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by Scottie Westfall

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Should we be thinking of coyotes as invasive species?

March 7, 2018 by SWestfall3

I love Kentucky Afield, but I have some problems with the terminology in this clip.

The hunter in this video calls the coyote an invasive species in part because it killed some cats.

Now, cats clearly are an actual invasive species. They exist at much higher densities than any native mesopredators, and the truth is that anything that keeps cats numbers down or keeps them scared out of their minds to leave the house is a good thing for many small birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians.

The genus Felis is not native to any place in the Americas. Had Europeans never come over here, we would have our native cat species, which would exist at numbers that were controlled through competition with other native predators and the fluctuating numbers of prey species.

If any animal that has been introduced since the time of colonization has caused ecological chaos, it is the domestic cat.

This is what ecologists say, but cats have good publicity.  They have a fan club. I can’t say that I’m in it, but I can see why some people like them. They are like a mentally deficient dog that doesn’t require walks or much training, but they are far more intelligent than guinea pigs and better company than Syrian hamsters.

The same cannot be said for the coyote. Those of us who live outside the proposed original range for coyotes tend to think of them as a Western species that came into the East, but the truth is we have fossil evidence of  Pleistocene coyotes in the East, including in West Virginia.

We also have accounts of anomalous wolves. For example, John Smith described the “wolues” around Jamestown as not being much larger than English foxes. It is usually suggested that these Jamestown wolves were red wolves. Ignoring the real problems about what red wolves actually are, coyotes fit the description far better than anything we’ve ever called a red wolf.

Henry Wharton Shoemaker also wrote of a small brown wolf that was common in the Susquehanna Valley, which he contended was exactly the same thing as the coyote.

It is very possible that coyotes existed in the East but in far smaller numbers than they do now. The wolf hunters and fur trappers who came into the continent took as many wolves as they could, and they didn’t take great lengths to catalog what they were killing. They just killed them, and they either got their bounty or sold the hides.  And many Native American dogs went with them.

So I think it is possible that there were some coyotes in East, but their big range expansion didn’t happen until the extirpation of larger wolves.

Further, the entire genus Canis has its origins in this continent.  The earliest forms of the genus was Canis evolved in North America 6 million years ago, though they were restricted to the Southwest and Northern Mexico, but coyotes and coyote-like canids were found throughout what became the United States during the Pleistocene.

The genus Felis didn’t appear here until permanent European colonization and settlement.

So this idea that you’re killing the coyote as the “invasive species” to protect the cat is a total perversion of the ecological concept.

It is also interesting that no one ever calls a red fox an invasive species in the United States– with the except of Eastern red foxes that have been introduced to California. The red fox was not found south of the Northern Great Lakes, Northern New York, and Northern New England, but it is now found over most of the Eastern states.

It was originally claimed that it derived from English imports, but recent genetic analysis and historical research have found that red foxes in the East and South descend from those foxes that wandered south from Canada and the northern tier of states.

The red fox took advantage of the clearing of forests, which disadvantaged the gray fox, its main competitor, and came south in large numbers. They introduced themselves to the new territory in the same way that coyotes would later do as the wolves were killed off.

No one seriously considers the red fox to be an invasive species. It also has a record of being in parts of Virginia and Tennessee during the Pleistocene, but it did not exist when Europeans came.

Most states treat it as a proper game animal. Mine has a proscribed hunting and trapping season for them, but coyotes can be killed all year round.

But the “native” status of the two animals is fairly similar, and if these older accounts of anomalous small wolves in Pennsylvania and Virginia describe coyotes, then the coyote has a much stronger native status than the red fox.

“Invasive species” is a term that really does have a meaning to it, but it cannot be allowed to be used in such a way that it means any animal that inconveniences us.

We should use that term to mean animals that were introduced either by accident or intention and that have caused real ecological damage. I am thinking feral hogs here. And cane toads. And marmorated stink bug.

And yes, feral cats.

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Posted in wild dogs, wildlife, wolves | Tagged coyote, Eastern coyote, invasive species | 12 Comments

12 Responses

  1. on March 7, 2018 at 9:17 pm Kevin Brown

    It’s honestly quite similar to the Australians and their dingo “problem”. Killing off the wild (or feral considering how you look at dingoes) canine that has been less damaging to the environment than the introduced cats and foxes. It seems a bit daft to wage war on one native species, and then turn around and talk about finding ways to preserve the other ones.


  2. on March 7, 2018 at 9:25 pm oneforestfragment

    Interesting ideas about the “natural” range of the coyote, or any animal for that matter. It’s so easy to take a point in time and declare as the norm, while anthropogenic-influenced change is ever increasing. Perhaps we should declare all these urban deer invasive, so they can be culled. Despite hunters worries the coyotes are not up to the job of reducing deer populations. But I guess calling coyotes invasive, means folks can feel good about shooting them 24/7.


  3. on March 10, 2018 at 6:12 am nebbie916

    The cats are less damaging to the environment than the rats, mice, rabbits, and sheep.

    The mice in Australia eat pork and the mice on one island eat albatross chicks, the cats could control the mouse population to give the albatrosses a chance.

    The European rabbits (which originated in Spain and are an introduced species even in Britain) in Australia eat up the grass, the cats, provided they are brave enough*, can prey on the rabbits to give the grass a chance.

    If the cats in Europe during the Black Plague weren’t hated, demonised, and killed, they would’ve curbed the spread of the Bubonic plague from the black rats**.

    The sheep, like the cat, are an introduced species in Australia, but the sheep are more environmentally damaging and degrading and less hated than the cats. Sheep, like poorly managed cattle, can overgraze an area, something that cats don’t do. Large parts of Greece and Turkey are overgrazed due to sheep.

    The one environmental gripe I have with people keeping cats is that they keep having the cat use a litter box instead of teaching the cat to use a toilet, which is a feasible venture. Kitty Litter is often made of clay, which is strip mined, which destroys the topsoil, destroys mountaintops and mountains, and people are evicted from their homes on land that is designated to be strip mined. Unless the litter is flushable, the litter and the litter-covered feces gets thrown away and ends up in the landfill, and if the litter is clay, it sits there, takes up space, and doesn’t biodegrade. More kitty litter ends up in landfills pet year than disposable diapers***. Kitty litter can also be the cause of allergies and asthma for a cat and can be an ever looming risk for pregnant women, unborn babies, already born babies, toddlers, and dogs.

    A great, easy, and safe way to to teach a cat to use the toilet is to use a Kitty’s Loo cat toilet trainer and toilet seat reducer. It provides a ample platform for cats to use the toilet so that even cats disabilities like those with only three legs can use the toilet wth ease. It can also be placed on a basic litter box so that cats and kittens can get used to using the seat before the seat gets placed on the toilet, lowering the stress of the training process. Another thing lowering the stress process is that the hole size never changes. Also great for one bathroom abodes because the seat is easy to take on and off and the litter bowl keeps the litter neatly contained.

    Kitty’s Loo: http://kittysloo.com

    * European Rabbits, both domestic and wild, can chase cats. Even rabbits half the size cats/wildcats can chase cats/wildcats. When I had a rabbit, whose name was Gina, she chased that cat I had at the time and the cat that have to this day, Allison. I have a sneaking suspicion that Scottish wildcats are more likely to be brave enough to hunt rabbits than Near Eastern wildcats (both domestic and wild) and other wildcat subspecies and ecotypes.

    ** The fleas that carry the Bubonic plague ride on black rats (Rattus rattus) and don’t ride on brown rats (Rattus novegicus). The brown rats that come in overtake the black rats. So the brown rats, although they can be verminous too, also curb the spread of the Bubonic plague.

    *** The disposable diaper problem can be greatly reduced and eliminated by using Elimination Communication (EC) with your baby, which is listening and responding to your baby’s cues of needing to “go” by taking them to a toilet, potty, or chamber pot to “go” instead of having to soil themselves. One good website for this is Diaper Free Baby (http://diaperfreebaby.org).


    • on March 12, 2018 at 5:00 pm retrieverman

      Can you name me a species that went extinct because of sheep or rabbits or mice? Rats are very destructive, too, but cats have caused extinctions. They also exist at far higher densities than other mesopredators, which means they really do kill a lot more small wildlife than people imagine.


      • on March 12, 2018 at 9:05 pm nebbie916

        But you forgot humans. Humans caused far more extinctions and caused far more environmental degradation than cats. It’s not like cats are throwing pollutants, toxins, and pesticides into the environment. So it’s hypocritical for a human to claim moral superiority over a cat.

        If you say that cats are overpopulated, then you have to say that humans are really overpopulated (there are 7 billion humans). So, if you use that as an excuse to spay and neuter cats enmasse, then it would be hypocritical not to spay and neuter humans enmasse. But forms of population control other than natural predation are genocidal at least in spirit. And traumatic nonconsensual elective medical procedures are unethical on any species.

        Here are my videos on the cat gonadectomy subject.

        Cat Gonadectomy Risks, Downsides, Complications, and Effects: https://youtu.be/Ofz4tJnpU38
        Teaching Intact Male Cats Not To Spray Inside: https://youtu.be/6LHxrLVk9YU
        How to Help a Female Cat in Heat: https://youtu.be/J80Jr9kbkEU
        Spaying and Neutering Cats in Popular Culture: https://youtu.be/j3V6tScNAbw
        Cat Gonadectomy Risks, Downsides, Complications, and Effects Update 1:

        The dams that beavers build enhance the environment and make the area around lusher, but the dams that humans build often degrade the environment and desertify he area around them.


        • on March 13, 2018 at 7:51 am retrieverman

          Cats are part of the things we do to reduce biodiversity. Just like when we let pigs roam all over the South or in Australia, but no one argues that pigs should be TNR’d. They wind up trapped and removed fully.

          And yes, I absolutely believe humans are overpopulated. I don’t have any children or want any children because of this problem.


      • on March 13, 2018 at 9:27 am Pol

        No you said it, it comes to my mind the case of laysan ducks. I was browsing about hybrid ducks and waterfowl just a few days ago and came across the interesting story of Laysan ducks. I remember reading that first this species numbers were declined by introduced rabbits on the island, the rabbits ended up with all the vegetation and starved to death, but then rats managed to finish with nearly all the ducks. In the end only seven individuals and a single female were saved by ecologists. Now there are thousands around the globe as exotic ornamental birds.


    • on March 12, 2018 at 5:01 pm retrieverman

      https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380


  4. on March 12, 2018 at 3:14 pm Pol

    like mentally deficient dogs that doesn’t require walks! Lol ! You’re certainly not a cat person!


    • on March 12, 2018 at 5:02 pm retrieverman

      I’ve never claimed to be LOL


      • on March 13, 2018 at 2:04 am nebbie916

        Caught Between the Warring Camps: https://retrieverman.net/2018/01/21/caught-between-the-warring-camps/

        Remember this blog post saying that your grandfather having a “blind spot” toward bears, well you have a blind spot toward Near Eastern wildcats (Felis silvestris lybica).

        Maybe the Near Eastern wildcat did cause three extinctions at worst, but to say that they’re “like mentally deficient dogs that don’t require walks” shows a mental blindspot in your thinking.

        You like grey foxes, you like dogs, you like coyotes, you like puma clade cats, you like lynxes, you like black bears, and you like so many other animals, but Near eastern wildcats, both wild and domestic, have as much a right to be on this planet as any other living being.

        You don’t have to like cats, but cats are cats, cats/wildcats are their own animal (Felis silvestris), not mentally deficient dogs.


        • on March 13, 2018 at 7:48 am retrieverman

          My grandpa didn’t have science on his side.

          I do, however: https://news.vanderbilt.edu/2017/11/29/grumpy-cat-study-dogs/



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