August 28, 2002. Miscellanous information: pup news, trapping updates, website links, new pictures.

Captive Pup News: Males successfully recover from vasectomies on Sunday August 11.

Lupe and Trans successfully were reintroducted with their sisters Cane, Caon and Late on Tuesday night, August 13 after 2 days of recooperating from their surgical procedures. Mainly we kept them at Franklin Park Zoo's hospital because the biting flies on exibit at Stone Zoo are terrible. They all seemed to be glad to see each other again and the males were very active exploring and investigating their familiar surroundings the following day - that night, however, they were not very active (especially Lupe) because they were so carsick. One interesting event emerged (although certainly not directly correlated with the male's vasectomies): Trans, despite being much smaller, is now dominant over Cane. She has repeatedly submitted to him actively (ears low, tail wagging, licks Trans' mouth) and passively (on back) for the past 2 weeks. Pretty amazing for the size difference. Trans is just very aggressive with all of his littermates including Lupe despite repeatedly being pinned by him; it is interesting, however, because he is very shy around nearly any other human besides myself.

Today I was able to weigh the pups (8/28). They were: Lupe=34.5 pounds; Cane=30; Caon=26.5; Trans=23.5; Late=21. They are getting big! In addition they are all now have their adult teeth except their canines still are not fully developed (but nearly so). Lupe's size for 5 1/2 months of age is amazing. These weights are with empty stomachs; today Lupe gorged (one of 2/3 days a week they get carnivore meat, dog chow, and a frozen rat). He was probably nearly 37 pounds after eating. Does anyone know if lack of competition can accelerate his growth. All pups get plenty of food but I wonder if him being so dominant could release additional hormones contributing to rapid growth with a healthy diet? The reason I ask is that of the 4 pups that we left in these pups natal den for their parents to raise, 1 was a male and he was at least Lupe's size. I imagine Lupe will be 50+ pounds when fully grown. That is very large for a coyote, especially since he is not fat.

In other pup news, Boston College undergraduate Kelly Holland, who has worked on the coyote project part-time this past summer, has been entering data into spreadsheets from our pup measurements and from the ethogram/behavioral budgets that we do on the pups on average 2 times a day for 30 minutes each time. Kelly's work will now enable us to very easily analyze the different behaviors observed since we obtained the pups from the wild.

Trapping updates. We are currently actively trying to catch Maple's pups and/or former groupmates in north Revere. We have been unsuccessful for the past week but are confident within the next week or two we will catch at least one pup. We have been low on bait recently, and the heat has rapidly decomposed any deployed meat (with a big hand from the local maggot population). Stay tuned for future trapping success.

Website links

I have recently obtained two new links, one from the National Wildlife Federation on coyotes: http://www.nwf.org/schoolyardhabitats/newsletters/coyotes.cfm; the other, a great website on carnivores I can not believe I wasn't aware of until my former advisor at UConn (Morty Ortega) told me: http://www.carnivoreconservation.org/ (thanks Morty!). These two links will be added to my website links section.

In addition, here are some recent newspaper articles on coyotes on Cape Cod, from the Cape Cod Times and from National Geographic on-line (for future reference, the following articles will not be on my Links page).

National Geographic online article. I talked with the author of the article after the manuscript was sent to the website. Future correspondance with National Geographic may include some of our research results in urbanized eastern Massachusetts featured in their magazine/website: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/08/0806_020806_coyote.html

Cape Cod Times articles:

http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/archives/2002/jul/26/letts.htm. An editorial that I wrote to the paper (July 26).

http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/archives/2002/aug/13/coyotesat13.htm. A general article about the coyote "hysteria" on the Cape (August 13).

http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/archives/2002/aug/18/ed.htm. Editorial from Cape Cod Times basically saying get used to coyotes, they are here to stay, but make sure you defend yourself and your property (August 18).

http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/archives/2002/aug/2/letts.htm. In my opinion, a ridiculous article on coyotes (August 2) in response to my July 26 editorial. I responded to Mr. Leroy's article but rather than include it as an editorial, basically two articles were written by Cape Cod Times staff (August 13, 18).

http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/archives/2002/aug/20/letts.htm. Two short editorial on coyotes (August 20).

http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/archives/2002/mar/25/livingwith25.htm. An older article (March 25) I previously hadn't included.

Finally, there are new pictures of the pups in the exhibit: check them out from the homepage, then click on pups in the exhibit, or go directly to them here.