12/10/2025
We have 180 goats, good fences, and really good Livestock Guardian Dogs. Predator populations are issues I plan for. And I'm 100% against hunting, killing, and hazing predators.
Let's look at coyote biology and coyote pack dynamics as an example: coyotes are canines, but not dogs. Dogs only go into heat once or twice per year. Coyotes go into heat as soon as they're stressed. When you kill one coyote, you force all the remaining females into heat. Within a few months, you go from -1 to +10!
Now let's look at lions. Their preferred food is rodents and deer. They love rabbits and hares. Logging and asinine fire strategies either allow forests to grow into conifer deserts, where giant trees shade out everything else, or there are overgrown logging and burn scars. People in houses and farms use poisons on the rodents. Predators and scavengers eat the poisoned rodents, and die. Then the rodent population explodes for lack of predators. We need to manage the forests for the wildlife instead of the loggers. Stop using poison. And then watch the predator/prey equilibrium come back.
Bears are drawn to easy food. Garbage cans, livestock feed, and other delicacies. People leave garbage cans out. Bears learn the schedule. They're no longer feeding on salmon, and they need to get fat. Clean up the rivers, let the rivers be wild, let the bears eat the salmon.
But the gold prospectors keep ripping up the streams, polluting the water, wrecking salmon spawning habitat. The gold prospectors make little to zero money, and they wreck things for everyone else.
Killing predators, hazing predators, using dogs to hunt or haze- these are stupid activities that serve no useful purpose.
Easy answer: stop killing coyotes. Stop using poison. Keep livestock protected by fences, barns, and livestock guardian dogs. Keep garbage safe from scavengers. Stop stupid logging, stupid prospecting... and start using fire as a tool so that fires don't turn into catastrophes.
Here's Pete, a Maremma, weighing in at 135 pounds. He's seen a few things. He's battle hardened and ready for more. He's a sweetheart to good people. And he guards his herd against all threats.
