14
Wednesday, December 21, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Tales from a
Sisters
Naturalist
by Jim Anderson
Why coyotes like
it in Sisters
A local television report
the other night about coy-
otes living in Bend surprised
some people. It shouldn’t
have. There are coyotes
making a living all over
Sisters Country, eating mule
deer fawns, road-kills and
stray and outdoor house
cats.
Government trappers
started killing coyotes indis-
criminately over 100 years
ago. They thought they
could kill coyotes as easily
as they did wolves, but the
coyote has outfoxed them.
History has shown that
killing coyotes indiscrimi-
nately only generates more
coyotes, a scientific fact
discovered by wildlife
biologists in the 1960s. I
was investigating stomach
contents in coyotes brought
to the Hart Mt. Antelope
Refuge, looking for evi-
dence coyotes were impact-
ing survival of antelope
kids.
Government trappers
delivered every coyote
they killed, whether from
air or ground hunting and
Excellent meat case!
Beer & wine, too!
trapping; even the puppies
killed in “denning.” I never
did find an antelope kid, but
instead, hundreds of mice,
gophers, ground squirrels
and rabbits, and once, a sage
grouse.
On another table next
to me a wildlife biologist
was inspecting the ovaries
of females, and was sur-
prised to see up to eight
ovarian scars on many of
the females, which he inter-
preted to mean coyote pop-
ulations were rebounding
with a vengeance.
The relentless destruc-
tion of coyotes in Texas
only generated more coy-
otes that eventually spread
to Missouri, and from there
to Ohio and from there to
Chicago — where they’re
eating cats today.
Back in the “old days,”
predator trappers and sport
shooters didn’t realize coy-
otes are another breed of ani-
mal with instincts and needs
far different than wolves.
Simply put, wolves are ter-
ritorial family animals and
couldn’t adjust to the meth-
ods used by trappers to kill
them, and within a couple
of years they were removed
from not only Oregon, but
the West at large.
The coyote was hit the
same way, and their num-
bers dropped so low in the
late 1940s and ’50s that
trappers were cheering.
But mule deer were over-
running Central Oregon.
Cougar numbers were also
at their lowest, and there
were no wolves. As a result,
mule deer populations went
sky high and they began
eating themselves out of
house and home. That situ-
ation prompted the Oregon
Department of Fish and
Wildlife (Oregon Game
Commission in those days)
to open a doe season in an
attempt to cut down the
numbers of mule deer rav-
aging their habitat.
There were so many
mule deer in the deer winter
ranges around the south end
of the Deschutes National
Forest and into the Bureau of
Land Management lands of
North Lake County, browse
lines in the pines, junipers
and bitterbrush were all too
distinct along Highway 31.
At about the same time the
coyotes of Central Oregon
and all over the West said,
“Enough is enough.”
Coyotes became polyg-
amists, with one male
running with up to three
females. Instead of one cou-
ple generating two to three
pups, they began developing
heteroicous family units of
three to four females with up
to eight puppies, and within
20 years coyotes had begun
to spread all over North
America.
It was the same story
for Arizona; trappers and
coyote shooters there gen-
erated more coyotes that
slowly spread to the sub-
urbs of Los Angeles, north
to Sacramento, from there
to Medford and the Oregon
Coast, then the suburbs of
Portland, where they also
eat cats.
Now there are coyote/
domestic dog and wolf
hybrids running around in
Maine and southeast Canada
Our jerky,
summer
sausage &
smoked cheeses
make great
last-minute
Christmas
gifts!
SNOW
REMOVAL
541-719-1186
110 S. Spruce St.
Open 9 AM -7 PM Every Day
PHOTO BY JIM ANDERSON
King of the countryside: Old Man Coyote.
that will in not too short a
time prove to be a real nui-
sance in the agricultural and
metropolitan communities,
where livestock and domes-
tic cats will be favored
targets.
So, if you want your cat
to be safe, bring it into the
house and keep it there. Of
course it won’t like it — cats
are genetically engineered
to kill things; that’s why
they like being out-of-doors.
But that old adage, “He who
lives by the sword dies by
the sword” will catch up
with them in time.
DETOX PROGRAM
JANUARY 19-29
SIG
SIGN
G UP WITH A FRIEND
AND
AN
N YOU BOTH RECEIVE
A 10% DISCOUNT!
Mention this ad to receive discount
S PA
AT FI V E P I N E
ShibuiSpa.com
Shibui
i Spa com | 720 Buckaroo
B
Trail, Sisters | 541-549-6164
Merry Christmas &
Happy New Year!
Roof Rakes
Snowblowers
MEATS • CHEESES • EATERY • DRINKERY
We Respond
when you call us.
Skid
Steers
Your local Sisters contractor for:
Earthwork - Utilities - Grading
hardscape - Rock Walls
Residential & Commercial
NEED IT, RENT IT!
Banr Enterprises, llc
541-549-6977
www.banr.net
scott@banr.net
ccb#165122
506 N. Pine St.
541-549-9631
Sales • Service
Rentals • Accessories
www.sistersrental.com
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only
Son, that whoever believes in Him would not
perish but have eternal life! — John 3:16
Thank you, Central Oregon community, for your
business and support of our company. We look
forward to another year full of
service to our community.
For all your electrical needs call
Licensed, bonded, and insured. CCB# 200030
Monte’s Electric, 541-719-1316
9-1316