Coyote and Rodent Patrol
Photo by: Tom Kornner, USFWS

Intelligent predators are teaching us much about how they respond to our human behavior. It is only for us to pay attention to what they are trying to tell us. Coyotes have not successfully survived for 5 million years on this American continent without responding effectively to the challenges that threaten their survival.

And know that each Coyote is a unique individual, and responds to the situations in their lives in their own unique way. This cautionary knowledge on our part will help each farmer take their time to understand this individual Coyote with whom they share their farm.

Michelle Canfield, who raises grass fed Lamb, wrote this about her experience with Coyote behavior:

“The more selection pressure they (Coyotes) face, the more they rise to the challenge and increase reproduction. So the last thing we want to do is go on a killing spree; because the population responds exactly opposite to what we’d prefer.”

Sharing with you now this excellent article from On Pasture: 

https://onpasture.com/2019/08/26/coyotes-can-protect-your-livestock-from-predators/

Photo by: Tom Koerner

If there ever was an understanding of WHO Coyote is….look to the farmers who have come to know them. A number of Maine farmers have shared with me the collaborative effort both they and the coyotes have worked out together.

Families of Coyotes who live on farms KNOW the farmer very well. They understand whether the farmer respects them or not, whether the farmer welcomes them or not, and whether they can trust the farmer with their lives …or not.

Nowhere is this more fully appreciated than when the farmer turns on his tractor to mow his fields, and Coyote quickly leaves the refuge of the forest to follow in their own wild distance behind the tractor, picking off all the rodents that have now been exposed.

This only happens when there is TRUST and RESPECT in their relationship.

And Life is rich…and Life is peaceful….and Abundant for All.

Geri Vistein, carnivore biologist
www.CoyoteLivesinMaine.org

| Farming with Carnivores Network

Note: the electric fencing and Guardian dog photo by Billy Foster

As a wildlife biologist, my work focuses on our recovering carnivores and our relationships with them. Supporting our farmers is important to me because they not only feed us, but here in Maine there is such an effort to farm sustainably. I make regular trips to our weekly Farmers Market, but also give presentations collaboratively with several of our leading farmers.

On one particular Saturday at the Farmers Market, one of our farmers requested that I might help another new one who had just come to Maine after retiring. So I thought I would stop by and chat with him to offer any support he might wish. What I found out from him was this: he raises very vulnerable lambs in a rural area, allows them to be born out in the field, and he has NO electric fencing and NO guardian animals.

So basically he uses no animal husbandry practices to protect them, in fact he informed me that he refuses to do so. Instead he kills any coyotes that he sees. As we all know through so much research on this subject, there will be no end to his losses because of his behavior.

He sees the Coyote as the enemy, instead of viewing them as intelligent beings who he can come to understand, and with whom he can share the land.  However, a door needs to be open for new learning to take place.

Then I walked over to another farmer and we had a short chat. He was a young farmer who told me that he loved hearing the Coyotes howl, and in his words:  “I want to learn more about them.” Such a simple statement, yet it is very powerful. The desire to understand our fellow beings is the first step to living very successfully with them.

AND SO THE CONTRAST~ Experiences like these have made me more and more aware that we are living in an amazing time of transition. So we are seeing those who refuse to make use of successful animal husbandry practices, who see Coyote as the enemy, and continue to see killing as the answer. YET we are also seeing more and more young farmers embracing what works AND at the same time not seeing Coyote as the enemy but as a fellow being of our planet Earth. THEY GET IT! This is the farming of the future happening today.

It is the CONTRAST that lets us know how much further we have to travel on the road to the farming of the future.

Geri Vistein, Carnivore Conservation Biologist
www.CoyoteLivesinMaine.org

CARNIVORES ARE VERY INTELLIGENT…..THEIR KIND OF INTELLIGENCE

IF THEY ARE NOT, THEY WOULD NOT SURVIVE

YES ~ large carnivores live on our farms, the medium size ones do too. Like the Raccoon! They know how to survive, and it is valuable for the farmer to get to know them. When you get to know them, you then are able to institute animal husbandry practices that work. Sharing here a great link about this native carnivore~  https://northernwoodlands.org/outside_story/article/raccoons-hands

SHARING WITH YOU A BLOG POST WRITTEN BY FELLOW WILDLIFE ECOLOGIST DEB PERKINS.

The Maine Agricultural Trade Show this January hosted our collaborative presentation titled Nurturing Carnivore Coexistence and Biodiversity on your Farm.  Four of us ~ Geri Vistein a carnivore conservation biologist, Mort Weiswilde a forester of our Maine Forest service, Deb Perkins a wildlife ecologist and Abby Sadaukas a leading farmer here in Maine ~shared a holistic understanding of the larger community of life that Aldo Leopold spoke of so well. Here is Deb’s link ~

https://www.firstlighthabitats.com/blog/carnivore-coexistence-leopolds-wise-words-part-1

THE FUTURE OF SUCCESSFUL FARMING

Farming with intelligent, complex and important carnivores like Coyote requires that we practice the animal husbandry practices shared with you on this website.

BUT THAT IS NOT ALL!

You need to learn about their ecology, their social life, and their lives from their point of view. When you get to that point, you know how to live well with them, your farm animals will be safe, and your farm will be a healthy ecological system…that will serve you well.

Below is a link very worth reading. We respect what our farmers do for all of us, and want to inform you of important knowledge ~

https://www.peer.org/news/news-releases/coyote-control-based-on-scientific-house-of-cards.html

SHARING HERE A POIGNANT EXPERIENCE

At our Common Ground Fair in Maine this past September, two of our leading farmers and myself (Geri Vistein, wildlife biologist) were scheduled to give a presentation titled “Sustainable Farming with Carnivores.” The farmer who spoke just us before asked what we were going to speak about, and when we mentioned the title of our presentation, his immediate response was “Oh, you are going to teach how to CONTROL the carnivores.”  I answered by gently saying that we were going to help assist our farmers to coexist with carnivores successfully.

So in that context I would like to share this link regarding research on just this topic. This farmer’s immediate response is evidence of what these researchers have found. It is a good read to help us think about our relationships with the “Others.”

https://phys.org/news/2015-10-americans-tend-wildlife-ancestors.html

INTELLIGENT CARNIVORES LIKE COYOTES ARE LIKE US IN SOME WAYS, BUT THEIR LIVES ARE NOT LIKE OURS AT ALL.

HOW ARE THEY LIKE US? Parents teach their young ones what they need to know to survive. Coyote pups who grow up in a stable family where their parents teach them who their prey are and how to hunt them, do not view livestock as their food source. Coyotes who do not grow up in a stable family…those whose parents are killed when the pups are too young…..have not learned who their prey are, nor how to hunt them successfully…they are always hungry!

So you want to keep stable coyote families on your farm.You want them to eat their wild prey, and never get a taste of your domestic animals.

HOW ARE COYOTES’ LIVES DIFFERENT FROM OUR LIVES:  STARVATION IS THEIR TRAVELING COMPANION!  And this is especially the case with coyotes who do not live in a stable situation.

SO ~ PLACING ANY DOMESTIC ANIMAL PARTS OR DEAD ANIMALS OUT BEYOND YOUR PASTURE IS A VERY DANGEROUS UNDERTAKING. You are giving them a taste for your livestock!  In this context, never allow anyone in your community to bait coyotes on your farm.

KEEP OUR COYOTES  AND OTHER CARNIVORES WILD! THEY HAVE WORK TO DO IN THE ECOSYSTEM OF YOUR FARM.

COME JOIN US IF YOU CAN~  On June 28 at 7:00 PM
in Darrows Barn at the Damariscotta River Association’s Round Top Farm, Damariscotta, Maine.

A panel discussion about the challenges and rewards involved in bringing back large apex predators, specifically cougars back to their native habitat (and their expanded range as Coyote) here in the North East. How can human communities adapt to co-exist with and benefit from their presence. Included in the panel are outstanding author Will Stolzenburg, Maine’s federal biologist, Mark McCullough, and Chris Spatz of the Cougar Rewilding Foundation.

AS  FARMERS ~ DO NOT LET THE CARNIVORES REMAIN STRANGERS TO YOU.