Native plants for a Cape Cod garden

Coyote tracks copyright 2008 CapeLinks.com

When I decided to write about coyotes for this blog post, I had no idea how strongly people felt about them or how prolific they have become on the East Coast. Whether on Cape Cod or in the Boston area, the presence of coyotes in people’s suburban backyards elicits either awe or outright hatred – and rarely indifference. I am not here to join the debate, but merely reflect on what a strange and interesting predicament we are in now in 2011.

Coyotes, I must mention, are non-native to Cape Cod. Wolves were here once though, and when wolves were wiped out by us in the 19th century, coyotes spread eastward from the Great Plains to replace them in the food chain.

Those who are not familiar with the Cape Cod of the early 20th century would be surprised to know it was bare of trees, not the quaint vacationland we know today. Basically it was a deforested, barren looking place. But with the salt, ship building and other industries winding down, the trees started slowly growing back. This has happened in much of New England in the past 50 or 100 years. I read recently that New England had more forested acreage that anywhere in the US except the Pacific Northwest, which was honestly shocking to me.

This “second growth” habitat gave the coyotes incentive to cross over the bridges and even swim the canal to get to Cape Cod back in the 1970s. The combination of gradually warmer weather and lack of larger predators (except for us) has made them stay.

Interestingly, some say the Eastern Coyote is actually a hybrid of coyote and wolf. One researcher, Jonathan Way, has actually coined the term coywolves to describe this hybrid. There is no denying that the East Coast coyotes are bigger (sometimes 35 pounds or more) and have stronger jaws than their cousins in the West. 

Coyotes are wild animals, which should not be approached or fed. They will eat your cat or dog. Although nature lovers say they are harmless, there is a concern with coyotes attacking us – in rare, select circumstances. Coyotes are one type of flora and fauna that will certainly interfere with your daily business. I might liken it to living in a place that has scorpions or poisonous snakes, you have to be aware of your surroundings. The more coyotes there are, the more they are likely to become habituated. That happens when coyotes stop seeing humans as predators and start to see them as a source of food by either feeding them or having food available for them (pets, bird feeders, trash). There is the concern then that coyotes can make the switch from fear to expecting humans to provide food.

According to many Native American legends the coyote is “the great trickster”.  This animal is certainly living up to his name, by transforming suburban backyards into wildernesses once more. The trick is definitely on us. This  change, over the past 50 years, of  suburban sprawl with its chemically induced lawns and invasive shrubbery to a wilder, natural place is happening now. We can reclaim our property, or we can learn to do what our great, great grandparents preferred not to do and find a way to live with wildlife.