“Coyotes are wary, shy animals that want nothing from us. “We realized there was a real need for credible information to counteract the myths,” Mowry says. However, Chris Mowry, associate professor of biology at Berry College, says that “people’s fear of coyotes is mainly fear of the unknown.” He and Larry Wilson, an adjunct professor at Emory University, founded the Atlanta Coyote Project, which studies the animal’s activities and provides public education, in 2014. “In rural areas and metro regions, they affect the deer population, and in urban areas, they tend to kill small pets. “It’s open season on coyotes year-round, and there is no bag limit,” says Charlie Killmaster, an ironically named DNR biologist. In 2017, the DNR accumulated nearly 200 carcasses. Hunters are invited to present up to five “kills” per month from March through August, and at the end of each month, their names are entered into a drawing for a lifetime hunting and fishing license. The Department of Natural Resources prefers not to use the unsavory word “bounty.” Instead, they call it the Georgia Coyote Challenge. Last year, concerns prompted state officials to launch a program to trap or kill more of the animals. Likewise, as coyotes have become increasingly active here, their ululations are striking outsized fears among metro Atlantans.Ĭoyotes have been documented in every county in Georgia ( one often sighted in Piedmont Park was nicknamed “Rusty”). This phenomenon is called the Beau Geste effect, after a novel in which French Legionnaires propped up their dead along the wall of a fort to appear greater in number. You think you’re hearing a giant pack when there probably are only two or three. Coyotes can have a hair-raising, three-octave howl with hiccups of yipping, and they modulate their vocalizations in a way that makes their groups sound larger.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |