Originally Posted By: AldoLeo49
david u,

I'm sorry that you wouldn't take me up on my offer. If you feel that what you are doing is the right thing to do, then don't go stealth. Be open about it. Tell your neighbors and community. Let your neighbors know that you are protecting your property and family against killer coyotes. Perhaps they can help. Your community has a stake in THEIR wildlife also. Have you addressed this problem with the authorities? What is their take about you taking the law into your own hands? Let the people know walking the streets in your neighborhood that they may want to avoid your area. Let people know that there may be wounded coyotes in the neighborhood, so that they can protect themselves from coyotes that have never bothered them before, but can really be dangerous when wounded.

I'm pretty sure that I know your neighborhood. I've never once heard of a coyote causing problems. People shoot dogs sometimes, but I've never heard of anyone shooting coyotes until now.


Aldo

Sorry to butt in....first off, welcome to the Forum! Secondly, I appreciate your position and most of us can appreciate your passion for defending/supporting it. We have a lot of sportsmen on the Forum and the vast majority have grown up with guns and hunting in their blood. I respect these guys, heck, admire them and really consider them my cyber-brothers. However, there is a smaller contingent of us that approach fisheries management and their wilderness experience from more of a conservation position, including myself. The president of the Arbor Day Foundation and a friend of mine is a forum member - so you can see we literally run the spectrum in terms of viewpoints.

One aspect I value so deeply is we all bring our passion, expertise, and personal experience to the table. It's a diverse group, to be sure, but I feel that makes our collective experience that much richer. I've learned in a couple years from the forum members what would have taken me a lifetime and thousands of dollars on my own, and developed some great friendships along the way from guys with completely different backgrounds and experiences than my own - which has been very rewarding.

With that in mind, wanted to say I appreciate your position and to let you know my experience has shown that the forum is not represented by drunken sign shooting poachers or bleeding heart eco warriors - but a considerate blend thereof...so again, welcome aboard!

FYI - As for the questions on where Sand County is located - it's in Wisconsin somewhere if memory serves me correctly. Aldo Leopold is the author of Sand County Almanac - a sacred, historic text as far as conservationists are concerned - and one of my favorite books. Great allusion, Aldo.

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. ~ Henry David Thoreau

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