Living with Coyotes: Managing Predators Humanely Using Food Aversion Conditioning [Hardcover]

Stuart R. Ellins (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2005

The coyote may well be North America's most adaptable large predator. While humans have depleted or eliminated most other native predators, the coyote has defied all attempts to exterminate it, simultaneously expanding its range from coast to coast and from wilderness to urban areas. As a result, coyotes are becoming the focus of increasing controversy and emotion for people across the continent - from livestock growers who would like to eradicate coyotes to conservationists who would protect them at any cost. In this thoughtful, well-argued, and timely book, Stuart Ellins makes the case that lethal methods of coyote management do not work and that people need to adopt a more humane way of coexisting with coyotes. Interweaving scientific data about coyote behavior and natural history with decades of field experience, he shows how endlessly adaptive coyotes are and how attempts to kill them off have only strengthened the species through natural selection. He then explains the process of taste aversion conditioning - which he has successfully employed - to stop coyotes from killing domestic livestock and pets. Writing frankly as an advocate of this effective and humane method of controlling coyotes, he asks, 'Why are we mired in the use of archaic, inefficient, unsophisticated, and barbaric methods of wildlife management in this age of reason and high technology? This question must be addressed while there is still a wildlife to manage'.

Editorial Reviews

Review

By carefully blending anecdotes, personal stories, personal interviews, nice prose, and 'hard' scientific data, Ellins presents a comprehensive picture of coyotes and shows how they've been maligned and also revered historically and nowadays. . . . an important contribution to the field . . . (Marc Bekoff, University of Colorado, Boulder, editor of Coyotes: Biology, Behavior, and Management and The Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior )

About the Author

STUART R. ELLINS is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at California State University, San Bernardino.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 165 pages
• Publisher: University of Texas Press (July 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0292706324
• ISBN-13: 978-0292706323
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,999,321 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding book, August 19, 2010

By 

Birdman (Florida) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Living with Coyotes: Managing Predators Humanely Using Food Aversion Conditioning (Hardcover)

This book offers a unique glimpse into the behavior of a wild predator, coyotes, who have been brutalized by hunters and especially wildlife biologists over the past century. This book also offers an inexpensive and easy procedure, food aversion learning, for the nonlethal control of this amazingly adaptable animal and all other animals that are threatened.

1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Advocacy based on outdated literature... no favor here!, February 22, 2006

By 

R Schmidt (Honolulu, HI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Living with Coyotes: Managing Predators Humanely Using Food Aversion Conditioning (Hardcover)

"Writing frankly as an advocate of this effective and humane method of controlling coyotes, he asks, 'Why are we mired in the use of archaic, inefficient, unsophisticated, and barbaric methods of wildlife management in this age of reason and high technology? This question must be addressed while there is still a wildlife to manage.'" - from publisher review

What does Ellins mean, "while there is still wildlife to manage"? Advocate a technique that is not approved by EPA nor most states? I thought FIFRA regulated pesticides, and food aversion conditioning chemicals for coyotes are not registered.

"Actually, our project in the Antelope Valley continued for two more years, and the struggle continues to this day throughout much of the United States. Predator management has emerged as a highly controversial and emotion-laden contemporary issue, the extreme camps consisting of those livestock growers who view all predators as vermin that are a constant threat to their economic well-being, and conservationists who advocate the protection of predators at all costs as important components in the balance of nature. With the demise of many other predators in North America, and essentially all other large predators in the United States, the outcome of this controversy now weighs heavily on the survival of the coyote. The challenge is to devise management procedures that can adequately protect the agricultural community from the economic losses caused by free-ranging coyotes, while at the same time creating conditions that will ensure the future of this icon of American independence and adaptability." - from Chapter 1

Look, current coyote management strategies are not perfect. But asking people to give them up for one with a very poor track record in the scientific and management literature borders on unethical. Food Aversion Conditioning - flavor avoidance learning - is a real phenomenon. Legions of psychology students demonstrate it in labs every school year.

However, it has not been shown to work with stopping coyote predation on sheep, goats, calves, watermelon, irrigation lines, cats, endangered birds, or people.

"... it became readily apparent that the practice of management by death, at least in the war against coyotes, is unjustifiable on biological, economic, and moral grounds." -- from chapter 2

The book summarizes a great deal of interesting coyote behavior, particularly related to foraging. There is little original data. For the most part, this is a book telling why people who kill coyotes are wrong. It is not a techniques book on "Managing Predators Humanely Using Food Aversion Conditioning."