Customer Reviews

Coyote and Badger: Desert Hunters of the Southwest

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How many people reading this know that badgers and coyotes sometimes enter into cooperative relationships in order to hunt more successfully? Elegant, artful, and playful illustations accompany a blunt text about hunger and duress during a drought in the U.S. Southwest. A single mother badger with two dependent pups teams up with an old coyote to hunt for food. Working together they are able to secure enough food for themselves as well as the two young pups. But when one pup is taken for food by an eagle, the mother badger takes the remaining pup and moves on. Eventually, the drought ends. Many of the pictures feature cross sections into the desert floor. Root masses, rocks, and rodent warrens are visible in the manner of an 'Ant Farm' toy. Each picture features shards of broken pottery embedded underground. There are also the ancient and crumbling structures left behind by the Anasazi people over a thousand years ago. The animals have inherited it all.
The author provides an engaging and educational 'afterward' to the story describing his fascination with the Southwest, the Anasazi and the behavior of coyotes and badgers. When he says that he has actually observed a coyote and a badger interacting cooperatively, I was glad that he was inspired to write this beautiful book.