GILBERT PROULX

    The Red Deer River Naturalists  (RDRN) have five major speakers per year . Speakers are chosen for their expertise on naturalist topics.

     On Thur Oct. 27 Dr. Gilbert Proulx spoke to us on the payment of bounties for the capture of nuisance wildlife. Many RDRN members are very concerned about payment of bounties.

    Dr. Proulx gave us reasons why bounties don't work.

    With wolves or coyotes, if a large number are killed the remaining population has larger litters so you have just as many animals and they are young and stupid so potentially more of a problem.

     Only a small number of wolves or coyotes are problem animals. You can kill lots of animals and if you don't get the ones causing the problem, you still have your same old problem.

     There are too many opportunities to cheat the bounty system and just make money. In some places money is paid for one foot. Well the animal has 4 feet. Animals are taken in non bounty zones and bounties claimed in bounty paying zones.

    Methods of killing the animals are very cruel. Snares and strychnine cause a very painful death.

    Dr Proulx's talk was humorous, interesting and informative.

Eerie Coyote Howl Nearby

    A few evenings ago I was standing on a small foot bridge which crosses Piper Creek. I was visiting a couple of friends and watching the water to see if any Red Backed Suckers or Rocky Mountain Whitefish were swimming up the creek to spawn.

The foot bridge I was standing on.

     All of a sudden I heard extremely  loud howling. At first I didn't recognize it as a coyote howl. I thought it was a siren. Then yes, I knew it was a coyote howl. 

Photo by Bill Heinsen

     Since it was so very loud it must have been close. I would guess they were within 200 m. The area is heavily wooded so it was impossible to see the coyotes. There were two or more howling and the howling went on for at least a minute.

Bower  Woods looking over a large beaver dam.

    This area is completely surrounded by housing. It is about 300 m from the bower Mall. I would suspicion these coyotes frequent the mall at night and do very well as far as food is concerned.


    Usually we hear coyotes from a distance so this occurrence was very different.

A Friendly Coyote

         This summer a litter of coyotes was raised on a quarter section which is within the city limits of Red Deer. This quarter is farmed and presently half of it is used for grazing and the other half for hay production. The west side of the quarter has the Waskasoo creek running through it so there is a pleasant wooded ravine.

photo by Bertha Ford

        This quarter section is less than one km from a major city mall so I'm sure that the coyotes visited the mall each night and had a feast. I'm sure that much food each day is just dropped in the parking lot. So the coyotes were well fed and they didn't have to work very hard for a living.

         Most years there are a number of coyotes on this property and probably there were regular litters of coyotes raised. This summer a bike path was completed on the south side of the property so all of a sudden the secluded coyote den became rather public. Morning cyclists and walkers reported seeing the coyotes. The same thing occurred in the evening. People were thrilled to see coyote pups within 200 m. There was a chain link fence between the people and the coyotes. The coyotes became used to the fans.

       Less than one km away is the Sunny Brook Farm Museum. Most summers the museum will add chickens or other small livestock to make their displays more attractive. This year they had a number of goats. A number of goats went missing. It doesn't take much of a guess to decide what happened to the goats. So the cute little coyotes were a nuisance and pest just a short distance away. Pretty intelligent animals.