Category: Coyote

Coyote

Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

This is a photo of a coyote facing the setting sun at Point Reyes National Seashore.

Here is a photo I took in 2011 that I came across recently.  I don’t know why I never put it on my website, but I just corrected that.  It was taken at sunset in the ranching area of Point Reyes National Seashore.

Ranching?  Yes, there is ranching in this unit of the national park system.  The ranchers were all bought out by the Park Service between 1962 and 1978 and, to ease the move out of the Seashore, the Park Service gave them reservations of use and occupancy for 20 years.   The last ones should have been out by 1998, but thanks to politics, they are still there and paying a rent for grazing and living there of often less than 10% of fair market value.  The Park Service is required by law to collect fair market for any lands or buildings it leases.

Coyote

Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

This is a photo of a coyote at Point Reyes National Seashore at sunset.

I photographed this coyote yesterday just before the sun set  I spotted it about fifteen or twenty minutes before sunset and stayed with it until the sun actually set.  It’s my favorite time to photograph wildlife, and I’m sure I’m not alone in that.  I assume the light is just ad good at sunrise, but it’s a heck of a lot harder spotting anything to photograph in the dark.

Coyote

Coyote in a Field of Silage; Point Reyes National Seashore

Photo of a coyote in a silage field.

Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

I saw this coyote walking through this silage field a few weeks ago.  Silage consists of any of a number of plants that are mowed in the spring when still green for feeding cattle.  I have written about it in the past.  One problem with it is that when it is mowed in the spring it results in the deaths of any number of ground or near-ground nesting birds and their offspring.  It also kills small mammals that live in the tall, protective vegetation and larger mammals like deer fawns, who are wired to stay still even when a noisy mower is approaching.  They stay still because they aren’t very fast on their “feet” during that first week.  Same applies to the rest of the deer family (elk and moose) and to pronghorns.  Not bison calves though.  Those bison calves, aka “red dogs,” can run with their moms from birth.

Coyote

Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

This is a photo of a coyote in new green grass.

Coyote Standing in New, Green Grass

I was out at Point Reyes yesterday.  It was a fairly good day wildlife photography-wise.  I was able to photograph this coyote, a badger, a bobcat, some elk and some hawks.  The coyotes look good right now with their new winter fur.

I prefer the winter and spring for photography at Point Reyes because the grass is green.  Unfortunately, cattle ranching has converted the grasses from the native, perennial grasses that stayed green throughout the year to non-native, annual grasses that die each year when the winter/spring rains end and we go into our dry Mediterranean summer and fall when the place looks like a waste land.

Coyote

Coyote, Point Reyes National Seashore

This is a photo of a coyote in the ranching area of Point Reyes National Seashore.

Coyote in the Ranching Area of Point Reyes National Seashore.

This coyote is standing in a ranch pasture at Point Reyes National Seashore.  Between now and July 14, the Park Service is going to decide which of six alternatives to adopt for management of 28,000 acres of land owned by the Park Service/United States at Point Reyes National Seashore and the adjacent Golden Gate NRA and dedicated for decades to private ranching.  The preferred alternative is to expand the ranching, especially for 18 of the 24 ranching families who live on park land with their families and employees – at subsidized rents no less.  Life is going to get a lot more complicated then for the coyotes, bobcats, and the other mammalian and avian predators that live there.

The preferred alternative will provide, among other things, that each of the 18 occupied cattle ranches can also have up to 50 sheep with their lambs or 70 goats with their kids, plus 500 free-roaming chickens which will be in the pastures during the day and in mobile coops at night.  Now, the ranchers can only have beef and dairy cows, which are way too big for any Point Reyes predator to bother.  These small domestic animals will be protected by livestock guardian dogs which are capable of killing coyotes and the other predators.

The leases will provide that ranchers can’t kill or harm predators.  However, the leases also provide that where predation occurs, the rancher can report it to the Park Service and the Park Service will decide what action to take.  If NPS says “no” to killing, what’s a rancher to do?  Well, there’s the old “3S’s” maxim – shoot, shovel and shut up.

And you thought national park units were established for the protection and preservation of nature, including wildlife.   Guess again.  What predominates in the National Park Service thinking is maximizing tourism (especially for concessioners) and emphasizing viewsheds for those tourists.   What is living in those viewsheds has never been on the Park Service’s radar.  Most former Park Service employees will tell you this or, if you don’t know one, read this book by a retired NPS employee, “Preserving Nature in the National Parks” by Richard Sellars.

African Lion, Bald Eagle, Cows, Coyote, Eagle, elephant, Elk, Favorite Images, Guanaco, Landscape, Lion, Point Reyes National Seashore, Red Fox, San Francisco, Serengeti National Park, Torres del Paine National Park, Tule Elk

Favorite Blog Photos of 2019

Here are some of my favorite photos that I blogged about in 2019.

This is a photo of a bull tule elk feeding at sunset.A bull tule elk feeds at sunset inside the elk enclosure at Point Reyes National Seashore.

At Point Reyes National Seashore 400-500 elk are kept locked up behind an 8-foot tall woven-wire fence to keep them away from the ranchers who live on and control 28,000 acres of park land and raise 6,000 dairy cows, beef cattle and sheep.  NPS bought their ranches decades ago, but never removed them.  The 28,000 acres are managed as the ranchers want, not as lands in a national park are supposed to be managed.  I know of no other national park where wildlife is locked up like in a zoo for the visitors to see.

This is a night photo of the San Francisco skyline with Angel Island in the foreground and Alcatraz in the midground.A night view of Angel Island, Alcatraz and San Francisco.

Photo of some mountain peaks and fog at dawn in Torres del Paine National ParkMountains and fog at dawn in Torres del Paine National Park

This is a photo of a mother guanaco and her young before sunrise in Torres del Paine National Park.A mother guanaco and her chulengo appear before sunrise in Torres del Paine National Park.

Red Fox Vixen with Snowshoe HareA red fox mom returns to her den with an arctic hare to feed her kits in Yellowstone National Park.

This is a photo of three lionesses who are on the hunt. One is wearing a research collar.Three lionesses are on the hunt in Serengeti National Park.

This is a photo of a mature bald eagle perched on a limb.A bald eagle perches on a limb in Alaska.

This is a photo of a male elephant walking away from a wetland in Tarangire National Park, Tanzania.A male elephant walks near a wetland in Tarangire National Park, Tanzania.

Photo of female lion surveying her domain in Serengeti National Park.An African lioness surveys her domain in Serengeti National Park.

A coyote stops and looks at the camera in Point Reyes Seashore just before the sun sets.A coyote stops just before sunset as it travels across a ranch pasture in Point Reyes National Seashore.

The National Park Service purchased the ranches several decades ago, but it has never made the ranchers leave.

A bald eagle lands too close to another and gets bitten in the neck.One bald eagle bites another at Homer, Alaska.

Photo of a coyote on a ranch pasture in Point Reyes National Seashore.A coyote walks across a ranch pasture full of non-native European grasses in Point Reyes Seashore.

The National Park Service prioritizes private ranching over wildlife in Point Reyes National Seashore.  This is the worst example of privatizing a national park that I am aware of.  It involves 28,000 acres of national park land.  If anyone knows of a worse example, please let me know.