Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore
A coyote moves through a silage field on a dairy farm in Point Reyes National Seashore.
The Park Service allows silage growing on national park lands at Point Reyes. Not only that, but the Park Service allows beef ranchers and dairy farmers to live on the park lands year round, with their cattle, at discounted rents.
Silage mowing is a bit like hay mowing, except while hay is mowed when dry in the summer, silage is mowed when green in the spring. That’s when ground-nesting and near-ground nesting birds such as northern harriers, mallards, and various sparrow species are nesting in the silage fields. Mowing kills the nestlings and some adults. Ravens have learned to follow the mowers. They get all the injured and dead birds and rodents they can eat.
Neither the Park Service nor the dairies/ranches seem to care about the carnage even though killing the birds would appear to violate the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
