Coyotes

The coyotes were sad last night.  I have lived here twenty years, with goats on the back acre for ten.  Usually once or twice during the winter, the coyotes will come to the back line.  This year, the pack was to the left, the right, and outback, all times of night and evening.  What was going on?

I found out that coyote hunters  had put three bait dumps within 1000 feet of my goats, encircling my pasture.  The bait consisted of slaughterhouse offal, and yes, it included goat and sheep bits.  Because when I confronted the hunter-actually, he stopped to talk to me on the road-he was suprised that I had never had a trouble with my goats, since coyotes picked the goat bits out of the piles first.  Nice.

Then he went on to say that he had taken 7 coyotes out from behind me.  Groups of pickups speeding up and down the gravel road everyday, hunting dogs showing up in my back yard....

Yesterday I went out the long way just because I didn't want to pass the hunters, and I'll be damed but four trucks where down the road and I had to pass them anyhow.  Later Peko and I walked down the road after they had left and followed their trail into the woods.

I have permission from the landowner to be on that property...do they?  Who knows, since my neighbor told me she had found a bait pile on her property and the hunter, a retired game warden, had told her he could put it there because she didn't have her name on her posted signs!

The property they had gone on is also posted, but the name is faded.  The owner lives out of state, but you can be sure the next time he comes up I am going to ask him if they have permission.

Part of this same gang was caught by my other neighbor on her land last fall herding deer!  And she posted her land for the first time in twenty five years because of them.  The whole road is lterally posted-but, as the retired game warden told me "Dogs can't read posted signs"

So they put their dogs in there and stand on the gravel road and wait for the dogs to drive the coyote into the road where they shoot it.  The dogs have gps collars so you typically see these guys lined up with handheld screens tracking the dogs progress through the (posted) woods.  That's why they speed up and down the road trying to keep ahead of the coyote.

If the dogs go to bay in the woods, they go in after the dogs-having the right to trespass to retrieve the dog.  You'd have to catch them and tell them not to shoot the coyote so good luck with that.

Anyhow, we followed the trail and ended up finding blood-whether from a coyote, injured dog, or the dead deer one of the yahoos had in the back of their truck yesterday morning that looked like coyote bait to me (the deer didn't have a mark on it, but orange tape around it's leg.  I think it had been hit by a car).

I was sure they must have shot the last coyote-but last night I stepped on the deck and heard one out back-there may have been two.  The call was so sad, not the usual happy one.  I cupped my hands to my mouth and mimicked the call.  Then I shouted, "I'm sorry,. they're assholes"

I have done a bunch of research on coyotes the last week.  Don't believe the hunters.  You're more likely to lose a cat to a fox than a coyote.  They will go after sheep, but good fencing, guard dogs, llamas, or burros will protect them.

All those years the big goat farm never lost one to coyotes.  AND she had found a bait dump 20 feet from her back fence as well.  It's like the hunters WANT them to go after your livestock so they can justify tearing through posted land with dogs during the season everything is pregnant.

Damn, don't get me going....

Zeus died a hero

Zeus 4/08
Tree archives

Farewell to Zeus, "Lord of the Bucks" at BLF. Zeus was visiting a farm breeding a dozen does and died protecting the does from a pack of coyotes.

Another Monday

Here is a pic from yesterday. We took a hike up the pond and had a picnic on top of this huge boulder that is surrounded by water. The wind was cold!

There were about a half dozen groups ice fishing on the pond. We saw quite a few pickerel and one huge yellow perch dead on the ice. I know most people consider them trash fish, but not sure why they leave them on the ice. I do know the bald eagles and coyotes, also bobcat and foxes will probably eat them right up. Funny the people that complain most about coyotes are probably the ones that dump fish and deer parts!

Speaking of coyote,I saw tracks down towards the stream yesterday, and then they paralleled the electric fence, and then went UNDER the fence and across the back pasture!! I don't have wire fencing in the back so something could walk right up into the pen from there...I had extra fencing and that was on my to-do list for the fall and I never did it! And now I have used most of it patching places.

Last night just as dark was falling, Moonie was out! The brat! He has always been an escape artist! I thought he jumped on one of the house roofs and jumped the fence since it was sort of crunched there, so I had the Firebird help me add another four foot piece on top (the original there is six foot) First I tried a rope strung above, and that was a bad idea! Two of the wethers started standing on the fence to check out the rope! So they would have shacked that in no time! Plus I was worried about Moo hanging himself on it. So, I patched in some fence and it was cold and I was swearing at the goats!

Well, when I got home from the farm today, Moonie was out AGAIN! So I patched another piece out back where I was sure he was getting out, and then I realized there was a gap at a gate (which the Firebird said last night and I ignored him) so I fixed there, too! If he gets out again....grrrr!!!! IT better not be through the electric fence since that will be hard to fix with the snow on the ground. I had to disconnect a couple of the bottom lines. They were shorting out in the snow-that's how the coyote got in, a dip in the ground there. The terrain is very uneven so in the upper pasture I disconnected two lines, and the lower one three, but like I said, it is uneven so some places the hot line is not very close to the ground. So we shall see.

I will throw some urine up in the big hemlock to mark the territory and say a prayer the coyote likes fish better than goat!