coyotes

The sweet sound of song dogs

In Sonoma County, California a warm summer twilight can feel like magic. In rolling golden hills, set softly against a coastal valley, the light shimmers through the grasses with what can only be described as sweetness. Everyone feels it, and people wander outside without quite knowing why, just to feel that gentle electricity in theContinue reading “The sweet sound of song dogs”

Conservation Disaster: Coyote Killing Contests in Wolf Country

This weekend, a coyote killing contest — that is, a contest to see which human can kill the most coyotes — will be held on public lands in Lake County, Oregon — wilderness areas (national forest and BLM land) that the public pays for, including those people who happen to love wilderness and wildlife. Over aContinue reading “Conservation Disaster: Coyote Killing Contests in Wolf Country”

November Song Dogs

November reminds me of my final autumn days as a resident of Yosemite National Park. I had come to the park at the age of eighteen, looking for something I had not yet found within myself. Many stragglers had come to work in the forest for that very reason—lost, fallen, or beginning, we were allContinue reading “November Song Dogs”

Reckless Killing Contests Continue

This is the contest that started it all–the outrage, and the push to ban killing contests in California. And this weekend, February 6-8, the town of Adin, in the rural northeast corner of California, will hold its annual coyote killing spree, the “Big Valley Coyote Drive,” despite the 2014 ban on prizes for killing furbearingContinue reading “Reckless Killing Contests Continue”