California & Montana dealing with coyotes

A friend sent me the following anti-California speculation about how the governors of California and Montana would deal with coyotes.

California vs Montana – Coyote bites Governor

January 28th, 2011 | Author: WizarDave

California

The Governor of California is jogging with his dog along a nature trail.

A coyote jumps out and attacks the Governor’s dog, then bites the Governor.

1. The Governor starts to intervene, but reflects upon the movie “Bambi” and then realizes he should stop because the coyote is only doing what is natural.

2. He calls animal control. Animal Control captures the coyote and bills the State $200 testing it for diseases and $500 for relocating it.

3. He calls a veterinarian. The vet collects the dead dog and bills the State $200 testing it for diseases.

4. The Governor goes to hospital and spends $3,500 getting checked for diseases from the coyote and on getting his bite wound bandaged.

5. The running trail gets shut down for 6 months while Fish & Game conducts a $100,000 survey to make sure the area is now free of dangerous animals.

6. The Governor spends $50,000 in state funds implementing a “coyote awareness program” for residents of the area.

7. The State Legislature spends $2 million to study how to better treat rabies and how to permanently eradicate the disease throughout the world.

8. The Governor’s security agent is fired for not stopping the attack. The State spends $150,000 to hire and train a new agent with additional special training re: the nature of coyotes.

9. PETA protests the coyote’s relocation and files a $5 million suit against the State.

Montana

The Governor of Montana is jogging with his dog along a nature trail. A Coyote jumps out and attacks his dog.

1. The Governor shoots the coyote with his State-issued pistol and keeps jogging. The Governor has spent $0.50 on a .45 ACP hollow point cartridge.

2. The buzzards eat the dead coyote.

And that, my friends, is why California is broke and Montana is not.

COMMENT: There is a bit of truth in this amusing comparison. I found myself not liking either choice when I thought about the river coyotes. While I don’t agree with the presentation of California #1, I do believe that the River coyotes are females guarding their young. Howling to keep us away is “doing what is natural.” So as long as the coyote is just doing that and not aggressively coming after my dogs, then I see no problem. I like the way the coyotes sound and would hate it if they were gone.

If a coyote became aggressive and came after one of my girls, and I were in a position to do so, I might fire a 22 (costing quite a bit less than $0.50) in its general direction (not trying to hit it) and hope that would be an adequate deterrent.

I don’t know whether anyone was ever bitten in the manner described by WizarDave, but I do know quite a lot about the coyotes at the river. As long as pups aren’t involved, the coyotes will leave us alone. We can hike wherever we like and never see or hear a coyote. But this is “denning season” and coyote mothers are telling us to keep away from certain areas. I wouldn’t go quite as far as the “California Governor” in accommodating them, but I’m going to try to live with their restrictions. As my girls demonstrated yesterday, they feel no aggression toward these coyotes; so we will do our best to heed their warning cries.