April 28, 2005. The north Boston coyotes were poisoned! How awful. Updated July 5, 2005. It is verified: the entire family died from rat poison. We got the results back and Cour (the son of Maeve and Jet) also died from the poison. We found him floating in a small creek of water just as he turned 1 year old. What a birthday - he had the wonderful experience of internally bleeding to death and struggling so bad he couldn't get out of a foot of water that he used to cross multiple times a day. At least that ended his suffering as he probably drowned just before internally bleeding to death... How pathetic - some idiotic probably inbred person is purposely putting enough poison out to kill an entire family group of coyotes. If you live in Revere, Everett, or Malden call your town officials and tell them you are concerned and disguisted by these senseless acts of violence. Not to insult your intelligence, but poison is not selective and can kill everything including people. Coyotes rarely interact with people (see my other July 5 update) - the real danger is people and there sure are a lot of idiots in this world.

Possibly the most ridiculous thing that I have learned from this ordeal is that people can actually go into a hardware store and buy a second generation poison (meaning a super strong poison) that is this dangerous. My outtake: Ban these poisons. We need to introduce legistlation to make it much more difficult to obtain. There is no need for them. If you need to kill a rat get a snap trap and know that it is killed instantly. I personally think it is cowardly to know that an animal, even a rat or a mouse, basically internally explodes because of what we fed it. People should be required to see an animal die from these poisons before purchasing them. These poisons stay in the food chain and are passed on up to higher organisms (for instance, a domestic cat eating a dead poisoned mouse still acquires the toxins). Of course, the greed of advocates for business at all costs will probably kill any attempts to get these banned. But we can help - go to stores, like Home Depot, and ask them not to sell these dangerous chemicals.

On a positive note: Thanks to all that have donated to this cause. We raised exactly $550 from many caring people giving from $10 to $100. Your donation (including a donation of $15 from Mothers' Day!) were critical in helping us determine what killed the coyotes. We are proud to know that there are still many good people out there. The one good thing about the coyotes being radio-collared was that we found them dead and verified that someone is illegally threatening our native fauna. Thanks to all that helped us (almost exactly) pay for the necropsy results!

Well we got the results and at least 2 of the coyotes died from a very deadly type of rat poison (Brodifacoum). They basically internally bled to death. I have said all along that rat poison should be illegal as an over the counter sale. Please contact your town representatives/legislators and ask them to introduce a bill to ban these poisons. We are testing the third coyote for this type of poison also. It appears to be a delibate poisoning as the poor coyotes died within a week of each other; in other words, the chance of an entire pack of coyotes eating enough poisoned rats in a week to die from that would be very small. If you have any information please let us or the authorities know immediately. The people(s) responsible for this should go to jail. It will take us a long time to get over this, especially watching (through radio-signals) these poor animals suffer. Nothing should have to go through the experience of internally bleeding to death.

Channel 4 (Boston) will most likely be doing a story tomorrow, Friday April 29, 2005.

Thanks to all that have contributed to paying for these necropsies. Your contribution has made these tests possible. Please contact me if you want to contribute (wayjo@bc.edu). We are basically paying for the tests out of our own pocket (now about $600) after Boston College covers the first $200 (total will be about $800).

Thanks in advance,

Eastern Coyote Study Team - Jonathan Way