Coyote Cooperation – Benefiting from Natural Predators
Our coyote visitor, taken from the dining table window.
A recent daylight visit to our homestead by a local coyote had us somewhat concerned. We don’t foresee any danger from her, but it’s unwise to become complacent about any wild animal, particularly a highly adaptable predator. Plus, we’ve tracked coyotes following our resident vole eaters, weasels (ermines) and minks.
A few days later, Michelle learned from an Eliot Coleman book that coyotes are voracious vole eaters. According to Coleman, even a splash of coyote urine will discourage voles from exploring an area. This put an entirely different perspective on the recent encounter, during which we had not been pleased to watch our visitor squat in the garden. Apparently, we should be welcoming that sort of behavior after all!
We have labored hard against the local voles ever since we first came to the homestead. They’d moved into the cabin when it was unoccupied, which led to some interesting moments, notably the day Michelle made a perfect kill shot with my blowgun on a vole she could hear but not see in the pilot bread bag on the top shelf, and the morning a litter of volelettes somehow got dispersed throughout the cabin before they even had their eyes open. The cats hardly knew what to think of that.
Each summer we trap voles in the garden, or take pot shots with blowguns. We throw chunks of wood, rocks or any other missile close at hand, and roust them out of the compost bins regularly. The minks, weasels, and birds of prey—owls, hawks, and harriers—do their part. We have periods when there are no voles at all. And yet, each year we lose a good deal of our strawberries, broccoli, and cauliflower to them. They’ve recently breached the root cellar. If a coyote will visit now and then to hunt them, or just pee in the garden, it will henceforth be most welcome. This particular coyote, with a lame forepaw, seems particularly suited to our needs: active enough to catch voles, but not fit enough to get into other coyote mischief.
This relationship will change drastically if and when we start raising chickens. When that day comes, the coyote will no longer be welcome to hunt our compound, and will be actively discouraged from going so. In the meantime, she’s welcome to scrape together a meal now and then and relieve herself as needed . . . preferably near the compost bins.
This post previously appeared on the Zeiger Homestead Blog.
___________________________________
Mark Zeiger is a regular contributor to Self Reliance Works. He and his family homestead off the grid in Southeast Alaska. You can see photos of coyotes and other wild animals around their compound at www.akzeigers.com.
