There has been a fair bit of attention focused on protecting the natural habitat of endangered species in the Great Lakes region. Meanwhile, less threatened animals are routinely displaced or destroyed by development. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator SuzanneElston tells the story of one creature that got caught on the edge:
Transcript
There has been a fair bit of attention focused on protecting the natural habitat of
endangered species in the Great Lakes region. Meanwhile, less threatened
animals are routinely displaced or destroyed by development. Great Lakes Radio
Consortium commentator Suzanne Elston tells the story of one creature that got
caught on the edge.
One of the nicest things about living in the country is the neighbors – and I don’t
mean the two-legged kind, either. Over the years we’ve shared the land around
us with everything from a deer family to a Great Horned Owl. This past winter, a
lone coyote regularly came by our house to visit. But by the spring we hadn’t
seen the coyote for a couple months, until she showed up on our front lawn late
one evening.
At first my husband and I barely recognized it. Most of her fur was gone and her
once beautiful ears lay limply against the side of her head. It didn’t take a
veterinarian to figure out that the coyote was seriously ill with mange. It’s a skin
disease caused by parasitic mites that eventually makes an animal’s fur fall out.
Since the coyote was obviously too sick to be treated, the only humane thing to
do was to call the local township and have the animal put out of its misery.
The trapper they sent knew all about our coyote. Her den had recently been
destroyed by a new housing development near us. She’d been hanging around a
local schoolyard for the past year, living off lunches that had been thrown away
by the school kids.
I suddenly felt very sorry for the coyote. It was almost as if she had come to us
for help, and our response was to have her killed. I also knew from talking to the
local farmers, that they certainly wouldn’t be mourning her loss. In the wild,
coyotes are natural predators that play a major role in helping control other
species and culling out sickly animals. But in farming communities they’re an
unwanted pest. In my small community alone, coyotes destroy over a hundred
thousand dollars worth of livestock every year.
I also know that coyotes aren’t endangered. And as far as unwanted wildlife
goes, they’re right up there with skunks and raccoons. But I couldn’t help but
think that this was their home, long before we got here. We move in, take over
their habitat, and then expect them to behave. I’m quite sure that if a loud,
aggressive neighbor moved in next door to me, I’d probably act like a coyote and
make a pest of myself, too.
The irony is, we build housing developments near the country so we can be a
part of it. We give these communities goofy names like Cedar
Creek and Countryside Homes – names that make us feel a part of nature. But as
soon as nature becomes less predictable than our thermostatically controlled
homes, we try to control it or get rid of it.
It took a couple of days, but the coyote was finally caught. As she was loaded
into the back of the trapper’s truck, I will never forget what I saw. Her decimated,
hairless body shivered in fear and cold, and her head was bowed with the weight
of her disease. But it was the look in her eyes that will haunt me forever.
As the trapper’s truck pulled out of our driveway, I sat down and wept.
HOST TAG:
Suzanne Elston is a syndicated columnist living in Courtice,
Ontario. She comes to us by way of the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium.