Palate Cleanser: Coyote and Badger Go A-Hunting
[guest post by Dana]
If you’re looking for a little refuge from politics, take a look at this frisky coyote urging his little badger pal to hurry up and follow him on a hunt:
A coyote and a badger use a culvert as a wildlife crossing to pass under a busy California highway together. Coyotes and badgers are known to hunt together.
🎥Peninsula Open Space Trust pic.twitter.com/oS9BL5JOoK
— Russ McSpadden (@PeccaryNotPig) February 4, 2020
According to U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the relationship between coyotes and badgers is a mutually beneficial one:
Coyotes and badgers are known to hunt together and can even be more successful hunting prairie dogs and ground-squirrels when they work in tandem.
Studies have shown that this unusual relationship is beneficial for both species. The coyote can chase down prey if it runs and the badger can dig after prey if it heads underground into its burrow systems.
Each partner in this unlikely duo brings a skill the other one lacks. Together they are both faster and better diggers than the burrowing rodents they hunt.
These partnerships tend to emerge during the warmer months. In the winter, the badger can dig up hibernating prey as it sleeps in its burrow. It has no need for the fleet-footed coyote.
I love how playful the coyote appears to be. I live in an area where the coyotes come out at dusk or in the wee hours of the morning. They are always moving with a purposeful, stealthy caution. At night, successful hunts are accompanied by piercing screams of excitement that follow the fading cries of their doomed prey. Their victory yips are unnerving as they echo far and wide through the dark, silent stillness of night.
–Dana
There are a number of animals that benefit from unique relationships. The interaction of the coyote and bader is particularly fun to see exampled. I also think it’s an excellent idea for a children’s book.
Dana (aaddb1) — 2/6/2020 @ 4:08 pmwow. I learned something today. Animals are amazing.
JRH (52aed3) — 2/6/2020 @ 4:35 pmIf you want to be depressed, google “coyote in miami”.
Kishnevi (b4162e) — 2/6/2020 @ 4:51 pmI won’t provide the link so those who don’t want to depressed won’t be.
I live in an area where the coyotes come out at dusk or in the wee hours of the morning.
Set up a couple of old ‘disposable’ $10 “babycams” as outdoor ‘crittercams’ to watch the nightly show. I live in an area where the coyotes come out at dusk- around 9ish, or in the wee hours of the morning and stalk the streets, huddle by the community pool, literally shadow neighbors walking their dogs— and hunt down cats. It’s lively entertainment, especially under a full moon around 3 AM. The sensitive mics in the old babycams really pick up that pack yelping, too, and helps pinpoint their location.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 2/6/2020 @ 4:58 pmMy grandfather taught me how to use a rifle on coyotes and trap badgers. They can do plenty harm on a farm.
mg (8cbc69) — 2/6/2020 @ 5:02 pmI wonder if the badger has his own pair of ACME Rocket Boots, to keep up.
Dave (69470f) — 2/6/2020 @ 5:03 pmI own a small farm in The Great Basin and lived there in the 90s. I used to have a healer and the coyotes would come and sing to him at night. They’d also leave skulls and other bones just out side his pen.
I also had a retriever at the same time, once the healer died the coyotes showed no interest in the retriever at all.
One moonlit night we were walking the dogs through the cornfield (about waist high) we could hear something coming at us through the corn from upbreeze so we hunkered together w the dogs. When the coyotes got a whiff of us they split into two groups and passed by on each side while whining. It was very trippy.
I went through a lot of cats too and the survivors were bad a$$.
harkin (d6cfee) — 2/6/2020 @ 5:05 pm“They spotted us! Let’s get of here!”
nk (1d9030) — 2/6/2020 @ 5:06 pmJust watched the video.
So cool plus it makes sense, if dinner hightails it the coyote takes it. If it ‘goes to ground’, Bucky starts excavatin’.
harkin (d6cfee) — 2/6/2020 @ 5:37 pmI confess I never realized badgers were carnivores.
Dave (69470f) — 2/6/2020 @ 5:46 pmSymbosis, a symbiotic relationship. Nature is littered with them. Two unconnected organisms working together to accomplish what each needs.
Ants crawl all over peonies when they are budded, eating the heavy waxing covering, that then allows the peonie to bloom.
In a bean field, if I run across a seemingly displaced colony of ants, it usually means an aphid infestation is ramping up. That ants are feeding on a honey dew secretion of the aphids. I will spot the ants before the symptoms appear on the beans.
Nature is always interesting.
iowan2 (1c4a14) — 2/6/2020 @ 6:53 pm11. Politics is littered with
Gryph (08c844) — 2/6/2020 @ 7:24 pmincestuoussymbiotic relationships as well, particularly between the species Uselessium Republicanus and Communistes Democratum.— “Who spotted us?”
nk (1d9030) — 2/6/2020 @ 9:31 pm— “Humans.”
— “Are they good to eat?”
— “No.”
— “Popeye’s, then?”
— “Ok.”
That was so cool, Dana! I had no idea these two animals were friendly.
norcal (a5428a) — 2/6/2020 @ 10:08 pmIn my neighborhood we are getting coyotes coming down from Patterico’s hill as well as from some wildlife areas close to me. They’re hungry, and there have been some instances where they have attacked and killed house pets who were let free to roam the yard at night. People are all up-in-arms on NextDoor.com and Facebook decrying the coyotes and demanding that they be eradicated, but as far as I am concerned they have as much right to reside in the neighborhood as we do. I don’t want to see Fido and Fluffy turned into a midnight snack either, but the food chain is what it is and nature is going to take its course.
JVW (54fd0b) — 2/6/2020 @ 10:16 pmMy friend was at a rest stop in CO and a lady was feeding marshmallows to coyotes from the stoop of her Winnebago w her toy poodle sitting between her feet and yapping away.
Finally she held the bag upside down and shook it, saying ‘that’s all!’.
Whereupon a stealthy member of the pack came up under the stoop, grabbed the poodle in its jaws and ran off w the others chasing behind.
harkin (d6cfee) — 2/6/2020 @ 10:41 pm_
Great comments.
Our little neighborhood market has an outdoor bulletin board where people can post flyers and the like. But whenever a homemade sign goes up from some frantic soul that their cat is lost, we think, Pretty sure your cat isn’t lost…
Dana (aaddb1) — 2/6/2020 @ 10:56 pmPeople who let their small dogs roam yards where coyotes are abundant are not terribly bright. The huge German Shepherd at my house goes at them with gusto when they prowl the orange grove next door. He’s loud and sounds fierce. They book it in the opposite direction. The funny thing is though, he really is way more afraid of them than they are of him. He just talks a good game.
Dana (aaddb1) — 2/6/2020 @ 11:04 pmWhereupon a stealthy member of the pack came up under the stoop, grabbed the poodle in its jaws and ran off w the others chasing behind.
My God how I love this story! I am quite fond of dogs, but I do kind of carve out a small exception for toy poodles who are generally an obnoxious breed, mostly because of their owners.
JVW (54fd0b) — 2/6/2020 @ 11:10 pmThe tract where I live with is a stone’s throw from Saddleback Mt and nearer to less developed areas than most of OC.
Our thing is…rabbits. They love to hang out on the fringes of the property because the iron fence work that surrounds it is too closely spaced for anything larger than a rabbit to squeeze through. I’ve only seen a coyote once in the 15 months I’ve lived there.
Dave (6ed7b7) — 2/6/2020 @ 11:11 pm“My God how I love this story!”
Another thing they do is they act playful w rural dogs and slowly draw them away from the house…….a pack of coyotes can rip even a big dog to pieces.
harkin (d6cfee) — 2/6/2020 @ 11:31 pmshoot first answer questions later
mg (8cbc69) — 2/6/2020 @ 11:49 pmWell, Dana, if your interested in reading more on the subject, here’s a good book to start with.
https://www.amazon.com/New-Biology-Robert-Augros/dp/0877734399/ref=sr_1_6?crid=38FYZSJA9E1HJ&keywords=the+new+biology&qid=1581083187&sprefix=the+new+biology%2Caps%2C187&sr=8-6
The author argues against the Darwinian concept that biological species are competitive and provides numerous examples to show that in nature many species are cooperative.
My first degree was in biology, with a concentration on botany and ethology (animal behavior). Both are fascinating. Of course, I also studied evolutionary biology and Darwin. I later came to believe he’s just wrong about nature.
Here’s the thing. Charles Darwin was not a biologist. His father was one of the early promoters of evolutionary theory, but he studied in a seminary to become a minister. Then he was offered a post on the HMS Beagle, as a taxonomist. That ship sailed across the Atlantic to South America, then went from port to port around the continent to the Galapagos Islands, then back again. His job was to classify plants, animals, and insects he encountered. He freaked out when he got to Galapagos, but then who wouldn’t? Giant turtles, Komodo dragons and the like, found nowhere else, it unst have blown his mind. Although if you look at the painting of St. George and the Dragon, it sure looks like a Komodo or some closely related species, which had been extinguished.
When he got back to England, Darwin began working on his theory of evolution, following in his father’s footsteps. He was heavily influenced by an economic treatise written by Malthus, which argued that population growth exceeded agricultural growth, resulting in wars over resources. Darwin applied that flawed theory to all of nature.
The original title of his book, published in 1859, was The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life. It was a best seller at the time of the Civil War, of course. Because Darwin justified “Favored Races” and made their preservation not from God, but from Nature. And who were these “favored races”? White British and Europeans of course. Natural selection determined that.
So a deeply flawed theory of nature and humanity gets perpetuated. Yeah, that’s the way it is with these government schools. Read Kuhn, the Structure of Scientific Revolutions. They are not easy to come by, because flawed theories and failed methodologies perpetuate through textbooks.
Look at your own body. You do realize you have stomach and intestine bacteria digesting food for you. You do realize you have skin bacteria warding off infectious bacteria. You do realize that if it weren’t for them, you wouldn’t be alive and wouldn’t be able to survive.
Nature is cooperative. You are not a singular body; you are a colony.
Gawain's Ghost (b25cd1) — 2/7/2020 @ 6:01 pm