The Coyote Committee sometimes has their meetings right under my bedroom window. At this point, I sleep right through them, but I’ve had house-guests come crashing into my bedroom in terror at 2am saying “there is a ghost downstairs!”
Last night’s meeting was held down on the far edge of the lawn, and I didn’t want to go open a window, so I recorded it “as is” with my phone propped on my pillow. You’ll need to turn it up a bit – I decided not to alter the audio file.
My favorite is when they have their annual series of Coyote Puppy Briefings, which consist of one or two (the meeting leaders) doing most of the talking, while the puppies yatter, chatter, spump, and squeak furiously.
And, just for the sake of visuals, this fellow went wandering across the yard while I was on a conference call, myself, in 2015. I managed to get a good shot of him but he declined to stick around while I fetched my better camera.
I’d love to hear one of the Coyote Marketing Department Meetings but I’m not sure I could handle it.
I should also mention that the usual Pennsylvanians’ reaction to a coyote is to shoot it, whether in season or not. Because, they believe, the coyotes interfere with other hunting. I’ve had to destroy traps left on my property (I soak them with diesel fuel or roofing tar) several times. It’s infuriating that someone’s reaction to these fascinating and witty critters is to blast them. But, that probably says something profound about what shitty people Americans are.
2am appears to be the usual start time for the Coyote Committee. Someone should teach them how to use Zoom and help them crash human marketing meetings.
Connie Willis has a great sf short story called “The Last of the Winnebagos,” in which we have accidentally managed to extinctify all the dogs, and are trying to make up for our collective guilt by domesticating coyotes. As you might guess, it’s not very successful.
I grew up in PA, and I remember when we would see a fox, people’s reactions were usually to try to kill it one way or another. I had more than one person say with a straight face, that the fox was a risk to cattle. :/
Also similar reactions to snakes. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a copperhead, but every garter and rat snake I saw, someone else was positive it was a copperhead, and had to be killed. :/
That’s rather disturbing that people are putting traps on your property. Are they the spring-loaded jaw that traps the foot, or some other type?
And now I’m wondering what the legal situation is on booby-trapping someone elses illegally placed trap for when they come back to check on it. “I plead “two wrongs”, your honour.”
“I grew up in PA, and I remember when we would see a fox, people’s reactions were usually to try to kill it one way or another. I had more than one person say with a straight face, that the fox was a risk to cattle. ”
Ooh, I’ve seen that on TV. A fox pride herds the cows to isolate some of them. Then one of the foxes jumps on top of the fleeing animal and rips out its jugular in one go.
No, wait, different animals, different continent and David Attenborough probably never narrated a fox hunt.
brucegee1962@#1:
Connie Willis has a great sf short story called “The Last of the Winnebagos,”
I love her work. Never understood why she was not more popular. Everything I’ve ever read by her is great.
lochaber@#2:
That’s rather disturbing that people are putting traps on your property. Are they the spring-loaded jaw that traps the foot, or some other type?
Drop door. But there were also signs that hunters had hung out watching it, presumably so they could shoot something.
Hunters are an endless problem up here. They go where they want and shoot what they see, and if you complain to them, they’re standing there with a gun and that makes it a bit awkward. I did try to press charges once, by talking to the game commissioner and it turned out the hunter in question was the commissioner’s fucking cousin.
David Attenborough probably never narrated a fox hunt.
He’s too cool to give credence to such a disgusting display of class solidarity by the British uppers.
But:
Not so sure about that. I think (some? many? most?) rural folk the world around tend not to be very wildlife-friendly, often to the point of indiscriminately killing predators. On the other hand, Americans do often seem to turn the dial to 11. Years ago, there were plans to reintroduce wolves to (?) Yellowstone NP. Some locals weren’t too pleased about that, and there was a demo with one person carrying a placard that read “Wolves: The Saddam Hussein of the Animal World”.
Rob Grigjanis@#7:
Not so sure about that. I think (some? many? most?) rural folk the world around tend not to be very wildlife-friendly, often to the point of indiscriminately killing predators.
When I was a kid in the summers in the south of France, I asked a grown-up where all the animals were. There were no deer, no squirrels, no woodchucks, nothing except a few birds. Apparently hunger during WWII, but it sounds like most European countries have wiped out their wildlife by hunting them. I remember seldom seeing roadkill animals in Europe – one dead badger in Sweden, once – American hunters are just trying to catch up, I suppose.
@ Rob
Yeah, Australians are just as bad; shooting dingos and deliberately running over snakes. Also being really horrible to sharks.
Then getting all sad about having to do something about the feral horses destroying parts of the country
and we have feral pigs and deer if they want to have fun by killing things :/
In defense of rural people: Actually, everywhere I’ve been, people have tried to shoot or run over or poison or otherwise destroy any animal they see. BUT! This is not confined to rural people; it’s just what people do, I guess. I once was on a forum about chickens (which can be kept in cities as well as the country), and everyone was freaking out about the weirdest stuff: “OMG! There are ants here, what should I do!” “OMG! There are caterpillars here, what should I do!” “OMG, there are hawks here, what should I do!” and so on. I mean, I guess you could set up your house in the middle of a huge cement parking lot, but there is still life all around. (And as it turns out, most of the time, the chickens get killed by the owner’s dogs, not the ants or hawks or whatever.) For me, coyotes are great neighbors because they dig up and eat western pocket gophers, prairie dogs and mice. They sound great at night; we often have a chorus before bedtime, very pleasant. But for an awful lot of people, they never even notice that there are other birds than English house sparrows, so when they finally do notice wildlife the first thing they do is try to kill it. Kinda tragic, really.
Marcus, was that Darth Vader you also captured on your recording? ;-p