Pie and Chai Essay: Enter the coyote

Now is the moment of the coyote’s big entrance. Click here to read my essay: "Enter the Coyote."

Post-publication update: Government policies on killing wildlife are usually more about political pressure than science (or even common sense). Once you've read my essay linked above, take a look at this article from the September 2023 Richmond Times-Dispatch. Such mass killings of predators (not to mention 62 rabbits!) will likely do little to protect livestock, although it may protect some officials' careers. It's also further evidence that when it comes to invasive or "replacement" species like coyotes, there really isn't a long-term plan. Just reactions. And that's the subject of my forthcoming article.

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Original intro:

I knew that by learning about coyotes, I would learn more about Potomac Creek and its environs. In response to changing conditions eastern coyotes have joined with other newcomers to the Creek. Their fascinating (and often tragic) story is wrapped up in the larger mess sometimes called the "war on invasive species." 

The more I learn about this "war" -- and the way it's being conducted -- the more I'm struck by parallels between how we think about invasive species and how we think about human immigrants -- including  paranoid QAnon notions of a "great replacement." That's a topic for a future posts or perhaps a journal article. For now, here's an essay on coyotes I penned for my friends Janet and Steve Watkins' exciting new online magazine, Pie and Chai. It's excerpted from a larger manuscript-in-progress on people and nature around Potomac Creek. All bad jokes and errors are mine, of course (and the good jokes, too).

As for the essay's title, my apologies to the idol of my teen years, the great Bruce Lee. David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster seemed just too brilliant to rip off. Thanks to Cecelia Kirkman for the pic of a Potomac Creek coyote.

Post updates (2/23): 

Our  farm's game camera finally managed to capture a clear video of a Potomac Creek coyote, first sniffing around the woods: 

Then, slinking off with an old deer bone we'd suspended to attract a bobcat back in October:

Welcome to the Creek, wandering predator!