Beware, coyotes
You may not want to let young children see the picture below.
After leaving a client’s house this morning, I took the long way home along Old Spicewood Springs Drive in NW Austin, a scenic, 2-lane road with several low-water crossings with waterfalls, horse paddocks, and limestone cliffs. It feels like you’re out in the country, and it’s surrounded by preserves and greenbelts. But truth be told, this is practically in-town Austin these days, and it’s a busy road.
So I was a little shocked to see a dead coyote hanging by its neck from a fence along the road, and a woman adjusting the cardboard sign above its head, which reads, inconsistently, “Good I Bad Coyote.”
At the risk of feeding Wild West Texas stereotypes, I have seen coyotes hanging from fences in rural parts of Texas before. I understand that ranchers hang the animals they’ve killed as a warning to other ranchers that predators are in the area and in the belief that the dead coyotes will warn live ones away.
I don’t know about any of that. With the addition of this sign, it almost seems as if someone is trying to impress on any literate coyotes out there that misbehavin’ and chicken stealin’ will get them in trouble. Do coyotes read any better than deer?
And does anyone else find this kind of display distasteful or shocking?
All material © 2006-2010 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
It is both distasteful and shocking that anyone would do this. Coyotes don’t realize what or why this happened to its kin. It won’t deter anything or anyone except people with small children. Geez.
Kinda shocking & will be really gross in a day or two. I doubt that it does any good at keeping other Coyotes away. Where there is one, though there are usually more, I know that they kill small pets (please keep your pets in at night in Coyote country), but I figure that we are in their territory & they do a good job here keeping the rodent population down.
That is so gross!
It is an old tradition…a little weird, although you know how traditions can be. I had a Coyote glare at me in my yard and growl at the neighbor last year….I wish I could have done this to it! Sad, but true. They do live in about a 12 mile radius though.
Considering that coyotes are also scavengers, I would imagine that it would be more likely that other coyotes would end up in that area in the near term…of course, i guess it would then work like a “Thai ant control” method–put something for the ants to eat in the rooms that you don’t use so they go there instead of to the kitchen.
Pam, We have folks in our neighborhood who hate coyotes and advocate killing them. I say, watch you dog and keep your cats inside…but, people don’t like to change their behavior. I am sorry you came across this…It’s terribly shocking to sensible people. gail
It is shocking and disgusting.
We have them, but they are rarely seen and more often just heard. Our NC Wildlife Org has published a paper on “Coexisting with Coyotes.”
Cameron
Ewww. We have coyotes in our neighborhood and have been getting email warnings from those who’ve seen them in recent weeks. I can understand killing them in areas where they are a risk to people and pets, but hanging it on the fence seems…so many words come to mind – nasty, uncivilized, pointless, gross… Sure glad I wasn’t going by there with my child in the car.
Um?
Haven’t seen any dead wildlife hanging by a noose round these parts… hopefully no one will get the idea.
That’s disgusting.
Coyotes were here before we were and they have a place in the ecosystem. When we move into their neighborhoods, it’s our responsibility to live in accordance. People who lose pets to coyotes are people who didn’t care enough to walk their dogs on leashes and keep their cats indoors.
I actually am in shock! It actually breaks my heart – I am not a fan of killing any animal, even the bad ones 🙁 It makes you wonder what they will do to people that they are angry with! 🙁 Pamie G.
Disgusting, distasteful, sad and mean. Old habits die hard I guess.
The thing that makes that attitude hard to take around here is that we are usually in their habitat.
So we built houses and put in roads as we expanded…coyotes are supposed to know that means they’re not welcome anymore? An attitude shift is in order.
I would be totally shocked if I happened upon that scene Pam. We have coyotes right behind our home but I would never dream of doing such a thing. I go outside with my dog (especially at night) and don’t leave him alone out there. My cat never goes outdoors (well, unless I let him out with me for a quick roll on the concrete).
I understand the ranchers’ frustration…but it doesn’t lessen the shock value.
Kinda gross. But I understand why it was done. Just glad I didn’t have to see it.
I would not festoon my fence with dead animals. Seems like a futile, angry gesture. Don’t the other ranchers already know there are coyotes?
As someone who works in areas that have coyotes, I do find it distasteful. I never had problems with the coyotes that I would see….I just leave them alone. However, I do understand that they can be a pest to ranchers. But, hanging a dead coyote is just gross.
I would have found it distressing to say the least. However, my great great grandfather was a huntsman and they did far worse things to foxes.
Even if the coyotes could read, I am not sure they would understand the sign any better than I can. I guess it is a good thing the intent is clear, if not the wording.
There is someone in our neighborhood who has put up signs that say “No Parking or will be towing”.
I’ve seen those before and think they’re stupid and disgusting. And I’m surprised it’s literally in town. I’d be tempted to leave a sign for the woman herself.
disgusting. As humans I sometimes (often) think we are not terribly evolved.
Distasteful, but not shocking. There’s not many stupid human tricks that shock me anymore. What is she trying to do, lure buzzards to her property? Smart humans in Austin call 311 to report aggressive coyote activity. There’s been a coyote management plan in Austin since 2005: a collaboration between the city, the county and Texas Parks and Wildlife. The quarterly reports are posted on the Animal Protection page at the city website. Frankly, I’d be surprised if the dead coyote was still there; certainly a civilized, rational, sentient human has called to complain about her, erm, display.
I’ve seen this before and was shocked by it.
Three years ago, I was looking to move and had my realtor take me to a house out in the country on about two acres. The house had been vacant for some time, and it was pretty run down. After touring the house, my realtor saw an old rusted piece of farm machinery that intrigued him, so we both headed toward the machinery but stopped short as we ran into a bloated smelly coyote hanging from a tree.
I didn’t know the practice was common, but I can say it was definitely NOT a selling point for the house. He and I were both able to laugh about how awful it was much later when I expressly asked him not to show me any more houses that came with dead coyotes.
I do think it’s very cruel.
I live on 5 acres in South Austin and we have coyotes, and I just be sure to keep my dog safe; otherwise I consider them a sign that we’ve got a little ecosystem thriving. I also have deer, owls, raccoons, possums, skunks, squirrels, snakes and mice, and lots of birds, bugs, and in the summer, bats. So it’s not really “my” property; it belongs to all these creatures.
Being raised just to the east of Austin I am more amazed at the replies so far than I am of the coyote on the fence. I have killed a lot of coyotes in my life but never hung one on a fence. That’s a farmer/rancher thing there. I’ve always thought it was a brag thing myself. Kind of like hanging big catfish heads on the fence and you want people to know you caught some “gooduns”.
It seems that half the replies didn’t like the killing or hanging of the coyote and half just didn’t like the hanging of the coyote. I live on the border of Lake Georgetown. I have coyotes around the house a lot. The Corp of Engineers just had 58 coyotes killed on the lake property as there was getting to be too many. Too many for what? Too many for living close to humans. As one person said, a coyote management plan. It’s the only one that will work. Some people don’t call 311, some people take care of their own problems.
Barbaric. “Let’s just keep tearing down natural animal habitats, putting up houses, and killing those pesky critters to show ’em who’s boss.” I truly find it moronic, at best.
This just gives me the shivers. I grew up in an area that had coyote problems, in fact I lost my first cat to them. I understand that at times they may need to be killed, but hanging one up with such a stupid sign just seems rather barbaric.
The hanging and display are disgusting. In my neck of the woods, vultures would have found and eaten a dead coyote immediately.
In our old neighborhood, in the DFW area, a neighbor lost her dog to coyotes, who came over her fence in broad daylight. Very scary. That could have been a child. This is not a country area. It’s very populated, with busy streets. A neighborhood that has been there for over thirty years.
I know we’ve invaded their territory. But, in some cases, they’re invading areas where they haven’t been seen, for years. It could be that fenced and domestic animals, are easy prey.
I don’t advocate hanging one on a fence. I’m not sure what that accomplishes. But, there does need to be some control.
Shocking and disgusting indeed. And this behavior will not deter a coyote, literate or illiterate. If you kill one coyote another one will move in and claim the territory. They have learned to adapt and so must we. Kill all the coyotes and you will have a horrible rodent problem in Austin. Read the excellent book by Barbara Kingsolver called Prodigal Summer, for an interesting history of coyote behavior and the misguided behavior of humans and their reactions to coyotes. Ignorance is no excuse for this display of animal cruelty. Absolutely shocking.
Not sure hanging it on the fence was necessary. I don’t know why you’d want to hang something on your own fence that’s just going to stink up your own property.
I don’t understand the mindset and fear that cause people to hate wolves and coyotes. A nearby suburb here in Chicagoland is planning to kill coyotes because pets have been attacked. Killing a few of them won’t solve the problem, as others will simple take their place. We need to learn to live with these animals & appreciate their part in the food chain. If we hadn’t killed off all the predators, there’d be a lot fewer deer, which would mean fewer people would be suffering from Lyme Disease, not to mention the problem of habitat destruction caused by over-grazing.
In my humble opinion: disgusting, uncivilized, and totally pointless. How on earth are the coyotes supposed to know that this is now no longer their territory? People often really surprise me, unpleasantly this time.
I hate it, and always wondered why on earth people do that!
When we raised goats and sheep, coyotes were a huge problem. However, it’s disgusting to display any dead animal that way, and there’s no excuse for doing it. In our area we have a landowners’ association that hires trappers and hunters to control the coyote population. They hunt from helicopters as well as set traps on the ground. Our cats are allowed to go in and out in the daytime, but all are shut inside at night, and we live in the edge of town in a rural area in the middle of Texas.
Definitely a bit of showing off there — is it a big one? Seems a bit silly to hang it up. Here, it would just be a breeding ground for blowflies and would become, um, aromatic very quickly. It’s a waste of the pelt, too. However it seems to be a common tradition — I’ve seen old Australian photos of rabbits hanging on barbed wire by the hundreds. OTOH, rabbits are an introduced species here that breed in enormous numbers, whereas I assume the coyotes are not. Uncivilised? Yes, particularly if it’s close to the neighbours. Cruel? No, unless the animal wasn’t dead when it was strung up.
While I don’t think it’s wrong to have killed the coyote, since culling is sometimes necessary in maintaining a health ecosystem in areas where it has become fragmented due to human habitation, hanging the corpse like that is irresponsible. It’s a potential public health risk given it’s placement next to a busy road. Granted there aren’t going to be many pedestrians along that stretch of road, but if there’s a creek nearby, as the carcass decays it can infect the local water supply.
That sign, however, is just plain tacky and reflects poorly on the person who made it.
Personally, I would call 311 to ask them if they could remove it given it’s proximity to the the public right of way. http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/sws/animal.htm
While nature can be inherently cruel, humans have a choice. The choice can be to do what needs to be done to a predator but to do it with respect and the humanity we are supposedly born with.
Sad. Cruel. Disrepectful. What kind of person could do this and how the world must look through their eyes?
This coming from someone who has difficulty watching graphic nature shows where preditors attack and eat prey. I usually change the channel.
I can tell there are mostly city people here that wake up and attach their cell phone to their ear and think meat and chicken are grown in the supermarket. For those who are uneducated about ranching, I will share some correct information that you will not accept, but is true none the less. Coyotes kill calves and chickens, and ranchers depend on those calves and chickens to support their families. When coyotes are killing livestock, and one actually gets killed, it has often been hung on the fence to let other ranchers, who are up early and not attached to a cell phone, know there is a problem that can cost them many animals and the means to feed their families. I do admit that dead animals hanging on the fence is kinda gross, but it is similar to a lighthouse letting a ship know there are rocks nearby. If you have a problem with it, stay in the city. I was recently in the city with my family at an Imagination Station to play games and ride bumper boats. I was so offended by the number of children running rampant, using foul language and behaving like hoodlums, that I was offended and wont go back. I guess different people have a different opinion of what is disrespectful and gross.
It’s a way that ranchers here in Oregon have been warning other ranchers for decades that there are coyotes in the area. The coyotes can injure or even kill livestock, and that’s bad for business.
How many of the people offended by this picture ate beef, chicken, pork, or turkey today? You should see the way those animals are processed. Slight disrespect to a dead coyote is nothing compared to that. All meat used to breath, get over it.
Deeply offensive – both the hanging and the lack of logic displayed in the statement. Kind of tells you right there how ‘evolved’ this person is.
Ok, the horribly illiterate sign was a bit over board. Hanging the carcass in this manner can be found on ranches and private property through out the country, it’s a tradition as well as (someone stated in an earlier post) a way to worn others about this.
Those of you that want to say how horribly wrong it is to kill these animals don’t realize that there is a State wide quarantine on Coyotes in the State of Texas do to rabies. Another point is that Coyotes quickly over populate do to the fact that through our building of civilization and “taming” of the West, we have eliminated most of the large predators that would keep Coyotes, and their like, in check. Hunting these animals is actually a way of conservation. We let them over populate and they wipe out rabbits, ground hogs, squirrels, as well as spread rabies.