Coyote Carnage: The Gruesome Truth about Wildlife Killing Contests

May 24, 2018 6:33 PM

Coyote killing competitions, where contestants vie to shoot the most animals, are held throughout the U.S. But some hunting groups are denouncing these events as unethical, and states from New Mexico to New York are considering bans on these and other wildlife killing contests. In 2014, Vice Magazine reporters went undercover on such an event.
posted by Rumple (47 comments total)

The second link, read first, had me trembling with inchoate anger and hatred within a paragraph so I won't be able to stomach any of this at all, but thanks Rumple, this is important for people to know.

(I feel like the "gruesome truth" is not exactly hidden, since it is implied by the phrase "wildlife killing contest". Firstly, that is one of the most revolting strings of words that the English language is capable of, and second, nobody decent human should be capable of reading those words and deciding that, hey, that doesn't sound too bad, a bit of harmless fun, let's get the kids out on the weekend!)
posted by turbid dahlia at 6:50 PM on May 24, 2018 [11 favorites]

"That’s my family right there. They like to go out and kill. They’re not evil. They’re just… unaware."

I know it is not a new thing to say, but: this obsession with classifying people as Ultimately Good or Evil People really serves no purpose but as apologia for horrific actions. Intended or not. Which is part of the point, but perhaps worth making explicit.
posted by inconstant at 6:59 PM on May 24, 2018 [22 favorites]

Coyotes are pests that do seirous damage to the ecosystem.
posted by PinkMoose at 7:45 PM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]

Humans are pests that do serious damage to the ecosystem.
posted by snwod at 7:54 PM on May 24, 2018 [36 favorites]

well no offense but as a moose you're probably a little biased against coyotes.
posted by Kibbutz at 7:55 PM on May 24, 2018 [13 favorites]

Humans and Coyotes are not moral equivalents.
posted by PinkMoose at 7:56 PM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]

How are coyotes pests? They were here first. And they're native, far more than the Norwegian rat we've brought with us everywhere. I suppose the passenger pigeon was a pest too huh?
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 8:12 PM on May 24, 2018 [8 favorites]

"Humans and Coyotes are not moral equivalents."

Humans are the most invasive species on earth and we are destroying the climate upon which life as we know it depends. Also, we kill more than 3,000 animals every second in slaughterhouses around the world. This figure is expected to double by 2050. So yes. You are right. Humans and Coyotes are not moral equivalents. By their actions and effect on the world, coyotes are superior.
posted by chance at 8:20 PM on May 24, 2018 [24 favorites]

Coyotes are pests that do seirous damage to the ecosystem.

You know that was just a cartoon, right?
posted by Sys Rq at 8:46 PM on May 24, 2018 [14 favorites]

But seriously: Which is it? Are coyotes pests, or are they damaging to the ecosystem? A pest is something that impedes human activity. Human activity is seriously damaging to the ecosystem—the ecosystem of which coyotes are a natural part.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:57 PM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]

Coyote are WAY beyond their historical ranges and far more numerous than before we killed off the wolves (wolves remove competitors from their ranges, and coyote don't last long around rhem). And we made a whole lot of open ground where there used to be fairly thick woods. And put out lots of tasty meat animals who have vulnerable calves/lambs/etc. every year, to go along with all the tasty rodents we also made prime habitat for (yo, ever seen what lives in a summer pasture, let alone around grain fields?) while also cutting way down on the small prey's predators, from rattlesnakes to hawks.

So, there is all this prime coyote territory, tons of food and the major 4 legged competition for that territory is mostly gone. And really, people will not allow wolves to return to most of their range. Big predators don't do well near us. Coyote are wary, fast and small enough to get by around us, just. Plenty of them live in urban Chicago, twin cities suburbs, freaking NYC now too.

We did it. We are responsible for the changes. Responsibility = one should do something about an issue.

How shall we remediate this situation?
posted by bert2368 at 10:26 PM on May 24, 2018 [8 favorites]

Ever heard of a fence?
posted by Sys Rq at 10:29 PM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

My oldest brother breeds, buys, sells, shows Belgian draft horses. To say that he loves them understates the situation to a considerable degree. One of his mares foaled on a cold night, found the safest place she could, which happened to be against a fence. And here come the coyotes. She foaled at night; Phil had already seen to them for the night, it was at four AM the next morning he found what happened. The mare lived, somehow, though she'd not had a fun time of it. The foal was dead and mostly eaten.

I doubt you'd ever convince my brother that coyotes are anything but garbage, and a bullet too good for them. I know, and you know, and Phil knows, that coyote were here first. But he'd hunt them, and I'd be out with him.

~~~~

Day before yesterday I sat on the river bank in the sunset hour with a friend. Movement in the water -- whoops, a three foot water moccasin. Water moccasins have been here a lot longer than I have. But if I'd had a shotgun, or even a good sling-shot, we'd be one less, and I'd be that much happier. And I wouldn't give a damn if their were laws against killing them, I would in fact laugh at the stupidity of those laws.

If the linked articles were about water moccasins being hunted, if the images showed stacks of dead water moccasins, would anyone who feels such revulsion against coyote hunting be able to drum up as much hatred against people taking water moccasins? I bet not. Why not?
posted by dancestoblue at 10:33 PM on May 24, 2018 [7 favorites]

If the linked articles were about water moccasins being hunted, if the images showed stacks of dead water moccasins, would anyone who feels such revulsion against coyote hunting be able to drum up as much hatred against people taking water moccasins? I bet not.

I’ll take that bet. There’s plenty of outrage about killing snakes. The Texas “rattlesnake roundup” is famously controversial.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:37 PM on May 24, 2018 [17 favorites]

I'd be against killing stacks of water moccasins. Killing one snake, or one coyote because it bit your kid or killed your foal is acceptable. Moral good even. Killing 191 animals just because you can and not even doing anything with the carcasses but discarding them is not a moral good. It is a waste and quite frankly evil. It's one thing to protect yourself. It's one thing to worry about inflated numbers of animals due to human activity and try legalizing hunting within a season or spreading birth control around. It's another to hold a no-holds barred kill contest to soothe the blood lust within human hearts. It turns animals into targets. How much do you want to bet that the people in these contests like how killing these coyotes feels, and now that they like it, they aren't going to confine their killing to these contests? It's like when a carnivore gets a taste for humans. What do we do when the humans get a taste for killing carnivores indiscriminately?
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 10:42 PM on May 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

I heard that Rick Perry shoots at coyotes when he's out jogging.
posted by a humble nudibranch at 10:48 PM on May 24, 2018

Sometimes I suspect that ranchers will not be happy until the only living animals are humans and livestock, instead of just 96%.
posted by Pyry at 10:48 PM on May 24, 2018 [14 favorites]

Ok, and yes, the 96% number is by mass and mammals only (for birds, a nice healthy 30% of them are wild!). But it puts into perspective the claims that coyotes or wolves or hawks or vultures or ravens must be culled right now to protect livestock which only represent two thirds of the total worldwide mammalian biomass.
posted by Pyry at 10:57 PM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

I do think that a lot of the specifics here are pretty horrifying, especially with regards to animals like wolves, where we've already done a lot of damage just by our presence.

However: This seems like it's a bit more nuanced than some of the takes here, or in the articles, especially once you get into pronouncements of the relationship between humans and invasive species in general. Coyotes are, absolutely, an invasive species which has mostly spread due to changes wrought by humans. Same with lionfish in Australia, where they've turned to a competition in order to manage a cull - a word that I feel should be coming up a lot more in both the thread and the articles! - and, of course, if you remove the competitive aspect, this sort of thing has been common for a long time.

We've already radically changed the environment, and in ways that do what I think is recognizable harm, especially in the loss of biodiversity that stems directly by invasive species, often enabled by human actions. Ignoring coyotes is just as much of an active choice as culling them.

I wish that all this weren't happening, especially living in a province that's culled wolves, but I'm not sure that there ever was another path to go down, where we could somehow... interact with nature without reflection? We've got agency here, and there aren't any choices that don't involve some sort of loss.
posted by sagc at 11:05 PM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

Killing one snake, or one coyote because it bit your kid or killed your foal is acceptable. Moral good even.

Wait what? Wasn't one of the major themes of Moby Dick that you can't get revenge on Nature? Like, you might as well take them to animal court.
posted by sexyrobot at 11:45 PM on May 24, 2018 [11 favorites]

I'm talking more like there's a snake wrapped around your kids leg about to bite down- kill it kill it. Or you catch the coyote making a meal of your foal. I don't think I was clear. My point was killing an individual animal isn't necessarily a morally bad thing. This kind of unmitigated carnage is. But your point about the major theme of Moby Dick is very germane to this discussion I think.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 11:59 PM on May 24, 2018

Coyotes are pests that do seirous damage to the ecosystem.

It's funny. "Pest" and "damage" are human-invented concepts. An ecosystem can't really be damaged per se but it can change, they all change, all the time. There's nothing unnatural about extinction, and extinction at the hands of humans is no less natural than extinction at the hands (claws, teeth, whatever) of some other organism. The concept of a static ecosystem is also a human invention. When an ecosystem is in flux, humans usually panic because they figure that whatever state it was in when they became conscious of it is its "natural" state.

No, there's no justification for this sort of thing in scientific terms. Whether you're OK with this kind of savagery is entirely between you and your conscience (should you be blessed with one.)
posted by klanawa at 12:29 AM on May 25, 2018 [15 favorites]

I should note that the savagery evinced in the article isn't merely directed at coyotes and wolves but also threatened against humans. I don't believe this is a coincidence.
posted by klanawa at 12:35 AM on May 25, 2018 [10 favorites]

I don't believe this is a coincidence.

That's the part that really impressed me. No, they are not just noble woodsmen and stewards of the wilds, they are ugly bullies who are keen to other anyone different. The implied threats in the article were pretty extreme, and it was just some guy that had an accent and they therefore assumed was not of their mindset and politics. Some cosmopolitan liberal fag, or if not that something ain't right and not one of us...

"We don't like your kind around here."... yeah, fuck these guys.
posted by Meatbomb at 1:35 AM on May 25, 2018 [16 favorites]

To control coyote populations, they need to find a birth control method that can be delivered in bait. Feed them a snack but make them stop reproducing.
posted by pracowity at 3:36 AM on May 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

The delight in savagery and torture that these psychopaths take is nauseating. It's one thing to cull an invasive species in an orderly, methodical fashion, but this just seems like bloodlust. The fact that the community seems to relish the violent eradication of not just coyotes, but their human political opponents as well, is setting off alarm bells. And considering that the Trump administration just legalized what is basically poaching and animal torture, we should be very concerned that, in some communities, "culling" could very well mean "driving species, invasive or not, to extinction to satisfy gun fetishism."

Like, I'm sure that every single one of them considers themselves a "good guy with a gun," but after reading how they view them as instruments of homicide and intimidation, it's clear that none of them should be allowed to own anything more deadly than a butter knife for the rest of their lives.
posted by zombieflanders at 3:59 AM on May 25, 2018 [19 favorites]

So, the problem's we got rid of the wolves, so we have to replace them, or take over the jobs they had in the environment.

Either way, lot of dead coyotes, lot of dead deer, or lot of sick and dead everything.

It would be nice if taking over for the wolves we displaced was professional and disapassionate, I suppose.

I do agree that Trump's new policies are dispicable.
posted by pan at 5:41 AM on May 25, 2018

In my snarky wacko days I considered getting the mailing list of a save the animals group and solving the problem of an "invasive species" instead of trapping beavers by shipping one to each person on the mailing list. Oh the youtube videos of that package being unwrapped in living rooms and kitchens. But then a racoon got into the walls of a neighbor and rooted around until it got into the bathroom and wandered the house ripping up furniture.

There are stone fences in the woods in New England, the trees in the very recent woods are THIRD generation, the purely natural world is a fantasy that was over millennia ago. We know of very recent changes to the ecosystem, archeology discovers other major changes regularly.

Ecological responsibility is not often pretty but vital to all the species that can be managed.

Why is there not a "save the slime mold" foundation? Ugly creepy stuff can be vital to ecologies too.
posted by sammyo at 5:58 AM on May 25, 2018

I'm wondering if all of the "it's just coyotes, whatever" comments come from a place of having actually read the articles. This isn't about controlled culls of an overpopulated species.

And, sorry I don't care to discourse highmindedly about the nuance of attitudes where it is acceptable to strive to inflict maximum pain to living creatures, rhapsodize at length about killing fellow humans, and settle for physically and verbally threatening them for the crime of being an outsider.
posted by inconstant at 6:34 AM on May 25, 2018 [8 favorites]

One story I told them is the time in Montana we sent in a helicopter and randomly shot a bunch of coyotes. The rancher called me a couple days later and said: ‘Carter, do coyotes revenge kill? We haven’t had trouble with coyotes all winter. We saw your helicopter the other morning and heard lots of shooting. Now we’ve got coyotes killing sheep. What the hell’s going on?’ “When you have coyotes eating rodents and rabbits around sheep, that’s desirable. Random shooting — ‘preventive control’ — creates chaos, removing the good coyotes. So other coyotes immediately come in to fill the void, and some may be undesirables. Same with bears and mountain lions.”

The coyotes also pick off stray or free ranging livestock that ranchers expect to be there when they round them up weeks later. The ranchers complain about their miniscule grazing fees not protecting them from these wild foes hiding out on public lands, despite programs to compensate for the loss. This is because the market price for their meat product is so low that there is little or no profit in grazing. It also explains why they often complain about the government generally, because it helps create an impression that they are deserving and aren't welfare recipients. The point is that we can't keep subsidizing meat production on or near public lands without addressing a lot of issues, such as over-grazing, plant and erosion damage from livestock, water rights and pollution, wild animals versus domestic animals, invasive species, and beaver restoration for wetlands. Then we can begin the conversation about collecting smart fees from meat consumers to reduce the problems and cover the costs.
posted by Brian B. at 6:35 AM on May 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

Dogs in neighborhoods. Deer. Horses. All manner of farm wildlife.

I have no reservations about killing coyotes. 191 dead coyotes is much, much better than one live one, in my view.
posted by disclaimer at 6:51 AM on May 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

You can easily prevent coyotes from eating your pets by (a) having a fence and (b) not leaving your dogs unsupervised outside for hours and hours, which you should never do anyway.

I would much rather cull deer than coyote.

Predation on farm animals is just a cost of doing business. If they can't pass those costs along and make a profit that's satisfactory to them, they should stop farming.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 8:16 AM on May 25, 2018 [7 favorites]

Fishing derbies?
posted by SemiSalt at 8:17 AM on May 25, 2018

You do realize that coyotes can jump fences, right? I lived for a year on a horse farm. They can easily clear a 6 foot fence. Leaving a dog unsupervised in a yard with a high fence is actually common around there. But I guess it's the dogowner's fault if a coyote takes their dog or guts their horse. Maybe they shouldn't be living out there anyway. It's their fault.

Victim blaming, anyone?

Go out into a rural area between 10 and 11 PM, or maybe if you're an early riser, go around 5 AM.

You will hear packs of coyotes, all howling, because one of them made a kill.
posted by disclaimer at 9:28 AM on May 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

Victim-blaming? Please. The idea that this is somehow a bunch of ivory-tower coastal elites who know nothing spreading fake news to rob honest, salt-of-the-earth Real Americans™ of their livelihoods is pretty thoroughly rebutted in the article from the first link. Those rebuttals come not just from wildlife preservation groups, but also experts with extensive knowledge of coyotes (and other "pests"), a number of fish and game organizations, and a number of hunters and farmers. They point out specifically how these cullings aren't just terrifyingly inhumane, but actually extremely counterproductive and harmful to wild animals, livestock, and probably humans.

On one side, we have strange bedfellows between groups like the Humane Society and big-game shooting clubs, who are horrified and sickened by these cullings, and whose viewpoints are backed up by overwhelming scientific evidence on animal behaviors and the interactions of all members of the ecosystem. On the other we have people--and infuriatingly, at least one entire state fish and wildlife service--demonstrating their urges to maim and hurt animals who have been forced into relatively unnatural behaviors by human encroachment as much as possible before killing them, and who proudly hold up the Second Amendment as a pretty damn good excuse to ignore not just the other Amendments, but apparently at least one of the Ten Commandments as well. The choice between solid evidence of how to address the problem and actual murderous glee shouldn't be a hard one, and there really isn't some sort of middle ground between the two.
posted by zombieflanders at 9:47 AM on May 25, 2018 [9 favorites]

Leaving a dog unsupervised in a yard with a high fence is actually common around there.

That makes what happens to the dogs in that yard their fault, yes. Leaving your dog unsupervised and outside is common but still stupid and blameworthy, just like (say) driving without a seatbelt.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 9:59 AM on May 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

Wow, that's a lot, zombie.

I'm speaking of personal experience here. I don't know where you think I'm coming from - we're talking about a horse farm in a nearly suburban area in Michigan, neither "coastal elites" or "real Americans or whatever you think is going on there. I've personally seen packs of coyotes - all walking in a straight line - anywhere between eight and ten at a time, headed for a chicken coop on a neighboring farm.

I've seen horses with their intestines hanging. Dead colts. A chicken coop that used to have 30 chickens in it - all killed by one pack.

The fact is that in this area coyotes are a threat. They threaten neighborhoods, they threaten farms, and yes, they threaten wildlife, some of it endangered. Around here, they need regular culling, and if you can do that by the pack, well, that's a good day's work.
posted by disclaimer at 10:04 AM on May 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

The fact is that in this area coyotes are a threat. They threaten neighborhoods, they threaten farms, and yes, they threaten wildlife, some of it endangered. Around here, they need regular culling, and if you can do that by the pack, well, that's a good day's work.

And like I said, you can listen to the people who know how to cull effectively, or you can listen to the bloodthirsty gun nuts making the problem much worse. Ignorance is no longer an excuse in defense of the latter.
posted by zombieflanders at 10:11 AM on May 25, 2018 [6 favorites]

If you were interested in suppressing coyote numbers rather than just slaughtering animals for funsies you would spread birth control around and make your fences sturdier to reduce predation. And yes, maybe kill some problem coyotes that are too habituated to humans/like to kill livestock. Fences make good neighbors after all. But this article(s) isn't about people who want to control populations its about people who wan't to kill animals for fun, and who are so hostile they might turn their guns on people next. If you read some of the linked stuff you'll know that indiscriminate culls DO NOT WORK. by randomly killing coyotes instead of just the problem ones and then seeded BC to control the rest, coyotes work overtime to have more babies and before long you have more coyotes than you started with. And since it's the smartest coyotes who resist the cull... natural selection does her work and the new coyotes are twice as mean and twice as bad. But then if you were actually interested in controlling coyote population instead of scapegoating them for farmers and ranchers inadequacies and inability to put up proper fences, you'd know that.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 10:12 AM on May 25, 2018 [5 favorites]

Okay,wow. I didn't expect this thread to make me as upset at reading about the killing contest did. But here we are.

Preface: I'm a vegetarian who does animal rescue volunteering, I give a shit and actually get my hands dirty. But with this in mind;

1. You guys need to realise that shouting down people who've actually seen the carnage from out of control predator populations is not gonna make them more understanding of your stance, especially when you yourself have no direct experience. Try to at least listen to a portion of what they're saying and empathize, even if it ultimately doesn't change your view. Not every person who believes in culls will also believe that cruel hunting tactics are okay.

2. Resorting to nihilism and talking about how awful humans are is shitty, reductive, and is using the same arguments that eugenics believers will use to sway disillusioned people towards "culls should be for humans" talk. It's also an incredibly lazy way to debate and moves the goalpost so far out that no one can talk to you about a problem without first atoning for all humanity's sins.

3. Wildlife birth control does not exist, at least not in the way that people above are talking about it. Even with proper funding it's still decades away from being truly useful for population control. Right now the best we have for oral contraceptives is only effective on mice and other small animals. Injection/dart BC is being researched(they've actually done some testing for it on deer in my province)and well, it's expensive and doesn't actually work too well, even if you redose the herd every season. So if you want to see pest birth control then actually do your research instead of using it as a mic drop, then go fundraise and raise awareness for these research programs.


But christ guys, while I believe you all love animals and yes this contest is absolutely unacceptable, in this thread you do indeed sound like a bunch of city slickers telling the filthy farmers how to do things. Also, another good cause to direct your attention to would be to call for more funding for people to actually be hired on to cull in a relatively humane fashion. Basically, please actually give a shit about working together to solve a problem, rather than telling people their problem is stupid and they don't know what they're talking about.

Because the bottom line is that we're not yet in the utopia of hands-off population control. Although I really hope that is in our future.
posted by InkDrinker at 10:54 AM on May 25, 2018 [6 favorites]

they don't know what they're talking about.


but... they don't? indiscriminate culling only kills the weak who let themselves be seen by humans? culling 100 coyotes means the 5 who survive are the smartest and breed back to numbers and now you have in 10 years 100+ coyotes who are really really vicious and kill twice the livestock and pets. I take your point that wildlife BC isn't there yet- but instead of a cull, using trackers and really good hunters and maybe video of the 5 coyotes who are brave enough and smart enough to really do a number on livestock and killing them and only them would do much more to protect pets and livestock than a cull. I'm not saying the problem is stupid not once in any of my comments do I say that. But one of the above comments talks about being happy to kill the entire pack and how 191 coyotes is better than 1 live one well the problem is 191 dead coyotes means 10 live smart ones who are now going to breed 191 smart coyotes. and they really don't know what they're talking about.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 11:59 AM on May 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

Also, another good cause to direct your attention to would be to call for more funding for people to actually be hired on to cull in a relatively humane fashion. Basically, please actually give a shit about working together to solve a problem, rather than telling people their problem is stupid and they don't know what they're talking about.

This is, more or less, exactly what I've been doing. I don't know how many times I can point out that people with loads of experience, including other rural/suburban people affected by coyote attacks, are saying that indiscriminate culling of packs is not just cruel, but counterproductive. Saying that they're the ones that people affected by coyote attacks should be listening to instead of a bunch of know-nothing animal torturers who are comfortable with widespread political assassination isn't some marker of city-slicker ignorance or reductive nihilism. That the response to this has been repeated exhortations along the lines of "the only good bugcoyote is a dead one!" without once showing an ounce of introspection about how effective and relatively humane culling actually works is not a failure on my part.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:24 PM on May 25, 2018 [3 favorites]

You guys need to realise that shouting down people who've actually seen the carnage from out of control predator populations is not gonna make them more understanding of your stance, especially when you yourself have no direct experience

in this thread you do indeed sound like a bunch of city slickers telling the filthy farmers how to do things

And you sound like someone who’s making an awful lot of assumptions about who you’re talking to, and has nothing but empty, baseless scolding and concern-trolling to add to the discussion.
posted by Sys Rq at 12:31 PM on May 25, 2018 [6 favorites]

Where I live used to have a ton of coyotes. Well, a ton may be overstated, but there was a good size pack that used to roam thru here, and kept the rats and rabbits managed. Ill never forget one night, I was sitting out on the porch swing, and a pair of coyotes jumped a six foot fence like it wasn't there. They padded around by the rabbit warren under the shed, while I was trying to figure out if I could make it to either door, or if diving in the pool was my best bet. My chow was with me, and she bristled up and got between me and them. The coyotes just looked at both of us, and you could almost see them shrug, and they turned and again just cleared the fence like it wasn't there.

It's been a couple years since I've seen or heard them, and this year we had to hire a rat catcher, and I have so many rabbits that we just gave up growing crops for us and have acknowledged that the beds are just giant bunny salad bars this year because I don't have time and energy to bunny proof all the things.

And I know how much damage coyotes can do. I've ridden the fence lines on a 600 acre cattle ranch. Usually with a rifle in case of apex predators and rattlesnakes. There's a big difference between protecting yourself and your critters, and wholesale slaughter for kicks and giggles.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 12:59 PM on May 25, 2018 [6 favorites]

Anyone that can come up with a well-supported, good faith argument that killing entire packs is the True And Only Path, and that the solutions outlined in the first link are just bleeding heart city-slicker bullshit is welcome to do so. Anything is better than rehashing the uninformed savagery from the second link.
posted by zombieflanders at 1:08 PM on May 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

You will hear packs of coyotes, all howling, because one of them made a kill.

This is decidedly untrue and is the kind of bogus folk wisdom that takes normal animal behavior and applies very human motivations to it to make it sound more sinister than it actually is.

Why do coyotes howl and yip?

Coyotes howl for a variety of different reasons but it would be silly more often than not for a coyote to howl over a kill. Why would they want to attract attention to their food catch?

Coyotes: Decoding Their Yips, Barks, and Howls

I spent seven years studying coyote vocal communication during my dissertation research at the University of California. While eastern coyotes are a larger and distinct subspecies from the western coyotes that I worked with, the basic findings of my research and the work done by others applies to all coyotes. Coyotes have sometimes been called “song dogs,” and their long distance songs come in two basic types.

The first, the group yip-howl, is thought to have the dual purpose of promoting bonding within the family group while also serving as a territorial display. In other words, the coyotes are saying “we’re a happy family, and we own this turf so you better keep out.” In a sense, the group howls create an auditory fence around a territory, supplementing the physical scent marks left by the group.

Coyotes will also howl and bark separately. This second type of song is virtually always an indication of disturbance or agitation, and in my experience, the higher the proportion of howls, the more agitated the coyote is. Coyotes will howl and bark at neighbors who intrude on their territory, and at dogs, people, and other large animals that they perceive as a potential threat.

posted by peeedro at 1:52 PM on May 25, 2018 [10 favorites]

I suspect that most people have a streak of sadism buried inside themselves, sometimes closer to the surface sometimes so buried that the host cannot believe anyone but a psychopath could feel such a thing. It struck me a few years ago that when you label a species invasive, this streak comes out in the people you would least expect it from. I find it very frightening to contemplate the absolute relish for killing or at least talking about killing that I have seen displayed by people who seem otherwise kind and even keeled.
posted by Pembquist at 6:55 PM on May 25, 2018