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Concerning horses and coyotes

Thursday, May 31 at 12:01 AM

This Speakout has not been edited

By Robert W. Steller, Larkspur

First regarding SPEAKOUT, 5/20/07 “City Should Stop Coyote Trapping".

Coyotes can be more than just a pest. The Department of Wildlife reported that coyotes destroy at least twenty-five percent of the deer fawn crop every spring and a higher percentage regarding the pronghorn populaton. Wildlife has a difficult time enough these days with winter feeding grounds turning into high density housing and shopping plazas before our very eyes.

Coyotes not only kill and eat small dogs and most cats they have been know to bite children.

Packs have killed large dogs and have been know to bring down elk. Colorado State University, has just informed us that dogs can pick up a serious respiratory disease from coyote feces. Don’t tell a sheep rancher you love coyotes.

Twenty five years ago coyote pelts brought up to two-hundred and fifty dollars a pelt. Ranches and hunters hunted them every which way they could including via snowmobiles. Hundreds of coyotes were killed and the next year “there were just as many back!". A coyote bitch can have a litter before it is a year old and can have two litters a year. The more the coyote population is reduced the more prolific a breeder they become. The City should continue trapping.

Horses: To be slaughtered or not slaughtered? We own six horses and by our veterinarian maintainance bills we can attest they are well taken care of. When we have a good hay crop we also give hundreds of bales to the local Equine Rescue Mission. We love our horses and use them. However with fuel and hay prices being at record levels many owners cannot afford to keep them. These same factors have depressed the horse market so horses today are difficult to sell.

In just the last month the Douglas County Sheriffs Department has had to rescue three farms of horses in the Black Forest area alone. These horses were starving to death. If an owner cannot feed their horses nor sell them they have two alternatives. Starve them to death or have them humanely enthanized. As sad as it is a humane death at a slaughter house is preferred over the abusive, agonizing and inhumane death of starvation.

READER COMMENTS

Robert,

You define the role of the Coyote to a tee. And the Coyote is doing just fine without the white man's "help".

That is the nature of the food chain, without the Coyote, deer, and elk would become less aware, decreased hearing and eyesight would become more prevalent in the gene pool.

And pet owners that allow their precious family member to run loose, obviously don't care if their pet is roadkill or a coyote meal.

This "how the west was won" paradigm is dying a well deserved death. Suburban invasion of wildlife habitat is now done by people that don't farm sheep, and get a left by seeing a coyote or cougar in their yards.

Posted by Holy Reality on June 5, 2007 10:08 AM