North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[road's end farm <organic101@linkny.com>]

On Sunday, February 8, 2004, at 05:08 PM, Peter Knop wrote:

>      We now have cayotes - anyone with experience in what they will do 
> to
> the deer population?

We've had coyote for some years; hear them often. We also have lots of 
deer. I think the coyote are mostly eating mouse and rabbit and maybe 
woodchuck; though we still have plenty of those, too. Where I suspect 
they may have actually made a significant dent is on the wild turkey 
population. Turkey had been very rare most of my life; then became 
briefly very common a few years back -- it wasn't unusual to have to 
stop the car in the road to let a flock of twenty or so turkeys cross; 
now, while they are still around, there don't seem to be anywhere as 
many of them as at peak. I don't know for sure that the difference is 
coyote, of course.

Coyote I think is a beneficial for the produce grower (and I do like to 
hear them sing). My neighbors with sheep think differently, though. 
Guard donkeys kept with the sheep seem to help; as does shutting the 
sheep in the barnyard at night. I think the confirmed canine attacks on 
sheep in the Northeast are mostly actually domestic dog.

I've heard that coyote learn what to hunt and what to leave alone from 
their parents, and that if you have a pack which isn't bothering 
domestic animals you should leave them alone; if you kill them, another 
pack will almost certainly move in, and they may have eating habits you 
like less. Makes sense to me; though I'm sure that a coyote that's 
hungry enough will change habits.

Oh yes -- we almost certainly also have at least an occasional puma / 
mountain lion / cougar / cat-of-many-names. My guess, from what I've 
heard of the history of reliable reports, is that these have been here 
all along, remnants of the original population. Very shy, though. No 
Eastern reports of attacks on people.

--Rivka
Finger Lakes NY; zone 5 mostly