Lost Dog Sign

  We live pretty remote… most folks here have dogs for property protection as well as companion animals, we also mostly have cats running around eating mice and gophers.   A couple of months ago a massive fire raged out of control and destroyed tens of thousands of acres of oak woodland and chaparral environment.  This drove a pack of coyotes into our canyon.  With the rains, the burned-over areas of the La Brea Fire will green up again…. the prey species will return and the coyotes will be able to return to their own areas and have plenty of food again. Until then they have been wrecking destruction upon the dozens of small households in this canyon.

   We have several neighbors who’ve had their animals carried off by coyotes. I saw our lead chihuahua ‘Whitey’ toe-to-toe with a coyote who was more intent on a deer in the brush than he was with Whitey.  I chased the coyote away and then noticed another one forty yards away. They like to ‘tag-team’ deer. Deer tend to run in big circles, so a pack of coyote will team up and run the deer in big circles, each animal able to take a break when he’s chased the deer to another coyote. Around and around the poor deer will run, always with a refreshed coyote nipping at his heels. When the coyotes finally get the deer tired enough, they will jump on it en-mass ripping and tearing, biting, holding the nose and throat, slowly over a good long time the animal will die.

   I’ve not seen a single deer now for a few weeks. There have been times I’ve seen a dozen or more on our hillside. But anytime a mountain lion moves in, the herd goes down in number.  But now they are totally absent. Which is fine as far as the things we grow. I don’t have to worry as much about the deer getting into the fenced edible cactus area.

   I’ve been seeing these sad little signs up and down the road… put up by people who’ve had dogs missing. I suppose the main blame can be put on the coyotes.  In town it’s not considered to be good form to have your animals run loose. But here in the rural areas, most houses will have a few angry snarling vicious dogs. I kind of like it that way. 

   The dogs that are missing are mostly smaller dogs. Good prey for coyotes. Any predator animal is choosy about what it hunts and selects to kill. They have to reduce injury to themselves, an injured predator will likely die. Generally, any predator you see is in good health, when they are not they die.

Lost Dog Sign

    Sometimes the rate of pet loss will rise in the months leading to a huge earthquake. Perhaps the ground makes some noises or produces energy that upsets animals, causing them to become lost or making them flee. But I think in this case the cause can be placed on the coyotes having to temporarily leave their wilderness area after being chased out by the La Brea Fire. Soon they will return home where there are fewer people angry at them.