Just saw a coyote out in our lower pasture - in broad daylight

[csziggy]

Big, full grown, healthy looking coyote - not something you want to see on a farm with livestock. Or in a location surrounded by residential properties where people have lots of pets. I went out on the porch and yelled at it, but since it was way down in the bottom pasture, about 300 yards away, it just looked around and ignored me.

Damn. I hate having to do this but I called the father of the family that is taking care of the farm. Last time we had coyotes hanging around he staked out the area where we'd been seeing them and took out one of them. The other one was shot in the backyard of one of the homeowners to the east of us, on the other side of the swamp.

We have prime wildlife habitat on our 60 acres. The bottom 30 acres is in woods and wetlands with a protected wildlife corridor for the wetlands that extends north and south from our east border. To the north a neighbor has 50 acres of mixed hardwoods, pine and wetlands. East and south of us are subdivisions with "ranchettes" between 3 and 7 acres - not big enough for keeping livestock so a lot of the lots have undisturbed woods. Across the highway to the north are 10-14 acre parcels, many of which have not sold and most of which have not been cleared - those used to be a hunting plantation, as is the land to the northeast.

There have been black bears spotted in the woods to the east of us. Back when we first bought here, the county forester came by for a timber assessment - on his way here he saw a large cat jump across the highway. He was sure it was a panther since it had a long tail and cleared the road in two bounds. We've seen alligators, otters and bobcats on the farm and welcome the red and gray foxes that live here. Birds - we have a wide variety, too many to list.

But a coyote bold enough to be out in the daylight that doesn't spook at the sound of a human voice - that is NOT welcome. I'm glad I don't have any foals due this spring.