Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History

This is a terrific book. Even better than American Serengeti, which was fabulous in its own right. This book is more coherent, based around a central theme, and less a series of individual essays. It is well written and thoroughly researched. A little on the academic side (no surprise), but still an easy book to read. Coyote America tells an important part of this continent's natural history with reason, science, and folklore.A couple of the negative reviews miss the important points of the book. Coyotes are like us: survivors, opportunists, and problem solvers. Yes, they have been persecuted for over a century and that part is very ugly, but they still not only survived this-they are thriving. We have a lot to learn from them.I spend a lot time outdoors, hunting and fishing. Over the last few years I've seen more and more coyotes, often wondering why. After reading Coyote America, I now understand why this is happening and appreciate how special the song dog really is. I'll never look at them the same way.

Flores is an amazing, thoughtful, detailed writer. Excellent book. I graduated from one of the best Fish & Wildlife schools and never knew the history behind predator control/wildlife service. Chills down my spine when I recall some of it.

Tells the story of the coyote in America through the Native tribes stories to its journey from west to east, south to north, across borders and how it has survived all attempts to eradicate it from the United States. The coyote is found in both rural and urban areas. They are adaptive like humans are. They have managed to learn and outsmart those coming after them.I enjoyed the book. It took me a little while to get into it but then I got sucked in and learned a lot. I knew very little about coyotes but found their history and how the government and ranchers tried to destroy them fascinating. I chuckled over the Nixon administration's passage of laws protecting the environment hoping the youth vote would come his way. They turned out to be some of the strongest laws passed to protect the environment and no one read them until after passage then they had a lot to say. So much is in this book that reading was slower than usual but it is worth reading and savoring this history of a much maligned but necessary animal.

Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History, by Dan Flores, is a thoughtful, lyrical and at times tragic look at coyotes and our relationship with them. I was raised on a ranch in Montana and, as youngster, was taught coyotes were the enemy and even shot a few before realizing the error of my ways. This book digs into that lie, examining the myths, perceptions and misperceptions fueling the misplaced and almost genocidal fury of farmers and ranchers. Along the way, Flores examines the biology and evolutionary history of coyotes, as well as the spiritual nature of this trickster god and social significance that continues today.Long before Wile E. Coyote joined the Acme Corporation platinum buyer’s club, coyotes were a familiar and powerful presence in Native American myths. “Coyote or sometimes Old Man Coyote — and rarely about Old Woman Coyote, although they are present in the canon — are the oldest preserved human stories from North America. The truth is that Coyote (capitalized to distinguish the deity from the ordinary coyote trotting by while you read) is the most ancient god figure of which we have record on this continent.”Coyote was always a little self-absorbed and too cunning for his own good, blurring the lines between good and evil, seemingly always both in on and the punchline of the joke. The author credits these stories with capturing the human condition well and preserving lessons on how to survive and navigate an ambiguous world. In fact, he claims “the stories themselves look to predator-prey relationships for the birth of cunning.”A huge section of the book is what happens when humans on this continent stopped respecting and learning from Coyote and instead turned to dominating resources and trying to eliminate coyotes. It’s a hard read.Led by government agents, a scorched earth war was waged on coyotes and wolves to ostensibly protect livestock. From guns to poison, millions of dollars were deployed and millions of lives lost.“…each bait station was commonly one of America’s surplus horses, which could be led to the selected spot and shot and whose carcass was then laced with strychnine tablets and surrounded by poisoned fat and meat cubes—went in next.”And “…by the mid-1920s bureau hunters reached the rather phenomenal milestone of having set out 3.567 million poison bait stations across the West. This scorched-earth policy against coyotes yielded some 35,000 dead coyote bodies a year, although the bureau publicly estimated that its hunters never found another 100,000 poisoned annually.”The war against wolves was successful, the war against coyotes was not, for two reasons. First, when wolves were removed from the equation, coyotes lost their only natural predator. And second, coyotes are unique in that when their population is under threat, they produce bigger litters, and faster. Despite the best efforts of coyote killers — and they were VERY persistent — coyote populations basically were never seriously impacted. It’s a testament to their trickster nature and their natural resilience.As the co-author of three alt-history books about Bonnie and Clyde made this section especially stand out for me:“In the mid-1930s, newspapers around the country, among them even the Washington Post, ran an illustrated, canned bureau article that, in the age of John Dillinger and Pretty Boy Floyd, offered up coyotes and other predators as the “gangsters of the animal kingdom” and characterized bureau hunters as the heroic G-men who would protect society, “man and beast, against the animal underworld.” It was a clever set piece, and it worked. Despite the Murie brothers’ findings, in the public mind coyotes deserved the same fate as Bonnie and Clyde.”Coyote America paints a sometimes grim but always compelling picture of a true American original. This small, smart, beautiful wolf dog has made itself at home from sea to sea and border to border, despite the misplaced fury of federal and private assassins, thriving even in unlikely urban environments — San Francisco, Chicago, New York, and my current hometown, Portland, Oregon.I mentioned that as a youngster in Montana, I killed (more than) my share of coyotes. I regret that now. I quickly came to appreciate, like the author, that coyotes are smart, curious, beautiful creatures who “delight in being alive in a world of wondrous possibilities.” I’m charmed by them now and excited any time I happen to see one (unlike, for example cat owners, I suppose). I want to live in a world with coyotes and learn to co-exist more effectively. And after finishing the book, the first thing I did was make a donation to Project Coyote.

Our 22-year old son couldn’t put it down, so we bought more and read it ourselves - very insightful. Coyotes are magical creatures!

This book was really interesting. It was quite historic, which wasn't what I originally expected, but it led me to understand so much more than I was hoping for because of that. I learned about the struggle that coyotes have had to endure since they were discovered (by white man) and all the lethal weapons they've had to escape while we tried to eradicate them completely; which helped me to understand more how truly remarkable and resilient these creatures are, as well as some really interesting folk-tales originating form the Native's like "Old Man Coyote"- a story that depicts the weaknesses that we share as humans like sneakiness, greed, lust, etc. It was just a really interesting read, something totally different that what I expected it to be-which was animal behavior specifically of coyotes.

I learned so much about these smart, adaptable animals. If everyone knew all these facts about coyotes and their history, they would change their actions towards them!

An absolute must-read for people interested in animal conservatory. However, first read "Wild New World" by author Dan Flores.When you are done with "Coyote America", read "The Gulf" by Jon Davis. It will make you cry.

Mon fils avait une présentation à l'école sur le Coyote. Nous avons trouvé beaucoup d'information et c'est vraiment bien écrit.

This readable and very learned book tells the species history of the coyote from pre-history to the recent wars of extermination waged against predators by federal governments on behalf of hunters and ranchers. Flores follows coyote over the land bridge to Asia and back, then south, north and east from the deserts of the south-western North America, and finally into the big cities, drawing parallels between coyote and human societies as he goes. A brilliant read which is sometimes heart-rending but overall fascinating and inspiring.

Uses the coyote as a foil to describe America. Clever and very readable

A fantastic book about one of the world's most resilient and adaptable creatures: the coyote.I have always admired this animal but thanks to this book I can understand them a little better, too.

Very well researched and engagingly written. Explores the numerous layers of the story of coyotes in North America and their often turbulent relationship with humans.