
I am seeing a lot of media in this region these days devoted to coyotes, just about the only fur-bearing animal you can legally hunt without limit 12 months out of the year in Kentucky. Of course, this is so for several reasons; first, coyotes are predators who can and will live off expensive cattle, making them the rancher’s worst enemy. Coyotes are also carriers of a bunch of really nasty diseases — rabies, for instance — and a single bite can take out beloved pets or valuable livestock.
But wait, there’s more!
You see, coyotes are not native to the Eastern US. They only began migrating from the West when we began building bridges over the Mississippi. And when they got here, their behavior began to change. I got this from legendary Kentucky naturalist Joe Ford, who — many years ago — told me this story. You see, out West, coyotes have always been loners, hunting individually and avoiding association with others even of their species. But the ones smart enough to figure out how to cross Mississloppy bridges were also keen enough to figure out how to make friends with feral dogs (domesticated animals who either got dumped in the wild by their irresponsible owners, or ran away from abuse into the wild) with two important results. First, cross-breeding, which resulted in what we call Coy Dogs — half coyote, half domestic dog. This is a bigger, stronger, smarter version of the coyote — truly a dangerous beast. Second, and even more importantly, coyotes learned to hunt in packs. That’s why, around here, you rarely hear a lone coyote howling — it’s always a dozen or more. One coyote is dangerous. A pack of hungry coyotes working together represents the very top of the food chain around here.
These two changes have made the coyote far more of a menace than ever in our part of the world, and have made coyote hunting not a sport, but a necessity. As a dog-and-horse parents, Rebecca and I have spent years studying the local version of the coyote, and NEVER miss an opportunity to send one to the Happy Hunting Grounds. While we strongly object so-called “sport hunting” (the killing of an animal for any other reason than to put food on the table) we just as strongly support the eradication of dangerous and predatory vermin, and the coyote is just that.