Gunshot Coyote Dies Next To House

March 3, 2007

Gunshot Coyote
Dies Next To House

By Tony Heath

Trying to Make a Difference

This is a story about an incident that occurred around our home at our ranch in the Huachuca Mountains of southeastern Arizona. Ultimately, it will be about the moral and cultural changes our modern world must accept to survive and remain intact for our children.

My wife and I operate our ranch as a wildlife sanctuary. We sacrificed careers and money to live in the wild and preserve our land in its natural state. We advocate for the rights, respect and protection of the animals that that called our place —their habitat—home before it was ours. Who can deny it was theirs first? As thoughtful Homo sapiens with clear advantage over all other living creatures, we consider our work here a special calling. It was an occasion of great sadness when we discovered next to our home the death by gunshot of an animal we cherish as a source of great mystery and a symbol of freedom in the wild. It made us think and forced us to speak.

An Infuriating Event

About 5 p.m. on Sunday, February 18th, I was carrying a pile of brush around our barn when I came upon the carcass of a female coyote. The animal had been shot twice in the abdomen and left to wander, fatally injured. Upon further inspection, we determined that the animal had come into our compound to look for a place to hide or die, odd behavior considering it was a human being that had shot it. We followed her trail of blood through the garden, past our front door and onto the porch outside our bedroom. With open wounds oozing blood, she had approached the dark window perhaps thinking it a refuge to nurse her wounds or die.

It all began about 1:30 that afternoon. I was napping when unnoticed by me the animal came to our window in shock and seeking shelter. After rising a short while later, I went outside to mow our back lawn. About that time my wife had noticed another coyote, no doubt the deceased female’s mate, standing just across our cattle guard looking in our direction. I had been mowing in the exact area where only an hour later I would find her already stiffening corpse. We placed the time of her death shortly after that, between 3 and 4 p.m. As It turned out, while I was working, our maimed friend was fighting for her life somewhere close to me.

After determining that the male coyote had moved on, we wrapped her in a sheet and gave her a dignified burial on the side of a small nearby embankment. We used a convenient hole recently dug with a backhoe to plant a box tree this coming spring. A large purple rock was placed over the grave to mark the spot. We prayed her spirit was running freer, somewhere... in a happier hunting ground.

Most puzzling was her decision to die so close to Kate and me, and despite the frightening sound of the lawn mower. Perhaps our work here is adding up to something and they are growing to trust us as we have hoped. We are here for them—their advocates first and foremost.

Killing for Pleasure

Thinking about the person who condemned to death this marvelous animal and carried out the sentence, in the immediate rage that ensued, granted somewhat irrationally, I wished this person would face a similar fate and feel the same kind of suffering they had wrought on our coyote. One day, I fantasized, they too might wander the wilderness accidentally wounded by their own cowardly hand, or the weapon of another lusting for innocent blood. I believed this wanton act of cruelty to be a crime deserving as severe a punishment. Such was my rage.

What kind of a person would take pleasure on a Sunday afternoon killing a wild animal for no reason other than sport? According to an FBI study, human cruelty to animals can be an indicator of a psychopathic nature with the potential for similar acts against people. The humanitarian Dr. Albert Schweitzer wrote, “anyone who has accustomed himself to regard the life of any living creature as worthless is in danger of arriving also at the idea of worthless human lives.”

The incident was followed by a period of pensive melancholy for several days. I sought the counsel of others whose outrage would equal my own. A description of the event is not enough. My duty is to try to do a small part to educate the growing millions of people, many of whom have not developed the sentience which allows, for example, naturalists to relate to the commonality of all living things.

Frontier Mentality

“Sympathy for wild animals, sympathy that is intellectual as much as emotional, has not been a strong element in the traditional American way of Life... How familiar the iterated remark: ’I thought I might see something and so took along my gun’—as if no enjoyment or other good could come from seeing a wild animal without killing it... The majority of country-dwellers in western America today would consider it necessary to apologize for not killing a coyote they happened to see doing something unusual. This traditional killer attitude is a part of the traditional exploitation of the land.” From The Voice of The Coyote, by J. Frank Dobie (© 1949).

Lethal Control

Every year 400,000 coyotes are exterminated by the United States Government, at an approximate cost to the taxpayers of $20 million (Finkel, Audubon Magazine, June 1999). Without going into the details, it is accomplished using horribly brutal methods which only humans could devise, like gunning them down from helicopters. Mr. Finkel also describes contests

with prizes awarded to the person who kills the most coyotes in a given period of time, and hardly in sporting manner.

In Arizona, it is legal to take a potshot at a coyote any time and for any reason. This is an outrage and should anger any thinking, caring, ethical person who understands that all higher mammals are in kind with us in fundamental biological ways. They must feed themselves, find homes in which to rest and raise their young. They feel pain and joy. Compared to us, with our highly developed brain, they are the innocents, needing our stewardship and love, as all life is precious and now in peril. In his endorsement of Marc Bekoff’s book The Emotional Lives of Animals, The Dalai Lama describes his thoughts regarding the commonality of life I refer to above: “as a boy studying Buddhism in Tibet, I was taught the importance of a caring attitude toward others. Such a practice of nonviolence applies to all sentient beings—any living thing that has a mind. Where there is a mind, there are feelings such as pain, pleasure, and joy. No sentient beings want pain; instead all want happiness. Since we all share these feelings at some basic level, as rational human beings we have an obligation to contribute in whatever way we can to the happiness of other species and try our best to relieve their fears and sufferings. I firmly believe that the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of well-being becomes...”

Personal Experience

In ten years living close to a local family group of coyotes, not one has ever come close to stalking or harassing us or our pets. The human ignorance about these animals is mind-numbing. I ‘d be rich if I had a dollar for every time a local said, “Watch your dogs. Those dastardly cunning coyotes will stalk and kill them, and that goes for the owls too. They’ll swoop down and carry them off. And if you see one of those rattly reptiles, be sure you kill it lest it come after you.” My experience in the sierra madrean pine-oak woodlands of Arizona couldn’t be farther from the myths these anxious fearful humans spread at great peril to the wildlife. Of course, an occasional opportunistic predator acting simply on instinct is capable of harming a pet. Last year our miniature dachshund provoked an encounter with a javelina and barely survived. But understanding what we do about nature, we took no violent action against the animal. In point of fact, neighbors foolishly feeding the collared peccaries cause the animals to lose their fear of humans. They are the ones I blame for that incident, interfering in the natural processes around them.

Others let their animals wander through the wilderness unchecked, reaping their own brand of havoc and invariably causing trouble. I routinely come across domestic dogs running roughshod over the land. Speaking of ethics, the owners of these dogs are putting their pets in great jeopardy. Yet when one gets torn up by coyotes defending their territory (as you would if similarly provoked), its always the coyote’s fault.

Livestock Predation

The issue which I have grappled with most these past two weeks is how to address the financial liability suffered by ranchers and farmers when the omnivorous coyote occasionally predates on livestock and crops. According to The National Agricultural Statistics Service, in 1995 a study found that for cattle and calf deaths, coyotes caused 1.6% of all deaths and that predators overall only caused only 2.7% of cattle and calf deaths (source: www.api4animals.org). That is—a percentage of all deaths; not a percentage of all existing domestic livestock grazing on the open range. In fact, coyotes, being omnivorous, eat almost anything of value dead or alive, animate or inanimate, but feed primarily on rodents. They do not seek out or have a preference for domestic livestock.

There is no “intent” on the coyote’s part to take money away from ranchers and farmers. They operate on a purely instinctual basis doing exactly what we do, seeking the easiest least complicated opportunity to fill their empty stomachs. They have a right to compete and survive. As silly as it may sound, look at human culture, increasingly dominated by corporate capitalism and so-called free-market forces. Is it legal to shoot your neighbor because he opens a competing business across the street, forcing you to accept 25% less profit? Why do we not respect and value other forms of life as we do ourselves?

Regardless of the cost to agriculture, I believe there is an overriding ethical issue that trumps the small cost of limited predation—That is, the fundamental spiritual value of almost all life forms, the possible exception being solely destructive microorganisms, although many of these organisms play a vital role. A collective balance is necessary to create and preserve a planet which is “whole”—intact for future generations of organisms, including humans. We are all intertwined and interdependent.

Welfare Ranching

In my state of Arizona ranching is a form of welfare, as public lands are provided to the ranchers only, and at a cut rate. I am grateful that at least temporarily ranching keeps the land from being divided into little comfortable but destructive “ranchettes,” guarded by invincible lengths of endless field fencing, effectively eliminating habitat for many larger animals. Yet I can find no reason why in our wealthy over-stuffed country dominated by special interests, pork-barrel spending, bridges- to-nowhere, democracies fragilely built on the other side of the earth at great cost in American lives and money, the coyote can’t be spared lethal, methodical extermination; or protected from the focus of one small man’s lust for blood and death on a Sunday afternoon. There are millions of children without health care insurance in the United States, yet our priority is killing coyotes and protecting the fossil fuel business.

Arizona cattlemen raise a few animals, compared to ranchers in less severe environments like Virginia, where my grandfather, Charles T. Neale, was a noted cattleman. Like my grandfather, many are successful businessmen more than able to offset the small cost of limited predation by coyotes. Granted, some are not, and society must act to help them as they do people in urban areas in need of public assistance.

Most frustrating, some environmental organizations with financial means have expressed willingness to

pay the same or more for the same range; to set it apart, permanently yielding potentially far greater value to society, yet Arizona law forbids it.

Changing Times

Many Americans have been forced to suffer harsh changes in labor practices which competition, expanding populations, demographic shifts and globalization have foisted on them. In my own case, I wanted to be a professional jazz musician, believing still that Duke Ellington’s music has great cultural value. Despite my determination to succeed in an antiquated profession, even a modest livelihood as a performer was practically impossible. There was no market in which to make a profit. I was forced to accept this, retool and move on—disappointed, frustrated and dejected. Life demands this of us at times.

Thus, the rancher must first accept the sometimes harsh reality of changing times. We can no longer be governed by a frontier era mindset. In a civilized world all life is precious—to be nurtured and protected. Animal products must be harvested in a sustainable and humane manner. No doubt many ranchers agree, and to them I give credit for the courage to change. To the others, I say it is not your right alone to make a small profit at the expense of the food chain, or the pain and suffering of countless innocent predators acting on instinct; or to expect taxpayer subsidies when the highest and best use for the land must be redefined lest it be trashed and nonexistent for our children as we know it today. By ruthlessly killing predators in lock step with old-fashioned values (or lack of them), you are upsetting the balance of an already challenged ecosystem, and compromising the morality of those of us that consider the sanctity of wilderness our God and a duty to protect.

Let’s put our money into creating more parks and refuges, rather than systematically killing predators.

Food Chain

Lastly, there is one critical issue and perhaps the most pressing that must be addressed—our “food chain,” a vital process that keeps nature in balance. We, humans, the coyotes, and all living creatures contribute to it and depend on it for the equilibrium which has kept the earth intact for millions of years. Without it, an endless string of chain reactions would create an imbalance manifesting itself with potentially disastrous consequences. In their hunt for food, coyotes are opportunists. They usually kill sick or weaker individuals removing them from the gene pool while providing a valuable service to the evolution of healthier animals. In this way coyotes provide a valuable role in the food chain.

Aside from the ethical and moral issues, controlling the rodent population alone is reason enough to end a primitive era of lethal extermination. I can tell you personally that the biggest problem we face on our ranch (other than human interference) is damage to home and vehicles by uncontrolled rodent populations. We don’t have enough coyotes. I fear Hantivirus as one consequence. This issue applies equally to the rattlesnakes, also critical in controlling rodents. As an associate of ours, Sandy Anderson (an expert on rattlesnakes and other local wildlife Gray Hawk Nature Center, has said, you are highly unlikely to die from a rattlesnake bite, but you will die from Hantivirus. People’s fears of these animals are often the result of naivete.

Mother Nature created a food chain through millions of years of evolution, which many of us take for granted. Human interference in the food chain in an industrialized era little more than a century old is asking for big trouble.

Summary

Lethal control of predators must end. Wildlife must be protected from the wanton cruelty of people killing animals for no other reason than their twisted notion of sport. Laws and penalties against this behavior need to be passed.

Ranchers must be better educated and made to realize, for example, that a coyote in the vicinity of his herd is not necessarily predating upon it, but may simply be after his favorite food (rodents). After all, they are a lot easier to catch. He must be made to see that shooting on sight every coyote he sees is morally wrong and affects the food chain. This applies equally to cougars and other wild cats, wolves, golden eagles and other predatory animals acting on instinct.

A small percentage of loss from predation is simply the cost of doing business, in the same way that a trucker must accept the volatility in the price of fuel that directly affects his bottom line.

For those dissenters who after reading this essay may indulge in typecasting me as an easterner intent on upsetting or changing life in the West for selfish personal reasons, let me be clear: I am a lover of the Old West. I was weaned on John Ford movies. And my favorite actor is the Duke.

The open spaces are my church. I recognize God in the land beneath my feet. As a realist, I realize that change is inevitable. I want to protect as much of the unspoiled open spaces as I can, and what’s left of a wild kingdom that once ruled our precious southern plains. We must all do what is required to protect our little planet from the devastating effects of human neglect, and encroachment on the habitat on which our brothers and sisters in the wild depend.

“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man himself will find no peace.” – Albert Schweitzer

Special thanks to: Indiana Coyote Rescue.

Editorial and research assistance by Louise Gordon