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One outcome of this interbreeding is that these animals have lost their fear of people, but they retain their predatory instincts, making them quite dangerous.

One outcome of this interbreeding is that these animals have lost their fear of people, but they retain their predatory instincts, making them quite dangerous. There are coyotes in the northern part of Nova Scotia that have attacked lone hikers. A woman was killed, in fact a few years ago, and there have been numerous scary encounters in which the animal creeps closer and closer to a wary human, much like a predator approaching its prey. The coyotes in this part of Canada are said to have interbred with dogs; it's not clear that these are the wolf-coyote-dog hybrids described in the article, but anyway these animals harassing hikers have been hanging out in the forested national park, as wolves would do. Park rangers have tried to control the population, with varying results. Simply shooting a few of the coyotes actually can backfire; it seems to stimulate larger litters to replenish the population. We might have to return to the pioneer approach of shooting them on sight, and hope this instills a healthy fear of humans as they once had. It's good having them around, because they control the rodent population which is a vector for disease bearing ticks and other problems. We just don't want them stalking our children in the local park.

jobu 11y ago
> We just don't want them stalking our children in the local park. Exactly. I'm all for conservation, so long as it doesn't lead to humans becoming part of the food chain again.
- igravious 11y ago
  Sharks kill humans annually. So do big cats. And snakes. What are we going to do? Shoot all these on sight? Predate to extinction (and not even for their nutritional value) those species that harm us in even the slightest way? I oppose that. No thanks. That's not the type of world I want to live in. I want to co-exist with these amazing creatures, not drive them to extinction, or only have them alive in captivity.
  - jmnicolas 11y ago
    This kind of reasoning is fine until YOUR child get killed ...
    - igravious 11y ago
      I have a child, but think about it this way. Every creature killed was the child of some creature. You're saying it's our children versus their children, all or nothing? But they're non-human animals so tough luck to them. We can do better I believe. What I'm asking is are we asserting that humanity has claimed the _entire_ globe as its habitat? Where do all the other species go that because of their nature run into trouble with us? Why not share a habitat with the creatures we can and make large wildlife reserves for the creatures we can't. Is this too idealistic? And if our paths do cross they need to be protected from us, not the other way around, because they don't know any better and we do.
      - jmnicolas 11y ago
        I'm certainly not advocating killing everything that moves and I certainly agree that there are too many humans on earth. I have no solution for that except stop making babies. However when there are dangerous animals around humans I will certainly not blame someone for protecting his / her family, especially in the case of an invasive specie like the coywolf that is not in danger of extinction.
        igravious 11y ago
        By the way, I never said that I think there are too many humans on Earth. This is a populist viewpoint, and it is not one I share. Even with current technology I believe the Earth could sustain > 10,000,000,000 humans with the caveat that humanity recognises which activities are unsustainable and alters its collective behaviour possibly through regulation if people won't voluntarily change their lifestyles. Examples: increased urbanisation, cutting meat consumption to increase the amount of land for crops, increased shared use of transport, assuming hydrocarbons and peat-bogs are semi-scarce non-renewable resources then transition away from them as sources of energy to renewables, travel less by using telecommunication, and so on.
  - chroma 11y ago
    Many pathogens and parasites are amazing creatures. Do you take the same stance with those, or are you only in favor of charismatic megafauna roaming wild? From my point of view, lions, crocodiles, wolves, etc... they're basically microencephalized sociopaths. It would be better if they never harmed any creature capable of suffering. That means either eliminating them or drastically modifying them. Granted, this is currently neither feasible nor a high priority. The world has plenty of other problems that need addressed first. Still, I'd rather these predators not exist. The harm they inflict on other creatures far outweighs the warm fuzzies we get from seeing them on nature shows.
    - haylem 11y ago
      Interesting. Not wanting to put words in your mouth, but that sounds like trying to impose a vegan lifestyle (for the record: I'm vegetarian and mostly vegan now) to the animal kingdom. I can understand part of the sentiment, but I'm a bit cautious of 1) the possibility of that happening 2) the impacts 3) the ethics.
      - chroma 11y ago
        That's an accurate representation of my views. Though as I said, it's pretty low on the list of things that need fixing. One day –hopefully– humanity will have its shit together. Then the majority of suffering will be inflicted by (non-human) animals upon other animals. What do we do about that? I don't have an answer, but I'm pretty sure "let it continue" isn't it. To bring the discussion back to the present: I think most people don't consider the morality of letting predators exist. If it was a disease or parasite that killed 10 people a year, we'd all agree on eradication. If it was a human being who killed 10 people a year, we'd all want to lock that person away until they died of old age. Nobody would make arguments like, "Your child is 1,000x more likely to be killed by a car than by a serial killer." But give the creature some fur and claws and have it roar or howl majestically... suddenly all manner of rationalizations are brought out in support.
        lost_my_pwd 11y ago
        Funny that you mention rationalizing; something these non-human predator can not do. They are simply doing what their instincts drive them to do: hunt and survive. That is nowhere near the same thing as a human killer that does it for non-survival reasons; anger, entertainment, sexual excitement, etc. Even if we say that human killers are driven by instinct, as animals are, they also have the ability to reason about the motivations, impact, and eventual consequences of those actions.
lvs 11y ago
Seems overly anxious, don't you think? Isolated incidents occur between humans and all natural predators on occasion. Obviously humankind isn't currently threatened in a serious way ... until these interbreed with zombies, of course.
- vlehto 11y ago
  Btw, have you ever considered the real reason why humans so eagerly bury/burn their dead? It's quite likely because we don't want natural predators to get used to the taste of human flesh. I live in a country where bears have been hunted for millenia. As a result I've slept about 1,5km away from known bear nest in the woods. It was scouting trip and none of us was really worried. Because we knew that by now, bears really don't like to get in touch with humans. The point is not to "eradicate" anything. The point is to instill fear. Which these days has allowed so harmonious human-bear relations here, that their numbers are rising. Hopefully stuff like pepper spray and rubber bullets are used before that shoot on sight is necessary.
  - samastur 11y ago
    Where do you live?
    - vlehto 11y ago
      Finland.
  - gotchange 11y ago
    > It's quite likely because we don't want natural predators to get used to the taste of human flesh. What do you suggest to dispose of human cadavers other than burying them because other methods like incineration and the likes are not as economic as the former method?
    - shawabawa3 11y ago
      There's this method which is used in Tibet and a few other places https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial
PepeGomez 11y ago
But at least they kill cats, so the poor little native rodents won't have to die a gruesome death as often.
asw 11y ago
LOL
abrookewood 11y ago
Well in Australia, death by horse (including falls) accounts for about 20 people a year and death by bee accounts for around 10 .. I don't think there's much to worry about from this hybrid.
- brink2death 11y ago
  Not to be disrespectful, but after reading your comment I couldn't help picturing something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCdbllHyX9o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCdbllHyX9o ;)
  - abrookewood 11y ago
    Lol .. that's pretty funny.
haylem 11y ago
You could be right, but on the other hand you see to rely only on assumptions as to what comes from the genetics of each species and which bits are going to be retained. It's not like Dingos in Australia are extremely dangerous for instance. Sure they still are to an extent, like most animals living in the wild, but it's not better or worse in terms of behavior than any other wild animal.
bleakcabal 11y ago
Coyotes have only killed two people in North America in all of recorded history (and if you check recorded history for wolf attacks it goes back at least to the 1800s). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote_attacks_on_humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote_attacks_on_humans A 3 year old child in 1981 and a 19 year old woman in 2009. Both victims were alone at the time of their attacks. Coyotes killing humans is an exceedingly rare occurrence.
- geon 11y ago
  These coywolves are twice as big (by mass) as a coyote. It would make them much more dangerous, I'd say.
- alexggordon 11y ago
  Not that it provides much statistical evidence, but the wikipedia[0] article (regarding the 19 year old girl) talking about the coyotes specifically mentions how coyotes didn't use to be in that area of Canada, but were likely there as a result of rapid adaptive evolution[1]. Obviously that doesn't statistically show that they're getting more aggressive, but it's not something you can easily ignore either, given the lack of other coyote attacks. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Mitchell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Mitchell [1] http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2009/09/23/rsbl.2009.0575 http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2009/09...
- crpatino 11y ago
  You cannot make sense of an emerging phenomenon by looking at century old records of superficially similar phenomena. The 3 year old case sounds like an outlier, regular coyotes getting at an unprotected child. The case of the 19 year old may be the canary on the coal mine. A fully grown adult should have scared off the coyotes, but that's not how it happened. We should be asking what was different in this case and why the expectations were not met.
  - bleakcabal 11y ago
    I don't see how you can call 1 case an emerging phenomenon. More over that there haven't been any other cases since. I don't think we should be afraid, as the OP mentioned, of coyotes stalking our children in the parks because of one isolated incident.
murbard2 11y ago
> One outcome of this interbreeding is that these animals have lost their fear of people, but they retain their predatory instincts, making them quite dangerous. They're going to find out fairly quickly that this combination is maladaptive. This also explains why dog and wolfs split... you can be aggressive and fear people, or you can be friendly and not fear people, but not both.
- anon4 11y ago
  Or you can be a stray dog living on the street being just aggressive enough that people don't bother you, but you aren't being killed because you're protected by a treaty for humane treatment of animals and your numbers aren't dwindling fast enough because people aren't spaying their pets and the government doesn't have enough resources to spay every stray. You also learn how to appear cute and harmless when hungry and how to jump on a table, grab a loaf of bread and run at over 30mph uphill.

jobu 11y ago

> We just don't want them stalking our children in the local park. Exactly. I'm all for conservation, so long as it doesn't lead to humans becoming part of the food chain again.

igravious 11y ago
Sharks kill humans annually. So do big cats. And snakes. What are we going to do? Shoot all these on sight? Predate to extinction (and not even for their nutritional value) those species that harm us in even the slightest way? I oppose that. No thanks. That's not the type of world I want to live in. I want to co-exist with these amazing creatures, not drive them to extinction, or only have them alive in captivity.
- jmnicolas 11y ago
  This kind of reasoning is fine until YOUR child get killed ...
  - igravious 11y ago
    I have a child, but think about it this way. Every creature killed was the child of some creature. You're saying it's our children versus their children, all or nothing? But they're non-human animals so tough luck to them. We can do better I believe. What I'm asking is are we asserting that humanity has claimed the _entire_ globe as its habitat? Where do all the other species go that because of their nature run into trouble with us? Why not share a habitat with the creatures we can and make large wildlife reserves for the creatures we can't. Is this too idealistic? And if our paths do cross they need to be protected from us, not the other way around, because they don't know any better and we do.
    - jmnicolas 11y ago
      I'm certainly not advocating killing everything that moves and I certainly agree that there are too many humans on earth. I have no solution for that except stop making babies. However when there are dangerous animals around humans I will certainly not blame someone for protecting his / her family, especially in the case of an invasive specie like the coywolf that is not in danger of extinction.
      - igravious 11y ago
        By the way, I never said that I think there are too many humans on Earth. This is a populist viewpoint, and it is not one I share. Even with current technology I believe the Earth could sustain > 10,000,000,000 humans with the caveat that humanity recognises which activities are unsustainable and alters its collective behaviour possibly through regulation if people won't voluntarily change their lifestyles. Examples: increased urbanisation, cutting meat consumption to increase the amount of land for crops, increased shared use of transport, assuming hydrocarbons and peat-bogs are semi-scarce non-renewable resources then transition away from them as sources of energy to renewables, travel less by using telecommunication, and so on.
- chroma 11y ago
  Many pathogens and parasites are amazing creatures. Do you take the same stance with those, or are you only in favor of charismatic megafauna roaming wild? From my point of view, lions, crocodiles, wolves, etc... they're basically microencephalized sociopaths. It would be better if they never harmed any creature capable of suffering. That means either eliminating them or drastically modifying them. Granted, this is currently neither feasible nor a high priority. The world has plenty of other problems that need addressed first. Still, I'd rather these predators not exist. The harm they inflict on other creatures far outweighs the warm fuzzies we get from seeing them on nature shows.
  - haylem 11y ago
    Interesting. Not wanting to put words in your mouth, but that sounds like trying to impose a vegan lifestyle (for the record: I'm vegetarian and mostly vegan now) to the animal kingdom. I can understand part of the sentiment, but I'm a bit cautious of 1) the possibility of that happening 2) the impacts 3) the ethics.
    - chroma 11y ago
      That's an accurate representation of my views. Though as I said, it's pretty low on the list of things that need fixing. One day –hopefully– humanity will have its shit together. Then the majority of suffering will be inflicted by (non-human) animals upon other animals. What do we do about that? I don't have an answer, but I'm pretty sure "let it continue" isn't it. To bring the discussion back to the present: I think most people don't consider the morality of letting predators exist. If it was a disease or parasite that killed 10 people a year, we'd all agree on eradication. If it was a human being who killed 10 people a year, we'd all want to lock that person away until they died of old age. Nobody would make arguments like, "Your child is 1,000x more likely to be killed by a car than by a serial killer." But give the creature some fur and claws and have it roar or howl majestically... suddenly all manner of rationalizations are brought out in support.
      - lost_my_pwd 11y ago
        Funny that you mention rationalizing; something these non-human predator can not do. They are simply doing what their instincts drive them to do: hunt and survive. That is nowhere near the same thing as a human killer that does it for non-survival reasons; anger, entertainment, sexual excitement, etc. Even if we say that human killers are driven by instinct, as animals are, they also have the ability to reason about the motivations, impact, and eventual consequences of those actions.

lvs 11y ago

Seems overly anxious, don't you think? Isolated incidents occur between humans and all natural predators on occasion. Obviously humankind isn't currently threatened in a serious way ... until these interbreed with zombies, of course.

vlehto 11y ago
Btw, have you ever considered the real reason why humans so eagerly bury/burn their dead? It's quite likely because we don't want natural predators to get used to the taste of human flesh. I live in a country where bears have been hunted for millenia. As a result I've slept about 1,5km away from known bear nest in the woods. It was scouting trip and none of us was really worried. Because we knew that by now, bears really don't like to get in touch with humans. The point is not to "eradicate" anything. The point is to instill fear. Which these days has allowed so harmonious human-bear relations here, that their numbers are rising. Hopefully stuff like pepper spray and rubber bullets are used before that shoot on sight is necessary.
- samastur 11y ago
  Where do you live?
  - vlehto 11y ago
    Finland.
- gotchange 11y ago
  > It's quite likely because we don't want natural predators to get used to the taste of human flesh. What do you suggest to dispose of human cadavers other than burying them because other methods like incineration and the likes are not as economic as the former method?
  - shawabawa3 11y ago
    There's this method which is used in Tibet and a few other places https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial

PepeGomez 11y ago

But at least they kill cats, so the poor little native rodents won't have to die a gruesome death as often.

asw 11y ago

LOL

abrookewood 11y ago

Well in Australia, death by horse (including falls) accounts for about 20 people a year and death by bee accounts for around 10 .. I don't think there's much to worry about from this hybrid.

brink2death 11y ago
Not to be disrespectful, but after reading your comment I couldn't help picturing something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCdbllHyX9o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCdbllHyX9o ;)
- abrookewood 11y ago
  Lol .. that's pretty funny.

haylem 11y ago

You could be right, but on the other hand you see to rely only on assumptions as to what comes from the genetics of each species and which bits are going to be retained. It's not like Dingos in Australia are extremely dangerous for instance. Sure they still are to an extent, like most animals living in the wild, but it's not better or worse in terms of behavior than any other wild animal.

bleakcabal 11y ago

Coyotes have only killed two people in North America in all of recorded history (and if you check recorded history for wolf attacks it goes back at least to the 1800s). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote_attacks_on_humans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote_attacks_on_humans A 3 year old child in 1981 and a 19 year old woman in 2009. Both victims were alone at the time of their attacks. Coyotes killing humans is an exceedingly rare occurrence.

geon 11y ago
These coywolves are twice as big (by mass) as a coyote. It would make them much more dangerous, I'd say.
alexggordon 11y ago
Not that it provides much statistical evidence, but the wikipedia[0] article (regarding the 19 year old girl) talking about the coyotes specifically mentions how coyotes didn't use to be in that area of Canada, but were likely there as a result of rapid adaptive evolution[1]. Obviously that doesn't statistically show that they're getting more aggressive, but it's not something you can easily ignore either, given the lack of other coyote attacks. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Mitchell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Mitchell [1] http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2009/09/23/rsbl.2009.0575 http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2009/09...
crpatino 11y ago
You cannot make sense of an emerging phenomenon by looking at century old records of superficially similar phenomena. The 3 year old case sounds like an outlier, regular coyotes getting at an unprotected child. The case of the 19 year old may be the canary on the coal mine. A fully grown adult should have scared off the coyotes, but that's not how it happened. We should be asking what was different in this case and why the expectations were not met.
- bleakcabal 11y ago
  I don't see how you can call 1 case an emerging phenomenon. More over that there haven't been any other cases since. I don't think we should be afraid, as the OP mentioned, of coyotes stalking our children in the parks because of one isolated incident.

murbard2 11y ago

> One outcome of this interbreeding is that these animals have lost their fear of people, but they retain their predatory instincts, making them quite dangerous. They're going to find out fairly quickly that this combination is maladaptive. This also explains why dog and wolfs split... you can be aggressive and fear people, or you can be friendly and not fear people, but not both.

anon4 11y ago
Or you can be a stray dog living on the street being just aggressive enough that people don't bother you, but you aren't being killed because you're protected by a treaty for humane treatment of animals and your numbers aren't dwindling fast enough because people aren't spaying their pets and the government doesn't have enough resources to spay every stray. You also learn how to appear cute and harmless when hungry and how to jump on a table, grab a loaf of bread and run at over 30mph uphill.