(a) Nothing, really, or
(b) Couple of things, or
(c) See below
I’ve only seen coyotes up close, really close, once. Other
times the distance from them to me has been measured in yards: half a football
field, a quarter of a football field.
Like that. One night in Steamboat
Springs years ago Ken and I were staying in an apartment complex that Ken’s son Luke
was living in at the time. A
dumpster happened to be right outside our bedroom window. Very late one night I woke from sleep when I
heard dog-like noises coming from outside. I sat
up in bed and peered out the window. A motion
detector light spotlighted four, five, six seven coyotes just a few feet away, milling around, talking to one another while they and pored over trash that had spilled over the dumpster. The
lighting was bluish and hazy, dreamlike. Fascinated, I watched until I grew sleepy.
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| Canus Latran |
Here, usually late at night, there are frequent coyote
vocals. They howl and yip, sounding as
if they are close by, as they well might be, although it can be hard to pinpoint their exact locations. There might be only a single howl, or at other times there are so many yips, yaps and howls that a small group can make noise like twice their actual numbers. In fact, that may be the idea. They often get Skyler excited and he longs to get outside and bark at them.
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| Coyote hunting mice; Skyler shares that interest, but less keenly. |
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| Photo taken by Ben Huston's tree-mounted camera: coyotes at the site where a neighbor placed a dead ram. The ram was deliberately killed because he had become highly aggressive. |
Ethical hunting, that is, hunting with respect for the animal being hunted (deer or rabbits, hunted for sport, but used for food) is not something I can object to. I eat meat, after all.
Organizations dedicated to protecting and preserving wildlife in Vermont and in other states, as well as Canada, are working to eliminate these contests. (Not our Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, however, despite their motto of protection and preservation.) These horrendous contests have taken place for years from Montana to Kansas to Cape Cod (yes, even Cape Cod). California banned them in 2014, calling them “unethical” and “anachronistic,” an apt description. There is not even inherent value in the results: coyote remains are considered garbage, a profound insult to the animal. Several local contests have been shut down by protests or by a low number of sign-ups generally blamed on protests, but other contests keep popping up.
Although banning coyote killing contests is unlikely to change anyone’s basic attitude toward coyotes, it would at least dilute the stench that attaches to such mindless and unethical hunting. It would be a step. Like registering guns, maybe, or banning assault rifles, or limiting the size of magazines. Of course, as with any gun control legislation, it’s a steep uphill battle because of our embrace of gun culture. Even Vermont's own progressive Bernie Sanders is not known for gun control support. The Wild West lives on, here as elsewhere, embedded in our lizard brains. I cannot help but reflect on the attitude of shooters who have no apparent compunction about killing animals for fun,** or seeing them only as moving targets to test their shooting capability, and speculate about how that ethic may shape attitudes toward other animals, perhaps even people, who are felt to be undesirable or threatening or ugly. Without empathy or understanding for the lives of others–animals or people–these "others" can appear to be simply objects, merely a currency for self-expression.
Organizations dedicated to protecting and preserving wildlife in Vermont and in other states, as well as Canada, are working to eliminate these contests. (Not our Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, however, despite their motto of protection and preservation.) These horrendous contests have taken place for years from Montana to Kansas to Cape Cod (yes, even Cape Cod). California banned them in 2014, calling them “unethical” and “anachronistic,” an apt description. There is not even inherent value in the results: coyote remains are considered garbage, a profound insult to the animal. Several local contests have been shut down by protests or by a low number of sign-ups generally blamed on protests, but other contests keep popping up.
Although banning coyote killing contests is unlikely to change anyone’s basic attitude toward coyotes, it would at least dilute the stench that attaches to such mindless and unethical hunting. It would be a step. Like registering guns, maybe, or banning assault rifles, or limiting the size of magazines. Of course, as with any gun control legislation, it’s a steep uphill battle because of our embrace of gun culture. Even Vermont's own progressive Bernie Sanders is not known for gun control support. The Wild West lives on, here as elsewhere, embedded in our lizard brains. I cannot help but reflect on the attitude of shooters who have no apparent compunction about killing animals for fun,** or seeing them only as moving targets to test their shooting capability, and speculate about how that ethic may shape attitudes toward other animals, perhaps even people, who are felt to be undesirable or threatening or ugly. Without empathy or understanding for the lives of others–animals or people–these "others" can appear to be simply objects, merely a currency for self-expression.
Definitely not just Vermont.
Winter in Vermont should be our time for hearty cold weather sports. It’s been challenging this year because the cold hasn't been sustainable. One day you may be making tracks on skis and the next day you may have to make those same tracks on grass. There has been so much ice so often I've had to wear crampons to walk to my car in the driveway for the past month. It's almost a cliché to say there's always a “January thaw” (one that doesn't always happen in January), but it helps explain the inevitable warmish and sometimes snowless period between snowstorms in a more ordinary winter. Climate and weather not being the same thing, it’s hard to know what is causing what, but this season certainly seems very far from normal. This winter has offered a sort of temperature whiplash that may be becoming the new normal. The season began well enough: late December/early January was the model of an old-fashioned winter (or what we imagine was an old-fashioned winter) with its extreme cold and day after day below zero temperatures along with a good cover of snow. But it was followed, alas, by doses of spring with occasional 50 degree differences from one day to another, a pattern that continued through the month of February.
**
Winter in Vermont should be our time for hearty cold weather sports. It’s been challenging this year because the cold hasn't been sustainable. One day you may be making tracks on skis and the next day you may have to make those same tracks on grass. There has been so much ice so often I've had to wear crampons to walk to my car in the driveway for the past month. It's almost a cliché to say there's always a “January thaw” (one that doesn't always happen in January), but it helps explain the inevitable warmish and sometimes snowless period between snowstorms in a more ordinary winter. Climate and weather not being the same thing, it’s hard to know what is causing what, but this season certainly seems very far from normal. This winter has offered a sort of temperature whiplash that may be becoming the new normal. The season began well enough: late December/early January was the model of an old-fashioned winter (or what we imagine was an old-fashioned winter) with its extreme cold and day after day below zero temperatures along with a good cover of snow. But it was followed, alas, by doses of spring with occasional 50 degree differences from one day to another, a pattern that continued through the month of February.
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| The muskrat tunnel is/was in the lower right; photo days apart from photo below |
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| Same place, slightly different angle, days later, or earlier; the pattern was repeated. Muskrat tunnel in the lower left. |
We’re not the only ones affected. What
is happening to the frogs hibernating in the pond? How are the muskrats surviving when their
tunnels flood and freeze over, and then flood and freeze over again? I won’t know about the frogs' fate until spring,
but I’ve seen the muskrats emerge and push away the snow cover to feed in exposed
grass. In the fall I counted four of
them, but I’ve only seen two at any one time in the winter.
 |
| After the snow squall at Rikert: Audrey came in 5th place in a crowded field. |
I skied at Sugarbush on a day in February in spring-like conditions. Later that same day I found myself in a snow squall at Rikert cross-country ski area watching Audrey in a race as the temperature dipped into the teens.
Probably not wise to invest your money in ski areas
in Vermont. But it's not just Vermont.
**
Then there’s maple sugaring.
The time has come. Or has it? For a good sap supply, the
temperatures should be warmish during the day and below freezing at night. What happens when the temperatures are in the
60’s in the day (February 21st!) and the 50’s (in February!) at night? On February 19th it snowed. This is crazy. In our tiny sugaring operation we will get enough syrup
one way or another, I suppose. Son-in-law
Chris just hauled out the taps and tubing and began hooking up the trees, but gathering sap and boiling hasn’t yet begun.
 |
| The sugarhouse, before sugaring |
Vermonters worry about the health of sugar maples as climate change makes its
impact. Sugaring is an important industry here and
will be at risk if sugar maples don’t continue to thrive in our warmer winters with huge temperature swings. Right now most syrup producers, especially the larger ones, are
upping their technology to draw larger amount of sap from trees. New reverse osmosis machines can now refine the sap
at levels that are three times as efficient as they were only five or ten years ago. They pull much more sap from the same trees. Forward-looking farms are powering their
facilities using wind power, solar energy and cow manure. These efficiency
gains may offset the shorter sugaring seasons resulting from climate
change. Ironically, there are concerns
that this high tech-process will stress trees already stressed by climate change. It is too early to know.
Oh, Vermont, it’s not just on you.
**
*ACTION TAKEN: On February 22nd a bill banning coyote killing contests cleared the Vermont House by a vote of 75-64 after considerable debate and intense lobbying by Protect Our Wildlife and others. It should be noted that Louis Porter, the head of Vermont Fish and Wildlife, did not support this ban. The bill now moves to the Vermont Senate where the likelihood of passage is reasonably good.
**The rationale: Supporters say they reduce coyote attacks on Vermont's deer herd (not validated by science) and help keep the thriving coyote population from spilling into residential areas (not validated by science) where the animals sometimes prey on cats and dogs or scare people.
**The rationale: Supporters say they reduce coyote attacks on Vermont's deer herd (not validated by science) and help keep the thriving coyote population from spilling into residential areas (not validated by science) where the animals sometimes prey on cats and dogs or scare people.
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