bwhaahahah,,,, funny how that momma bear comes out in us when we feel our family is threatened....
When I first moved up to my patch of heaven there was an ongoing massive fire in San Diego.... I had family evacuated from one house to settle in another only to have to move every one back to the other house. .... There were herds of mule deer running in front right up through residential areas.... Up at my place sixty miles away the first two years the mule deer And the predators were concentrating there because they were following the deer.
It has settled down since thank goodness. The only thing I have to really worry about are packs of dogs. URG.... Hey I have a question for you.... My opinion is to not remove a predator unless they become dangerous to people.... but to condition them to leave YOUR stuff alone.... that way you know he is keeping out other predators.... Dos that make sense...
deb
Deb - that makes even more sense than you realize, and is an issue that many many people never understand.
So to go a bit more in detail (and most places have a major issue with coyotes, or raccoons or peccaries), an animal who has an established territory usually has areas that it deals with, and rules that it goes by (in cities with coyotes, the cats are generally pretty safe because the established resident individual keeps all the young'uns and transient coyotes out of the area.
As soon as the established resident is gone (shot, dies for other reason), then there's an influx of individuals, that causes a big mess - fights between individuals, increase in predation, increase in human encounters, and that lasts until another territory gets established - which can take a while.
If you keep shooting or poisoning the resident predators, then you keep getting influx of young agitators (teenage coyotes, cougars, etc...) and they are a big problem. Lots of people think that if you keep shooting them eventually you will get rid of all of them - but that just doesn't happen. As long as predators are not extinct, they will keep coming.
As well, they have their place! For example, at my parent's place the hunters try to shoot all the coyotes. What happens then is that there is an influx of raccoons, rabbits, mice and ground hogs. If the coyotes are there, there are fewer that are around to eat their veggies and get in their roof (raccoons). They'd prefer the coyotes to the smaller pests (now that they understand the system better and have seen first hand how removing the top predator affects everything else)!
