Coyotes aren’t a nuisance. It’s their world, and humans live in it
BY Herschel Smith
2 years, 9 months ago
As much as I’ve enjoyed Sandy Banks’ columns through the years, I must take issue with her characterization of wild coyotes’ presence in her suburban neighborhood.
In truth, any “reign of terror” being perpetrated there stems from humans’ ubiquitous war on wildlife.
Banks concedes that human housing has invaded the coyotes’ natural habitat. Yet she villainizes them for adapting to our trespass.
Any “unrepentant hoodlums” are the residents who have dispossessed the coyotes; any “scourge” she perceives was wholly foreseeable, not “unpredictable.”
Rather than demonize coyotes for being coyotes, Banks should keep in mind that they aren’t able to earn a living by writing newspaper columns.
Sandra Perez, Santa Maria
Her view is irrational and inconsistent. Let me prove it to you.
Her view is likely the one of an evolutionist. Upon her view, men are animals and the Coyote is just another animal. We must all learn to live together in one gigantic utopia and men are the dastardly ones waging war on other animals.
But you see, upon the evolutionist view, there is no such thing as evil, and thus if men are just animals, men are behaving like animals when they kill other animals, as a lion would in the Serengeti desert. She has no business complaining. She’s watching nature in action.
This is what Professor Alvin Plantinga would do. He would explain how the naturalist view is self referentially incoherent and self defeating.
The proper view if that God created man in His image and gave him dominion over the animal kingdom. Dangerous animals who kill men are to be put to death, and animals who destroy your property are thieves – and your property includes your beasts as well.
Even dogs are smarter than her. They figured this out a long time ago, and they and men are friends.
On February 15, 2022 at 7:40 am, Chris said:
She’s obviously never lived very rurally as I do, and hunt extensively for meat. I’ve had coyotes pack up in my area this past year on the mountain , and they’ve chased or killed many or ALL the species off the property. I hear them calling each other, and my game cameras are taking way less pics this past year.
CIII
On February 15, 2022 at 8:08 am, UH1H CE said:
Coyotes are a new phenomena in much of the Eastern US. They’ve migrated in to space not historically part of their range. Thus they are the trespassers. When walking through the local parks I get a chuckle out of the “lost dog, (or cat) posters doting the trees knowing that little Fido’s collar will be found in a pile of Coyote scat.
On February 15, 2022 at 4:52 pm, TRX said:
> Banks concedes that human housing has invaded the coyotes’ natural habitat.
—
Most of the time, the other way around. Coyote habitat expands to match human habitat. Humans provide trash cans, dogs, cats, and other sources of food for coyotes, not to mention various convenient water sources.
Sort of like opossums. The North American opossum was very nearly extinct before the Europeans colonized the east coast. The last opossums were found only in Virginia and North Carolina. You can look at opossum distribution maps and you can see the “H”-shaped distribution as settlers took them west as food animals during the Gold Rush era; they’re all up and down both coasts and slowly filling in the middle, staying mostly within suburban human environments. They’re now a thing in Toronto and Vancouver.
On February 16, 2022 at 8:32 am, Daniel said:
Wrong…… coyotes are not indigenous to this area. It’s kinda a known fact, public knowledge of you will, they migrated here from the prairies of the west. The only reason they have been able to grab a population foothold as large as they have is because they’re highly adaptable and they now are the apex predator on the east coast. You San give a big thanks to humans thinking it was a good idea to kill off all of the elk and wolves and panthers long time ago. The ecosystem was balanced. Now, hunters have to take up that mantle of balance.
On February 16, 2022 at 8:53 am, Fred said:
If evolution is real, and survival of the fittest is in fact the order upon which earth operates then the ecosystem was NEVER in balance. It’s been nothing but out of balance as species struggle against species to survive. The religion of evolutionism lacks coherence at an elementary level. And that’s why it’s a religion, because it takes faith to believe.
The “ecosystem was in balance” is as big a myth as the “noble savage” living in idyllic peace with his environment.
It’s fairly dust and unicorn rainbow farts.
The planet is dying under the weight of the curse of sin. That’s at the root of the struggle to survive and it’s why blood is shed at all.