I love coyotes. A coyote led me to wildlife tracking as a vocation, when one literally ran across the road in front of me in my Seattle neighborhood. The same neighborhood where a bunch of people got together and paid to have coyotes removed--i.e. killed--a few years back. Subsequent to an explosion in the local rabbit population, they're back.
The animals we call pests or vermin are the ones that manage to thrive in spite of us, or even often because we've created niches that suit them. Coyotes, raccoons, rats: social, resilient, clever, persistent, will eat anything. Kind of like us.
Coyotes are an incredible cultural test. If a clever, sneaky, independent-minded and unkillable creature inspires respect, it passes the test. If that creature inspires hatred, the culture fails
Have you read "Prodigal Summer" by Barbara Kingsolver? It's fiction and coyotes aren't its only topic, but one of the main characters is a wildlife biologist who is studying a family of Appalachian coyotes. That character (named Deana Wolfe- a bit on the nose) is a little prickly with humans, made it easier to insert a lot of facts about coyotes and correct common negative beliefs. The book is pretty effective at describing the importance of having an apex predator (other than man) in our wild lands. I don't remember reading about the yips and litter size though! That's amazing. I have a huge soft spot for hyenas for similar reasons. I know you're using metaphor here. I feel like right now I'm being more of a possum. Mostly schedule and diet related reasons, I've hissed A LOT but have successfully avoided passing out from fright or outrage. It's a small win.
Taking inspiration from any genre of vermin seems like a good choice right now, also I had not heard of this book and it sounds like it would be a delight in this dark time, I'll add it to the list
Maybe it was because my family when I was growing up went through some Native American history courses in college, but I read a lot of Native American legends out of their books when I was a kid. My favorite were always the Coyote stories. The others were interesting, but Coyote was always teaching or being taught. Sometimes he was the trickster, sometimes kind of akin to the Christian (original) devil as a tempter that could be outwitted by being a good person with strong morals. Sometimes he was the tricked and not very bright but vain and had more in common with Wile E Coyote (I admit, my favorite Looney Tunes character). But there was always a lesson in the Coyote stories and usually there was some element of humor. So while I wouldn't leave unattended small pets in the yard overnight in coyote territory, I also have kind of a warm, amused outlook towards them.
I've always liked coyotes ecologically too. They're mesopredators- mid tier. The way a cat is a mesopredator, both predator and, potentially, prey. Being in that mid range forces the animal to be especially cunning I think, as they're pressured from both sides of the equation. Most mesopredators have a reputation for being particularly clever.
I've never heard of them being called American Bolsheviks but there's a lot to unpack in that term. I'll have to go check out the documentary thank you for the suggestion.
Great article as always and I appreciate that while in the best traditions it uses coyote to teach a lesson, it also isn't part of my daily doomscrolling these days.
This concept of coyote sounds very human, there's a little trickster god in all of us I think. I know exactly enough about Native American mythology to know Coyote is revered even if chaotic and imperfect, and I love that he's a sort of teacher (even if he's teaching us with his own actions and mistakes). I should read more of it, sounds like I'd really like it
Oh, have I got a coyote story for you. This goes back to when I was 16 and living with my uncle and aunt in Dundee Oregon, about 30 miles south of Portland in rural Yamhill County.
To set the scene, Uncle Stuart was a Mighty Hunter™. He had a house built over looking the filbert (hazelnut) orchards that have now all been turned into vineyards. In the basement, he had a trophy room filled with all sorts of dead stuffed animals, including a huge moose that would have made #17 in the Boone & Crockett listing of the largest animals killed by hunters, sorted by species, except for the fact that he shot it from a plane in Alaska.
Needless to say, I was a Junior Member of the National Rifle Association and did a bit of competitive target shooting at the local range. I could put a 5 round quarter-sized hole in a target 250’ away with a Remington 700 7mm Magnum rifle with a 4x scope.
So enough bragging and let’s get on with the coyote story.
Uncle Stuart decides it’s time to introduce me to antelope hunting over in eastern Oregon, so we set out and set up camp in his Caveman Camper on his old Dodge Power Wagon. Morning comes, we get up before dawn and try to find something, anything, to shoot at. And we come up dry.
So, after lunch, I am tired of not getting to shoot anything and I decide that I should go hunt me some coyote, since I saw some scat. Now, I didn’t want to take the Remington because that seemed like serious overkill for a coyote, so I settled on Uncle Stuart’s Remington XP-100 .221 Fireball (which we reloaded in our most anal-retentive style) bolt action pistol with a 4x scope and a nylon stock that *perfectly* fit my hand.
I reasoned this was a fine weapon for hunting coyote. I would only get one shot and if I missed, the coyote deserved to live.
So off I went into the puckerbrush and I come around the corner and there is a coyote, standing sideways from me. As I raise my hand up and took aim…
The coyote sat down, facing me, looking death right in the face.
I had him in the scope crosshairs, right between his eyes. But I couldn’t pull the trigger.
As I hesitated, he just sat there looking at me. I gradually lowered the gun, pretty much in slow motion. When it was by my side, he stood up and started walking away. He wasn’t trotting, he was walking at a pretty slow pace for a coyote.
He walked directly away from me, every few steps looking back at me, standing there frozen in space and time. He kept walking down the trail, not taking any of the little side trails that would have disappeared him like coyotes usually do. Instead, he was waiting for me to change my mind.
And I didn’t.
That was the last time I went hunting. Coyote taught me a lesson: if you don’t need to kill, don’t play at killing.
I grew up in rural West Texas so I knew ranchers hated coyotes but I always loved them. Reading about their numbers growing despite our best efforts is very cheering. Great article as always and great message too. Thx!
What a lovely piece. I realize that you are the one substack writer that I really look forward to. You always surprise and you always have a particular kind of weight in the essay. Your writing is serious and delightful. Sorry to gush. I live in central Vermont and we hear the coyotes at night, up on the ridges, howling and yipping. They are all around us and they hunt them here fiercely, in a way they don’t hunt deer or bear or moose. And yet the coyotes are always here.
I hear coyotes 'singing' a few nights every week, often not that far away in the woods north of the house. I listen and count voices and I can confirm there are many many! Yet seeing one is a rarity, I have seen them come up and take peaches and nectarines off the trees (sadly gone now) during prolonged dry spells which is a clever strategy to both eat and avoid ponds where they might get shot. Anyway I agree. We all need to learn from them to avoid getting Trumped.
I love coyotes. A coyote led me to wildlife tracking as a vocation, when one literally ran across the road in front of me in my Seattle neighborhood. The same neighborhood where a bunch of people got together and paid to have coyotes removed--i.e. killed--a few years back. Subsequent to an explosion in the local rabbit population, they're back.
The animals we call pests or vermin are the ones that manage to thrive in spite of us, or even often because we've created niches that suit them. Coyotes, raccoons, rats: social, resilient, clever, persistent, will eat anything. Kind of like us.
Don't forget the Native American legends about Coyote as the trickster god! Sneaky, cunning, always surviving.
Coyotes are an incredible cultural test. If a clever, sneaky, independent-minded and unkillable creature inspires respect, it passes the test. If that creature inspires hatred, the culture fails
Have you read "Prodigal Summer" by Barbara Kingsolver? It's fiction and coyotes aren't its only topic, but one of the main characters is a wildlife biologist who is studying a family of Appalachian coyotes. That character (named Deana Wolfe- a bit on the nose) is a little prickly with humans, made it easier to insert a lot of facts about coyotes and correct common negative beliefs. The book is pretty effective at describing the importance of having an apex predator (other than man) in our wild lands. I don't remember reading about the yips and litter size though! That's amazing. I have a huge soft spot for hyenas for similar reasons. I know you're using metaphor here. I feel like right now I'm being more of a possum. Mostly schedule and diet related reasons, I've hissed A LOT but have successfully avoided passing out from fright or outrage. It's a small win.
Taking inspiration from any genre of vermin seems like a good choice right now, also I had not heard of this book and it sounds like it would be a delight in this dark time, I'll add it to the list
Maybe it was because my family when I was growing up went through some Native American history courses in college, but I read a lot of Native American legends out of their books when I was a kid. My favorite were always the Coyote stories. The others were interesting, but Coyote was always teaching or being taught. Sometimes he was the trickster, sometimes kind of akin to the Christian (original) devil as a tempter that could be outwitted by being a good person with strong morals. Sometimes he was the tricked and not very bright but vain and had more in common with Wile E Coyote (I admit, my favorite Looney Tunes character). But there was always a lesson in the Coyote stories and usually there was some element of humor. So while I wouldn't leave unattended small pets in the yard overnight in coyote territory, I also have kind of a warm, amused outlook towards them.
I've always liked coyotes ecologically too. They're mesopredators- mid tier. The way a cat is a mesopredator, both predator and, potentially, prey. Being in that mid range forces the animal to be especially cunning I think, as they're pressured from both sides of the equation. Most mesopredators have a reputation for being particularly clever.
I've never heard of them being called American Bolsheviks but there's a lot to unpack in that term. I'll have to go check out the documentary thank you for the suggestion.
Great article as always and I appreciate that while in the best traditions it uses coyote to teach a lesson, it also isn't part of my daily doomscrolling these days.
This concept of coyote sounds very human, there's a little trickster god in all of us I think. I know exactly enough about Native American mythology to know Coyote is revered even if chaotic and imperfect, and I love that he's a sort of teacher (even if he's teaching us with his own actions and mistakes). I should read more of it, sounds like I'd really like it
Oh, have I got a coyote story for you. This goes back to when I was 16 and living with my uncle and aunt in Dundee Oregon, about 30 miles south of Portland in rural Yamhill County.
To set the scene, Uncle Stuart was a Mighty Hunter™. He had a house built over looking the filbert (hazelnut) orchards that have now all been turned into vineyards. In the basement, he had a trophy room filled with all sorts of dead stuffed animals, including a huge moose that would have made #17 in the Boone & Crockett listing of the largest animals killed by hunters, sorted by species, except for the fact that he shot it from a plane in Alaska.
Needless to say, I was a Junior Member of the National Rifle Association and did a bit of competitive target shooting at the local range. I could put a 5 round quarter-sized hole in a target 250’ away with a Remington 700 7mm Magnum rifle with a 4x scope.
So enough bragging and let’s get on with the coyote story.
Uncle Stuart decides it’s time to introduce me to antelope hunting over in eastern Oregon, so we set out and set up camp in his Caveman Camper on his old Dodge Power Wagon. Morning comes, we get up before dawn and try to find something, anything, to shoot at. And we come up dry.
So, after lunch, I am tired of not getting to shoot anything and I decide that I should go hunt me some coyote, since I saw some scat. Now, I didn’t want to take the Remington because that seemed like serious overkill for a coyote, so I settled on Uncle Stuart’s Remington XP-100 .221 Fireball (which we reloaded in our most anal-retentive style) bolt action pistol with a 4x scope and a nylon stock that *perfectly* fit my hand.
I reasoned this was a fine weapon for hunting coyote. I would only get one shot and if I missed, the coyote deserved to live.
So off I went into the puckerbrush and I come around the corner and there is a coyote, standing sideways from me. As I raise my hand up and took aim…
The coyote sat down, facing me, looking death right in the face.
I had him in the scope crosshairs, right between his eyes. But I couldn’t pull the trigger.
As I hesitated, he just sat there looking at me. I gradually lowered the gun, pretty much in slow motion. When it was by my side, he stood up and started walking away. He wasn’t trotting, he was walking at a pretty slow pace for a coyote.
He walked directly away from me, every few steps looking back at me, standing there frozen in space and time. He kept walking down the trail, not taking any of the little side trails that would have disappeared him like coyotes usually do. Instead, he was waiting for me to change my mind.
And I didn’t.
That was the last time I went hunting. Coyote taught me a lesson: if you don’t need to kill, don’t play at killing.
That sounds like an absolutely incredible and transformative moment, and I love this ending. What a beautiful story
MAGNIFICENT.
I grew up in rural West Texas so I knew ranchers hated coyotes but I always loved them. Reading about their numbers growing despite our best efforts is very cheering. Great article as always and great message too. Thx!
Gorgeous. Thank you.
After the past week, this was the perfect pick me up. Not escapism, but a step outside the daily narrative, taking the long view with a deeper vision.
What a lovely piece. I realize that you are the one substack writer that I really look forward to. You always surprise and you always have a particular kind of weight in the essay. Your writing is serious and delightful. Sorry to gush. I live in central Vermont and we hear the coyotes at night, up on the ridges, howling and yipping. They are all around us and they hunt them here fiercely, in a way they don’t hunt deer or bear or moose. And yet the coyotes are always here.
High heel lady spitting at the nickajacks
Business man with a needle and a spoon
Coyote chewing on a cigarette
Pack o' young boys going howlin' at the moon
(From “Sleeping on the Blacktop” by Colter Wall)
I hear coyotes 'singing' a few nights every week, often not that far away in the woods north of the house. I listen and count voices and I can confirm there are many many! Yet seeing one is a rarity, I have seen them come up and take peaches and nectarines off the trees (sadly gone now) during prolonged dry spells which is a clever strategy to both eat and avoid ponds where they might get shot. Anyway I agree. We all need to learn from them to avoid getting Trumped.
Damn this is good.
Excellent article.
I love coyotes🥰