The Wolves Are Here
A Response
Editors’ Note: We always welcome and encourage responses from our readers and our own editors. The following piece is a response to David Foster’s article Wolves are Expanding in Agricultural Denmark—Why Not New England? in this issue. See another response.
David Foster describes how wolves migrated into Denmark, naturally and on their own, adopting new behaviors to thrive in that environment. Then, he asks, “Why not New England?”
Why not, indeed? Because in fact, something very much like that has already happened in New England. The eastern coyote has migrated into our region. This hybrid animal (also sometimes called “coywolf”) is about 60 percent western coyote and 30 percent eastern wolf, with a little domestic dog thrown in. Coyotes moved east over the past century and mixed with wolves along the way, until they reached our region—long since emptied of wolves—to which they have superbly adapted. And the story is not over, because there is no balanced endpoint in nature.
“I admire coyotes, but I also fear them.”
Eastern coyotes are now right at home in the suburbs, living on an omnivorous diet that includes what one article coyly refers to as “anthropogenic food” (Our garbage? Our pets? Our livestock? Our children?). They do eat deer, though not as many as wolves do. If there is room for a canine in New England to fill that larger, wolf-like niche, it seems likely that the coyote (or at least some subset of coyotes) will evolve in that direction, all on its own. Why would we need to reintroduce wolves?
If there is a sufficient supply of deer to support wolves, and people are willing to tolerate wolves, they will appear on their own—whether drawn from the existing regional canine population, or from Canada. I think it is better to trust in nature than to argue, as some do, that it is up to us to artificially balance these dynamic ecosystems by reintroducing a top predator that has been lost. The key top predator of deer for the past 10,000 years may have been human beings—or people alongside wolves, at the very least. There is no question that human beings have been wholly responsible for two drastic changes in the deer population since Europeans arrived: first, driving them nearly to extinction by market hunting, and then, in the past century, encouraging them to rebound to numbers similar to their pre-European level by eliminating market hunting and supporting only regulated recreational hunting. If we think there are now too many deer in some places, it is on us to modify our hunting practices yet again, not to suddenly ask wolves to take care of that problem.
“Speaking as a farmer, we don’t need to reintroduce wolves. The wolves are here.”
Some suggest that we should bring real wolves back, at least in some places, to experience the magic of real wildness. But if you have been awakened by a pack of eastern coyotes at night and not already had that hair-raising feeling, you may be living too sheltered a life. I admire coyotes, but I also fear them. We have lost several calves to them, and a neighbor lost a cow just after she gave birth. Back when we were farming in the Boston suburbs, we went through a brutal stretch in which we lost eight lambs in two weeks.
We saw them in action, once—it was a pair of coyotes and two pups. They would always kill two lambs, jumping the fence and quickly cutting their throats (domestic dogs, by contrast, love to run sheep for the sport of it—nipping and tearing them up). Then, annoyingly, these coyotes would leave one dead lamb behind, eviscerating the other and taking it away. That put an end to the way we had been raising lambs on small suburban pastures, using movable fence, and we gave it up.
We raise beef cattle now, out in the country. Our losses have been tolerable so far, but I hate hearing those coyotes howl during calving season. I know a newborn calf may be hiding in the grass too far from its mother, as they sometimes do. I know there is a chance I will never see it again, if I even see it at all.
A calf rests in the grass at Bascom Hollow Farm in Gill, Massachusetts. Photo © Brian Donahue
The eastern coyote is not going away, and it is likely to become even more of a wolf. In A New England Food Vision and in New England Feeding New England, we have called for a dramatic expansion in livestock, mostly on pasture—more anthropogenic food. These two desirable goals—more wildness on the one hand and more regional food production on the other—may be compatible, but they will not be without complications. I have no desire to exterminate coyotes, but I certainly favor killing problem animals, and making sure that they fear us—which will help maintain their wildness. Speaking as a farmer, we don’t need to reintroduce wolves. The wolves are here.
Brian Donahue is Professor Emeritus of American Environmental Studies at Brandeis University, and a farm and forest policy consultant. He co-founded and for 12 years directed Land’s Sake, a nonprofit community farm in Weston, Massachusetts, and now co-owns and manages a farm in western Massachusetts. He sits on the boards of the Massachusetts Woodland Institute, the Friends of Spannocchia, and The Land Institute. Brian is author of Slow Wood: Greener Building from Local Forests (2024), Reclaiming the Commons: Community Farms and Forests in a New England Town (1999) and The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord (2004). He is co-author of Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities (2017) and A New England Food Vision (2014).