the Long Beach Naval Shipyard. After having passed the lights and bars and cars and noise, and noting the great, sad changes and development of the surrounding area, we found ourselves on a quiet stretch of road. Dark murk rose on either side, and bunkers slept silently in the shipyard. It was eerie. No lights at night. The black acres of land on either side of the road seemed like an unfriendly haunt. My boyfriend said that coyotes were supposedly living in the shipyard now. Ah, the strings of irony pulled at me: put technology to rest, and in comes a new "habitat" for our wildlife. Despite the darkness surrounding spooky bunkers, I saw swamp-like puddles dully lit by the moon and imagined the gulls and ducks that would join the coyotes there.

Now I go to sleep. Where I live, I often hear the grand howling of the coyote. Their songs are melancholy. I welcome this lulling noise, this sea-side ritual. And when I walk at night, I keep my eyes on the road and my hands upon the wheel.

 

© by Mary Sands.
Contributing author: Nancy Zierenberg