Please, not to question the voracity of the eight year old girl, but how did the animal reach Prudence Island? Swim across the icy waters? Someone imported the animal to control the deer population, the coyote decided the pickings were good after word got around in the coyote tribes, an abandoned dog left by foreclosure victims, a rabid dog stealthily hiding on the ferry or boat deciding to take up residence on beautiful Prudence Island, an illusion from higher up? Sorry, had to slip that in there, it's the season for inventing Santa is it not?

Since the Bush Administration is (still) busy dismantling the Endangerd Species Act (ESA) (and for that matter our nation's security, ignoring health security, such as problems of locals living near mining dumps), why not exterminate all wild life, then we can rest in peace. No more snow geese to impede lawn walkers' convenience having to place wooden coyote mascots on lawns, no more seeds to place in bird feeders attracting those cute and not-so-cute rodents, no hawks nor ducks to hunt, and those pesky crows cleaning up road kill, or for that matter the unique skunks naturally cleaning up the lawn of grubs. Then of course those shy coyotes who mate for life like doves, never seems to be seen other than as road kill or a hunters' bounty, diminishing our opportunity to control rodents such as rats, mice, volves, and insects. When people in our community freak out over rare animals, I have to wonder where our leaders are to educate the population?

Obviously, from my comments, you can tell I am not very happy with the policies that the GOP has advanced, using President Bush as a pawn, undoing 30 years of progress in human rights and environmental protection. We will not survive if we keep doing what we are doing, as history has demonstrated throughout the ages. Obama is not a magician, but we may at least have saved our Republic (Another 8 years of Republicans would have ended our contstitutional principles - following in the footsteps of the Weimar Republic experienced by Germany in the 1930s).

My worry is that democrats will be too timid to play hard ball as the GOP is preparing for another assault on our democracy in order to "make the democratic party "irrelevant"" quote, unquote.

Capitalism is brutal exploration as demonstrated by the latest economic debacle facing our nation and the global economy!

Happy New Year,
Wernerlll

There are indeed coyotes on the island. They've probably been around since the mid-1990s, but if you read the NBNERR site profile, they claim the first "official" sighting was in 2005. How coyotes got to PI is not really relevant at this point; they're on the island, they're thriving and they're bold as brass. The veracity of the child notwithstanding, an incident like this was inevitable, and I expect it will be repeated. I expect it because so-called wildlife "managers" are complacent about top-tier predators. Rather than acknowledging that a problem might exist, they do everything they can to trivialize incidents of this nature.

I'm rather annoyed by the specious arguments that wildlife officials dust off in the wake of reports like this. They talk about how "exceedingly rare" coyote attacks are. The fact is that they're becoming less and less rare all the time, and are taking place at alarming rates in places like Florida and California. A lot of wildlife "defenders" are fond of saying that coyotes have become a problem because humans are encroaching on their habitat, when in reality just the opposite is happening... coyotes are a prairie animal that has followed human travel corridors to virtually every part of the country. Then there's the absurd argument that many more people are bitten by dogs than are bitten by coyotes. That line of reasoning would make sense only if 65 million coyotes were living in people's homes. Using this shaky dog-bite logic, it would be ok to have tigers roaming the area.

I have nothing against coyotes particularly, beyond the fact that they really don't belong in Rhode Island... funny how botanical and marine invasives are looked upon as a pestilence, but terrestrial predators are given carte blanche... anyway, what annoys me is the way the wildlife cogniscenti try to characterize them as benign. The coyote is an intelligent and resourceful predator. Given the opportunity, they will attack your livestock, your pets and your children. They'd attack you too if they believed they could successfully bring you down. They deserve respect as the potentially dangerous hunters that they can be.

That said, I think the suggestions that wildlife managers make for "living with coyotes" are essentially misguided, because they seem to imply that if you don't leave garbage strewn around and you bring Fluffy in before dusk, everything will be ok. That's a crock. If you want coyotes to avoid your property, there must be consequences... that is, you've got to scare them. Making loud noises and waving your arms is not going to deter them... you might frighten them once or twice with that, but if they're unhurt, they'll just ignore it after a while. Coyotes should be actively discouraged from contact with people and the areas where people live, by lethal means if necessary.