March 10, 2020 • 45 mins
The coyote truly is wily. Even after a century-long attempt to drive them to extinction, this close relative of domesticated dogs not only hung onto survival, but actually doubled its range and expanded its population. Coyotes are here to stay.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello Vancouver, Hello Portland's we're going to be in your
city's Sunday, March twenty nine, Monday, March Chuck, that's right,
and this is Portland, Oregon. Since we've been to Portland, Maine.
We need to specify now, Oh yeah, that's right. But
they'd be weird to go from Vancouver to Portland, Maine.
But yeah, we can't wait. We've been to both these towns.
They've always been kind to us, but we are performing
(00:21):
in larger venues this time, so we need you to
come out and support us so we don't feel like
dumb dumbs. And you can find out all the information,
including where to buy tickets at s y s K
live dot com. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a
production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and
(00:44):
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's your
other host, Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There, there's Jerry Roland
and our producer. This is Stuff you Should Know Coyote edition.
So how are we going to pronounce it? I mean,
it's coyote, but coyote's kind of fun, but you could
also pronounce it coyote coyote. There's a lot of ways. Yeah,
(01:05):
so I say coyote, but I don't think that that's
technically correct eating it's coyote. Maybe yet I think it's
just swallowed my tongue. Uh. There's a lot of good
band names in here, by the way, I noticed. Oh yeah,
i'll call them all out. Well, I'll call out the
first one right away. Genus Canus. It's pretty good, okay. Uh,
(01:29):
that is the where coyotes are members of the genus Canus. Yeah,
and Canus includes all dogs, Yeah, jackals, dogs, wolves, uh,
and dogs. That's why I said dogs. I know, but
there's so many great dogs that you just gotta say
it twice. Well, I don't want to short change the
jackals of the world. Who likes jackals? Nobody likes jackals.
(01:51):
That's right, you know, screw them right, say them once.
As a matter of fact, let's go back and beep
out the second time we said that name. But hey,
one thing about this about family candidate, which all dogs
belong to. It's a really old um family and it's
(02:11):
native to North America. So like all those jackals, if
you want to talk about them some more, that made
it outside of North America. They started here they didn't
come from anywhere else, started in North America. Coyotes as
North American as apple Pie and Granny and Baseball and
dogs and Dogs. We've done a lot of episodes that
(02:34):
are dog related over the years, and I still haven't
knocked out the one that I really want to do,
which is the the first Dog, like the first domesticated dog.
That'd be a good one. They made that movie, but
I'm not sure if it had any truth to it whatsoever.
Train Spotty. When that stuff happens, do you just say
(02:54):
the first thing that came into your head? No, the
first thing that came into my head was never cry Wolf.
But I was like, that makes too much. I remember
that movie that, Yeah, that was a good one. That
was when we were kids, right Disney. It was a
Disney jam, but I think it was like a little
but it's scarier. Is there's something about it that made
it like groundbreaking for Disney. I don't remember what it was, Yeah,
(03:16):
I remember too. Uh. And then that that terrible looking
Call of the Wild Thing is out? Now, why can't
anybody stuff? Man? It's driving me crazy. Have you seen
these spectrum ads with Ellen degenerous on them? Apparently they're
just using c G I, Ellen, Because Ellen, if if
(03:36):
it's not, I was making a joke. It's the weirdest
makeup I've ever seen that actually makes her look c
G I. But it looks so much like that, it's
it seems likelier to me that it's a c G I. Ellen,
And I don't understand why. Surely not proved me wrong? World. Well,
I'm thinking now, if I'm Ellen and they say, hey,
(03:56):
we want to choot a bunch of spots with you,
we'll pay five million dollars, or we'll pay you three
and a half million for your image likeness, you could
stay at home. I would stay at home. I would travel,
you would, sure, that's true? A million a half bucks? Yeah,
it's a lot of dough how would travel? Plus? Also,
I mean, like curse spots in these spectrum commercials are
(04:18):
so small and limited that it couldn't possibly take more
than half of a day per spot. Yeah, and they
and when you're a big star like that, you can
dictate it. You can be like, sure, I'll do it.
You've got me for two hours, right, you have to
pay for the teleportation, that's right, you know, But it's
so Yes, they called the wild thing to stop. Stop,
(04:39):
everybody stop. Yeah. Of course maybe Harrison Ford was so
stoned he didn't even realize it wasn't a real dog.
God bless him. All right, So back to coyotes. There
are they are. The scientific name is Canis Latran's barking dog. Sure, boy,
they make a lot of noise. We'll get to at
(05:00):
their nineteen. Subspecies generally has to do with their range,
but sometimes it can be bigger or smaller, different kind
of coats um and they. One thing we will learn
throughout this whole thing is and we need a T
shirt that says this is dang it to the coyote
cannot be stopped. Boy do they persevere. There's probably no
(05:23):
greater survivor maybe currently alive on Earth that's a mammal
at least than a coyote. Yeah, I mean we will see.
There have been efforts over the years to extinct them
on purpose, like a coyote holocaust. Yeah. And the and
the coyote just trots away with that signature bounce and
(05:43):
gives the finger and and it's actually good luck. Yeah,
and has actually expanded the range and swollen in population
despite an effort to to drive them purposefully to extinction
a well funded really yeah at different times. Yeah, it's
pretty amazing, Yeah, it really is. I mean I feel
(06:04):
very bad for coyotes. I do to Um. One reason
I wanted to do this one is because there's coyotes
in in Atlanta, is in every major city in America
almost yea. And there's coyotes around humans in my neighborhood
and that means it's Momo's neighborhood too, And so you
(06:25):
me went off on this, like she found out about
that and just started learning everything she could about coyotes, Like,
we need a new fence. We got to get a
coyote vest for Momo, which she now has. Yeah, she
looks adorable in it. They work for hawks and things too, right, Yeah,
it's I think they're one and the same predate predator vest.
But I think it's called like the brand name as
(06:45):
a coyote vest. I think I think, Um, like, we
know a lot about coyotes because they're in our neighborhood,
and like the more we learn about it, the more
it's like I hate them in that they would take
Momo if they had a chance. Um, but I also
do feel bad for them too, because they are uh,
just trying to make their own way and live there.
(07:06):
You know, they're just being a coyote, right exactly. I
mean Emily and I saw coyotes in our neighborhood in
l a and Igorrock on walks and we saw, uh,
we've seen them in Atlanta. We saw one a few
months ago at night that looks very sick and was alone. Um.
But we will dispel some myths. Not every coyote you
see alone as rabid. Not every coyote see during the
(07:28):
day as rabid um. And we'll get more into this,
but they if it weren't for people, coyotes would be
out all the time during the day. Yeah. They're not
nocturnal by nature. No, they're not. They're diurnal and the
naught by nature. And well, they may be the ones that, um,
that that live closest to humans and urban areas or
suburban areas have actually adapted their behavior and become I
(07:52):
don't know what you call it. I guess they are nocturnal,
but they're most active at dawn and dusk. But they're
definitely not diurnal where they're active during the day and
sleep at night like they normally are. They've actually altered
their behavior, and it's just one of the many coyotes
are like, fine, that's that's fine, will change, will change
to stay alive. That's right. Uh. I think another Urban
(08:16):
County was another band name I thought was good and
I actually looked that up and of course there's an
urban County band. Uh. Speaking of urban counties, they actually
caught one in at Metro Atlanta recently, very very rare,
all black coyote named Carmine. They trapped the big reggoo. Interesting,
(08:38):
but I mentioned that trot. That's how you like if
you're out walking at night or walking your dogs and
you see what you think is a dog and it's
got this there's this little signature bouncy trot. You're like,
oh no, no, no no, that's no dog. All right. So
back to counties in general, Uh, they are wolf like,
but they have narrow, more narrow snouts. Uh, they're not
(09:00):
quite as muscular. Um Ed Grabanowski helped us put this together.
He wanted to point out that they're bigger than foxes,
which I thought was funny. It seemed obvious to me
that they're bigger than foxes, but maybe not everyone knows that. Well.
The first Uh, coyote that was spotted by Anglo Americans,
which was the Lewis and Clark expedition. Um, they thought
(09:22):
it was a fox from Afar, and then when they
shot one and got up close, they're like, oh, it's
kind of wolfe. They don't look like foxes at all
to me. No, but I guess it was like staying
far enough away that I couldn't tell. Who knows. People
were much dumber back then. They were all smoking opium
on that trip. I also like, I would like to
acknowledge a stuff you should know. First, we had a
(09:43):
mid show producer change. Jerry started out the show about
eight nine minutes ago. She said, to heck with this,
She's had it. Jerry had to go. Jerry had to
go do a call and said Josh, Josh, Josh. He
stepped in. Welcome Josh. Never happened before. Thanks for doing that.
(10:04):
I wonder who's going to finish up the show. I
don't know, our little pecking bird perhaps. Yeah, okay, you
acted like you didn't get the reference the dipping bird. Theah,
the dipping bird. Uh. So coyotes bigger than a fox,
smaller than an elephant. Uh, their tip nose to tail,
body length usually about two to five ft. Yeah. They
(10:25):
basically looked like somebody took a shrink ray on a
wolf and just dropped it by like, yeah, fifty pounds.
Their fur brown tan, kind of gray, kind of modeled. Uh,
and you know that's a coyote. Yeah. They eat mammals mostly,
but well also there are omnivores el eat berries. If
there's a lot of berries, Oh yeah, they'll eat They
(10:46):
love fruit. They love figs apparently, but they're diet as
mammals supposedly. Here's the thing. If you're just kind of
like coyotes, cool, whatever, they're related to dogs in there,
you know, all over the place. I want you to just,
first of all, listen to this episode. But things just
start like researching kyotes. You will be astounded and amazed
at every turn. Coyotes like fruit. So do you know
(11:09):
what coyotes do. They climb trees and balance on branches
so that they can get all the fruit that they want.
Look it up. Look up pictures of coyotes climbing trees.
They take small animals like dogs out of the backyard,
so coyotes can jump over fences six ft are under
and squeeze through slats of pickets three inches or wider.
(11:32):
They also dig under if they need to do all
sorts of crazy stuff. Coyote will say, hey, lizard, come
here your lunch. Yeah, they'll eat lizards, will so they'll
eat just about lead, insects, Yeah, they'll lead insects, they'll um.
They specialize in rodents, small mammals, rabbits, that kind of thing,
(11:53):
but they will eat just about anything. And one of
the things that its sounded me the most is um.
And I know we're hopping all over the place here,
that's right, And I want this to just evolve into like,
here's a cool coyote effect, but it may That's all right.
They engage in the social behavior called fission fusion, where
they can be they're totally fine hunting alone, living alone,
(12:15):
but they're also totally fine hunting and packs living in
packs depending on the kinds of resources available. So if
there's like deer in an area, coyote can't take a
deer down on their own, but at coyote, if there's
deer available in the area, they'll get with other coyotes
in the area and hunt in a pack. But normally
(12:35):
they just hunt by themselves when there's like say, lots
of rabbits, because all it takes is one. But depending
on the food available and the resources available, and how
many other coyotes are in the area, they'll come into
and out of these fluid packs, depending on basically the situation.
Like what you uh. Here's another thing, Like we said,
(12:56):
they small rodents and mammals usually, But if you're an elk,
like with a head cold, watch your back because that
coyote knows it, and he knows that you're not feeling well,
and he might come at you with a buddy or
two and feast on you for a few days because
of that fusion. They've entered that fusion mode and now
(13:17):
they're hunting impacts. Here's one thing you don't really need
to worry about, is coyote attack on yourself. It has happened,
but it's very rare. One of the most astounding things
I've ever seen is a coyote that was sneaking up
on a little kid playing in their driveway, must have
(13:38):
been in California or something like that, and the family
cat comes tearing around the side of the house as
at the moment the coyote is about a pounce on
the kid and jumps onto the coyote. That one pushes
off of the coyote, the coyote takes off. The cat
saved the little kid's life. Yeah, the most amazing thing
(14:01):
I've ever seen. I saw him just from last night. Uh,
a group of a pack of coyotes was fended off
by a cat and they caught up. Someone caught it
all on their house camera. You don't mess with cats, man, No,
I know they're they're vicious. Yeah so so yeah in
that one, if you watch closely, you can show me
that one that one of the coyotes all over the caches.
(14:24):
She's basically watching animal snuff movies for a while. Researcher,
I'm like, you have to stop. This can't be healthy
for you. But um, but like should just be sitting
in bed with her knees pull chest Like they're not
going to give home off, they're not gonna get up.
But one of those coyotes to get out of the way,
the cat just jumped right up on like this five
foot wall right next to it, like a vertical leap
(14:45):
up onto the wall. It's not even like it's nothing,
but but yes, cats still mess around. With coyotes, it's
pretty amazing. So uh, they live usually only about six
to eight years in the wild. Um, they have seen
them a oldest ten or fifteen. But I kind of
wondered about dogs and like just a dog in the
woods that never a feral dog that never was claimed,
(15:08):
Like if that really was a short lifespan as well,
probably kind of curious compared to a domestic dog for sure. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Uh.
If you are a coyote, you will choose your mate
for life, which is very very sweet. Yeah, unless that
mate dies and then they are allowed to go out
and find a new mate. Socially it's okay, yeah, but yeah,
(15:32):
they they mate for life. They raised their young together. Um,
and the the young grow up really quick. They usually
have about litters of I think I saw six on average,
but it can be as low as three. I'm sure
you can go even lower than that, but it can
get up into the teens. They need them. And this
is why coyotes have proven utterly impossible to exterminate. Thankfully,
(15:56):
we stopped trying to do that, but for a very
long time we tried to and we'll talk about more later.
But the reason why it proved impossible is because coyote
mothers basically change the number of coyotes they have in
their litter depending on how the population is expanding or contracts. Amazing,
(16:16):
and they do this. One of the ways that they
figured out they do this is that coyote howell where
you hear coyote howling nearby, and then some other one
is often the distance and another one even further off.
They figured out that they are basically taking a census
how many of you got, and the last response will
actually trigger a hormonal change in female coyotes who are
(16:38):
a reproductive age, and they will have more pups than
they would have if they got in a response to
their call. Unbelievable. Uh. They have their well talk about
their families in a sect, but they raise their young
in dens. Uh. Sometimes they will make their own den,
but a lot of times they will take over the
den of another animal and uh renovate it, make it
(16:58):
their own, usually expand it a little bigger, but a
little macromay. Yeah, maybe at a steam shower perhaps, Oh nice,
You never know. Uh. They returned to their dens if
they can, uh, year after year, if it's available, and
sometimes you will find them in weird places though, like
a drainage tunnel or in the cross space of a
(17:18):
house or something. But those are obviously urban coyotes. Yeah,
and so they're their territory actually is. It can be
really big, it can be really small. It depends on
how dense their food sources are. Yeah, they're really uh
flexible yep, with with how they live their lives, like
in every single way, shape or form, so so much so.
(17:39):
I mean we talked about the fission and the fusion
um social structure. It's just this fluid social structure um
in the pack. The basic unit of of coyote society
is the family, the mother and the father, the two
alpha's and then their offspring or betas this gets really interesting,
and their offspring again, depending on the resources, they may
(18:00):
stick around and help raise another litter. Those are called helpers.
They may stick around and basically just mooch. They call
those slouches. Yes, slouches are the ones who come home
from Appalachian State spend a lot of time on the couch.
But they're they're they're in the pack. But it just
says here they're not contributing in any way basically. Yeah, um,
(18:21):
and then so some some beata's depending like if food
starts to get scarce or whatever, some alphaals will be
like you, you need to go. It's time for you
to go find your own territory, of your own range.
Go be a loner, Go find a mate, just get
out of the basement basically. Um. But other times they
might be allowed to stay, depending on the food sources.
And and that's where that fusion and fission kicks in.
(18:43):
That's right. Uh, all right, maybe we should take a
break here and we'll talk about loner coyotes right after this.
M alright, we're back, and we were talking about the
(19:13):
pack size, how it can shift depending on the resources. Uh,
there are also lone or coyotes. Maybe their beta they
get kicked off the couch finally, or maybe they are
an aged out alpha. Um. And like I said, if
you see a coyote by him or herself, that doesn't
mean maybe I should say itself doesn't necessarily mean they're rabid.
(19:33):
Because you get on these Facebook neighborhood pages and there's
coyote sites sightings, and people lose their minds and give
out a lot of bad information. It goes both ways.
People are either like say kill them, kill it, kill
it with fire as fast as you can, or else.
Other people are like, well, I've been feeding it for
the last couple of weeks. It's nice. It likes to
come play with my dogs, right, Or it's out during
(19:55):
the day it's so it's rabid for sure, or it
was by itself, so it was rabid. There aren't There
haven't been big outbreaks of rabid cavities and many many,
many years. Yeah, apparently they made a concerted effort to
eradicate rabies among coyotes and so not just coyotes, but
I think mammals in the wild in general. And so
they started basically dropping vaccines bait basically but vaccinated. Would
(20:22):
you say wolf bait? I don't think that's a widely
known term that My buddy Eddie, he's just say that
for farting, he's dropping wolf baite. He might have made
that up. So imagine if that was vaccinated, that's what
they were doing, and um, dropping wolf baite, that's that's
good stuff. I gotta say, it's nice, haven't Josh t
laughing over there? Not? Jerry's just permanent lack of care,
(20:46):
no idea, no idea. Um. So they actually managed to
largely get rid of rabies among coyotes from what we understand. Yeah,
so maybe we should talk about the beginnings. Go ahead,
I was gonna say, but they do finally carry distemper,
and they can carry rabies. Is not to say like
there are rabbid coyotes. It's just not a big problem.
And one of those Facebook commenters I quoted saying that
(21:10):
it likes to come play with my dogs. That actually happens.
Coyotes are known to play with dogs. That's how Carmine,
the rare black um coyote was trapped. He made friends
with a Great Pyrenees in Smyrna and was playing around
and like they finally set up some traps in the
yard and he fell for one of them. Um. Those
Pyrenees are beautiful dogs, they really are. But um, that
(21:32):
pyrenees hopefully had distemper vaccine because just playing with the coyote,
it can be it can it can get distemper and
that's something you want your dog to have. No, not
at all. So uh, let's talk a little bit about
the beginnings of the coyotes. They were, or at least
what we think is that coyotes and wolves and then
(21:55):
now extinct. Uh, other kind of dog basically were around,
and they were sort of the starting point for what
are counties and wolves, but they were apparently much more
like coyotes and wolves. So they generally think that counties
were sort of the the o G evolutionarily speaking, right right.
I saw also that, um, there's a line of thinking
(22:16):
that they descended from red wolves whose range still is
over the southeast in Texas. I think there's still a
few around today. Um. But the the however they started
it happened anywhere from I think two million years ago
to three hundred thousand years ago. Coyotes evolved, and again
here in North America. This is there there um home continent.
(22:41):
But as they started to evolve, the ones that first
came along were bigger and um, heavier than the coyotes
we know today. But the problem is is they were
in direct competition be based on their size with wolves,
and wolves are and have always been much more aggressive hunters.
(23:04):
They don't tolerate other aggressive predators in their range, so
they'll go after a coyote. And so this is really interesting.
Over over the years, um, just from living with wolves,
coyotes apparently started to shrink down in size so that
they could fill an ecological niche that had been left
open rodents and rabbits, which wolves don't care that much about.
(23:28):
Wolves want to take down like caribo and elk, and
they hunt in packs exclusively. They don't care about rabbits, right,
So that that left the rabbits to the coyotes and
kyotes kind of shrunk in size and started going after that.
And then one other thing that happened to Chuck was
that meant that because they were confronting wolves, the coyotes
that were more aggressive and went after wolves or went
(23:49):
to go fight wolves when wolves are around, they died out,
which left just the timid ones, right. Yeah, so coyotes.
That's why you won't fighting coyotes that are super rest
of these days, because in order to survive the wolf Challenge. Uh,
there's another good band name. The Challenge is an amazing
(24:09):
band that's not bad. There's a lot of wolf band
zoh Will Parade and wolf Mother other Wolves. That's not
the name of the band of other wolves. There might
be it could be. Um. Yeah, so those those are
the ones that stuck around. Uh. And like we said,
cooties are that's just another example of how bad they
want to survive. UM. These days, they are listed as
(24:33):
a species of Least concern, which means don't we don't
have to do anything nothing, no conservation efforts whatsoever. The
only conservation effort that has been uh hung on coyotes
is that there's a law that says we we are
not allowed to drive them to extinction, which is a
reversal of original policies. We'll see, should we go ahead
(24:56):
and talk about that. So, yeah, there was a policy,
uh when was it in the nineteen thirties, starting in
the nineteenth century, I think, okay, where they basically said,
I mean a lot of it was sensationalist journalism, but
that basically that coyotes were the scourge of the earth
and they will kill every chicken and every sheep on
your and every cow and your property and your horses,
(25:19):
and we gotta get rid of them all. Yeah. So
basically it was a response to um Anglo American ranchers,
well actually any American ranchers moving westward, UM farming cattle
and sheep and all that um. And they were just
being predated on by wolves. So really they went after
wolves first, and they were really successful at almost driving
(25:42):
all wolves to extinction because wolves hunting packs, and so
if you kill enough wolves, they don't have enough wolves
to hunt in that pack any longer, and the remaining
survivors starved to death. Right, So they really worked at
getting rid of wolves, and it was really effective. Coyotes
were less effective, but they started the coyotes started preying
on the um the prey that the wolves were no
(26:04):
longer around to prey on. So they went after coyotes
and they went after him big time. They killed hundreds
of thousands, millions and millions and millions of coyotes over
the years with like sponsored I think they uh, they said, Congress,
give us ten million dollars for the next ten years
and we'll take care of them all right. And about
the same time, so that was the Biological Survey the
(26:29):
Eradication Methods Laboratory of the Bureau of Biological Survey. Um.
They basically said, we're going to start coming up with
strict nine pills and like um little misters that shoot
um cyanide in the coyotes face. And they were lacing
carcasses with all this poison and they were killing off
all sorts of other animals too, but no one cared
(26:50):
because everyone hated the coyotes so much that that they
just didn't care how many other animals died, just as
long as we were getting rid of the coyotes. But
around that time biologists started to be like, wait a minute,
I'm not entirely certain it's a good idea to get
rid of predators or any kind of animal that we
find a nuisance, Like, that's probably not the way we
(27:11):
should be doing things. Yeah. And it also coincided with
um sort of an anti poison movement where people were like,
wait a minute, maybe we shouldn't be putting poison all
over our forests for just any old animal to die
if it comes near it. Yeah, And that was the
around the thirties, at the beginning of the thirties. But
the the the government said no, we're getting rid of
(27:33):
We're getting rid of coyotes. The ranchers interests are above
the coyotes interests. Yeah, big money, you know, talking right.
So not only did they poison them, they would shoot
them from airplanes and helicopters and still today apparently killed
tens of thousands of coyotes by shooting at them from
helicopters like taxpayer funded programs do that. Yeah, they they
(27:53):
definitely are still culling coyotes and cooties are still giving
them a little skinny paw middle finger. Right. So I
have the seventies Richard Nixon apparently banned the use of poisons,
had no idea about that, signed the Endangered Species Act
of nineteen seventy three, and that gave the coyotes enough
breathing room to basically say, Okay, we're not going to
(28:13):
go extinct. But here's the thing. Because we were so
successful at wiping out wolves, the coyotes, which have been
limited almost exclusively to the southwestern United States sir to
spread and where the wolves had once been, Coyotes started
popping up in places they had never been seen before,
(28:35):
southeastern United States. There, They've been spotted in Central America
at this point. They were found in nineteen forty on
the Apostle Islands in Wisconsin, which is, at least from
what I could tell, half a mile swim from the mainland.
And apparently they're pretty good swimmers too. Um. And then
they started to move into the suburbs, and then they
started to move into the cities, and now today, there's
(28:55):
a guy at Ohio State named Stanley Girt who specializes
in studying coyotes in Chicago. Downtown Chicago has hundreds of
coyotes living in alleyways and crevasses and all sorts of
places right out of sight of human beings. And they
just come out at night and they've learned how to
navigate traffic and just basically stay out of side. Oh,
(29:17):
if you look, if you just type in urban cooties
to your favorite search engine and looked under images, there
are pictures of coyotes like in the middle of like
strip malls and with you know, casinos behind them, and
like they're just everywhere. Like I'm surprised I haven't seen
one in Times Square at this point. Wasn't it in
Heat where they show that coyote like crossing the street
(29:37):
or crossing the highway? I haven't seen that so long.
I'm pretty sure it's in Heat. Good movie. Should we
take another break, Let's do it all right? More coy
out speak right after this. So just just to point
(30:09):
this out one more time, if you remember from our
Lyme Disease episode, we've concluded that if we had no
wiped out wolves, ticks, wouldn't have been able to take
over and expand because the dear population wouldn't have exploded.
There would not be coyotes in Chicago right now if
the wolf population was stable in the United States or
North America. Yeah, and coyotes also, we're able to live
(30:32):
in and are able to live in urban environments, whereas
wolves could not. Oh no way. So they really were
basically like, hey, we'll we'll go where the wolves won't go.
We'll eat what the wolves won't eat. We'll hunt by
ourselves because the wolves can't and uh, look at us,
we're gonna we're gonna thrive. Yeah. And without wolves, there's
(30:52):
nothing to to keep them in check, to keep their
population in check. Angry facebookers. That's it basically, So that
whole eradication campaign has been put to the side. There's
definitely still lots of coyotes that are killed every year. Yeah.
I think between two thousand and six and two thousand
eleven they killed more than half a million coyotes legally.
(31:12):
I saw that there's a half a million that are
killed a year still, Yeah, like one a minute every year.
I've also seen thirty five thousand. I don't know if
it's just certain divisions are responsible for like half a
million or maybe certain years they ramp up the efforts
more than others. I don't know, but they're there are
definitely still a tremendous amount of coyote deaths. But as
(31:33):
we've seen, coyotes have been um extremely successful in the
face of this extermination campaign. Um, just by by reproducing
depending on the local population. Yeah. Yeah, And if you're
a rancher, you you don't have to be a part
of some program like you're you're taking care of things
(31:55):
in the rancher way, which is traps, guns, yeah, poison. Yeah.
There's no laws protecting coyotes whatsover. Again, the only law
as far as I know, I think it's part of
the Endangered Species Act that says we're not allowed to
drive coyotes to extinction. But that's it. You can kill
a coyote. The only things keeping you from shooting a
(32:16):
coyote like in city limits or gun ordinances. Basically, you
can kill a coyote anyway you want. Um. But here's
the thing, go visit in the hospital. Um. But the
thing is is what they're starting to figure out now
is because they're so successful that you don't actually want
(32:37):
to kill them. Killing them has this ripple effect through
their society where they start reproducing more. And here's the
other thing. If the coyote is still not if it's
not acting aggressively towards humans, if it hasn't started to
take pets, if you just know it's in the area
but it's trying to keep its distance, you may actually
be better off with that coyote because if you get
(33:00):
rid of that coyote, another coyote is going to move in,
and that coyote might be much more aggressive than the
last one you just got rid of. Like, if you've
got a decent neighbor, maybe that's good enough. So that's
kind of like the idea that's dawning over people with
coyote management is coyotes aren't going anywhere. They're staying put,
and the best you can hope for is one that
(33:21):
keeps this distance and is afraid of humans. Yeah, which
is generally what's going on in urban areas. Uh, when
we're talking about ranchers. The reason they're doing this is
not just because they hate coyotes, is that they lose
a lot of um animals due to uh, these predators
they that just sounded so mean. These predators. Uh, there's
(33:44):
it's hard to get good stats. But the US d
d A said in two thousand fifteen there was self reporting,
which you always got to kind of wonder of thirty
three thousand a little more in change of adult sheep,
four thousand lambs lost to coyotes, and again that self reported,
So take it with a grain of salt. But there
they do lose a lot of animals and chickens and
(34:06):
things like that. I've gone on my soapbox before about
keeping your cats inside. I'm not gonna do that again
except to say keep your cats inside. Yeah, if you have,
like you know, you're on the fence about keeping your
cats inside, you just watch some of the videos that
you be seen, yeah, or just cats being taken. Do
I want my cat to live several years longer? Because
(34:26):
the statistics show that outdoor cats don't live as long.
And not just that, um, not just with cats too,
but also with dogs if you if they're coyotes in
the area, and there's a really good chance there are
no matter where you live in the US, you um
do not You should not leave your small dog, in
particular outside unattended. You basically let them out, hang out
(34:48):
with them, and then let them back in. You definitely
don't leave them out at dusk or at dawn by
themselves or overnight. That's right. Uh, we said that you
don't need to worry too much about being attacked as
a human. There were a couple of kind of grizzly cases.
One that's just very difficult to even talk about, frankly.
In nine, little three year old girl was dragged from
her driveway in California and the dad did rescue her,
(35:12):
but she died as a result of her injuries from
that fracas. In two thousand nine, there was a really
strange thing in Canada where a nineteen year old woman
was stalked and killed by at least two coyotes while
hiking in the middle of the day. And this is
apparently the only, like only adult human killed by coyotes
(35:32):
on record. So yeah, and the only explanation for that
that I could possibly come up with is that she
was around their den. It was around their pup raising time,
right say, spring and summer is a pretty bad time
to be around, getting real defensive of their turf. And
then thirdly that those were um mated with wolves. Uh.
Interesting because when the coyotes will mate with dogs, they
(35:54):
will mate with wolves. It's not like super widespread, but
it does happen in producing coy dogs and coy wolves.
But the coy wolves in particular can be much more
aggressive than your standard coyote. Yeah, so I wonder if
those three factors played a role in it. Probably it
was definitely an outlier. It's it's very I mean, it's
sad no matter what did that girl also, she was
(36:16):
like an up and coming country singer, like on the
verge of breaking out and Taylor Mitchell. Yeah yeah. So
um they say, like we said that these kill couty
programs don't even work that well and that there is
uh their statistics to back up the fact that, um,
non lethal methods of county control or more effective, which
(36:39):
we're talking about scaring them, like wind chimes and air horns.
They're really skitty and jumpy, So if you make a
lot of noise in front of a county they're probably
gonna bolt. Yeah, it's called hazing. Yeah, and you don't
like anytime you see a coyote around your area really anywhere,
just be a good neighbor. You want to haze them,
(37:00):
do you not just let it happen? Don't just let
it pass by? Like, you need to take that opportunity
to haze them, to keep them feeling insecure, more secure. Right,
The more secure uh a coyote feels, the more the
more um audacious, embrazen, they're going to become coming into
your yard trying to take your your dog or your cat.
So you want to haze them every chance you get
(37:22):
so that they know to stay over there. This is
their turf, this is your turf. Right, So if you
have an umbrella, you want to open the umbrella. This
says to pick up your small dog. Um, I've also
read right, I've also read you don't want to do
that because you make yourself small when you do that,
and you when when when you're hazing a kyote, you
want to make yourself as big as possible. What do
(37:43):
you mean yourself? When you squat down to pick up
your dog, you seem smaller than you do standing up
with your arms spread, but do it very quickly. Well,
But the better thing to do is keep your dog
on a non flexi lead, like a straight leash. It's
no more than like six ft and things. Just keep it,
just pull it back close to you while you're like
waving your arm and shouting at the kyote to go away. Yeah.
(38:06):
And I also thought it was funny that Ed pointed
out that like even if you have a big dog
that could like kill a coyote, Like, is someone gonna say, like, oh,
I think you can take them, go get him zeus?
Yeah maybe not, some people would know. You never know.
Have you seen those Irish wolfhounds. M sure they're like
the largest, the largest dogs. Yeah, wolfhounds. They're like bread
(38:29):
to take on wolves, So they could take on a coyote.
I could see that having that temptation be like, yeah,
my dog really could take on this coyote. Maybe what
did I? Oh? No, that was dingoes that petted in Australia.
Of course, that they were coyotes is not North America.
But dingoes were a little they weren't dogs either, And
and it was like foxes No, I mean they look
(38:51):
like dogs, but when you're around them, and this was
at a place where you can hold koalas and stuff
like that, it was obvious that it's not a dog. No,
they're wild dogs right, Well not I don't even think
they're wild dogs. Um or maybe I mean they're they're
totally related. But I just remember getting the sense um
Scotty and I both did my friend that was with me,
(39:12):
um whom you know, they just there was a certain
the way they carried themselves. And I'm just like, you're
not a dog. It literally is a dog Canus lupus dingo.
So it's a subspecies of like dogs. Yeah, but what
I was saying, not a dog, like not a domesticated dog,
wild dog. Yeah, you could just tell the difference. And
(39:34):
I'm sure the same is true with coyotes because coit dogs,
like you said, are things. Look at that cute little dingo. Um.
Coit dogs are in kit puppies are super adorable and
technically you can raise one and even a full county
if you get it as a puppy, you could have
it as a pet. It's not a good idea because
(39:54):
they are coyotes and the cody's gonna coyote. H it
has happened there or you know, you see those eccentric
people out there that have like a pet coyote. It's
the thing, but it's just not a good idea. They're unpredictable. Yeah,
you don't want to like get a cat companion for him.
Um in the United States. So uh, the coyotes image
(40:18):
has really gone through some weird transitions. Early on had
a really bad reputation UM and apparently was made way
worse by Mark Twain when he wrote rough in It
in seventy two. There were a few pages dedicated to
how lowly a coyote is, and everybody was like, yeah,
we hate coyotes from that point on. But that actually
(40:39):
followed in partially this view that had been around for
ages that Native Americans had of coyotes, not necessarily that
it was a lowly animal, but that it was a trickster,
kind of like a brare rabbit type. UM. But then
he was also in some with some some groups like
(40:59):
the Creator God, the Creator Deity. There's all sorts of
different roles that the coyote played in Native American mythologies,
because there were so many different Native American mythologies. But
it was very prominent in Southwestern tribes UM mythologies, and
very frequently as a trickster, very frequently. Yeah, good stuff. Yeah,
(41:20):
I don't have anything else. I don't believe I do either.
If you see a coyote, Hayes, it really shouldn't kill it, like,
make sure that it's kept on its feet and insecure
your Petzil. Thank you. If you want to know more
about coyotes, go look up a coyote standing in a
tree and that will really set you off. Since I
(41:41):
said that it's time for listener mail, I'm gonna call
this grizzly trigger warning email. Has to do with our
body under the Bed episode, So you know, if you're
not into listening to this kind of stuff, tune it out. Hey,
guys listening to the body into the Bed episode, and
was reminded of a similar awful case in Jacksonville, Florida,
(42:03):
where I live. In my neighborhood, an eight year old girl, Maddie,
disappeared while playing outside one afternoon and year yard her yard.
Long story short. Her neighbor Josh Phillips, who was fourteen
at the time, was playing with her and accidentally hit
her in the head, she said, with a baseball bat
injuring her. I looked into this. Apparently the story was
she threw the ball, he hit the ball, and the
(42:25):
ball hit her in the face. She started bleeding and crying.
He and this is me talking now, not the email.
He freaked out because his dad was an abusive alcoholic
and he was afraid his dad was gonna come home
and see what he'd done, so he panicked back to
the email. He ended up killing her to keep her
quiet and stashing her body in the cavern beneath his
(42:47):
water bed on the second floor of his house, and
the eight days that follow, a massive community effort ensued
to locate her, and Josh, her murderer, even participated in this,
handing out flyers. He slept in that bed for seven
nights over her body. Police had even searched the home
several times, and the odor in his room was attributed
to many pet birds and cages he had and a
(43:08):
typical fourteen year old boy funk. Uh not a bad
band name either. She was discovered when they searched a
terrible four general boyfunk. Typical fourteen year old boyfunk. Well, no,
I just think boyfunk. Maybe none of that's good. I'd
take it all back. She was discovered when they searched
the home again and noticed a stain on the ceiling
(43:31):
on the floor below his room. Um, I thought it
was a blood stain. But I looked it up. I
think it was a leak from the waterbed and stained
and that fortuitously led to finding her. He remains in prison,
which has always been a big debate here when it
comes up for parole um. Just reason happened, m I
looked it up. I think this was in ninety eight
(43:52):
and he was fourteen. Wow. Wow, he's been in prison
the whole time. Huh. Yeah, and it was. It's a
very tough thing because you know, his father was an
abuse of alcohol. Like he reacted because he was afraid
that he was going to come home and find him out,
and freaked out and hit this girl with a baseball bat,
put her under the bed, and when he found that
she was still making noise, this gets really bad. He
stabbed her like eleven times and killed her. So it
(44:14):
is just a sad, sad, tragic case all the way around.
That is from Mary. She said, I love the show
and have my husband hooked now too. She said, the
trauma then emotions of those eight days is something I
will never ever forget. Yeah, very tough case. I don't
know if thanks as appropriate, Mary, but I can't think
of anything else to say. Yeah, I don't even know
(44:36):
why I decided to read that. That was really sort
of caught me, caught my attention. Yeah, I can see
how Chuck. Well, if you want to get in touch
with us like Mary did, don't. If you want to anyway,
you can send us an email to Stuff podcast did
i heeart radio dot com. Stuff You Should Know is
(44:58):
a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For
more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
M m hm hm
Hello Vancouver, Hello Portland's we're going to be in your
city's Sunday, March twenty nine, Monday, March Chuck, that's right,
and this is Portland, Oregon. Since we've been to Portland, Maine.
We need to specify now, Oh yeah, that's right. But
they'd be weird to go from Vancouver to Portland, Maine.
But yeah, we can't wait. We've been to both these towns.
They've always been kind to us, but we are performing
(00:21):
in larger venues this time, so we need you to
come out and support us so we don't feel like
dumb dumbs. And you can find out all the information,
including where to buy tickets at s y s K
live dot com. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a
production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and
(00:44):
welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's your
other host, Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There, there's Jerry Roland
and our producer. This is Stuff you Should Know Coyote edition.
So how are we going to pronounce it? I mean,
it's coyote, but coyote's kind of fun, but you could
also pronounce it coyote coyote. There's a lot of ways. Yeah,
(01:05):
so I say coyote, but I don't think that that's
technically correct eating it's coyote. Maybe yet I think it's
just swallowed my tongue. Uh. There's a lot of good
band names in here, by the way, I noticed. Oh yeah,
i'll call them all out. Well, I'll call out the
first one right away. Genus Canus. It's pretty good, okay. Uh,
(01:29):
that is the where coyotes are members of the genus Canus. Yeah,
and Canus includes all dogs, Yeah, jackals, dogs, wolves, uh,
and dogs. That's why I said dogs. I know, but
there's so many great dogs that you just gotta say
it twice. Well, I don't want to short change the
jackals of the world. Who likes jackals? Nobody likes jackals.
(01:51):
That's right, you know, screw them right, say them once.
As a matter of fact, let's go back and beep
out the second time we said that name. But hey,
one thing about this about family candidate, which all dogs
belong to. It's a really old um family and it's
(02:11):
native to North America. So like all those jackals, if
you want to talk about them some more, that made
it outside of North America. They started here they didn't
come from anywhere else, started in North America. Coyotes as
North American as apple Pie and Granny and Baseball and
dogs and Dogs. We've done a lot of episodes that
(02:34):
are dog related over the years, and I still haven't
knocked out the one that I really want to do,
which is the the first Dog, like the first domesticated dog.
That'd be a good one. They made that movie, but
I'm not sure if it had any truth to it whatsoever.
Train Spotty. When that stuff happens, do you just say
(02:54):
the first thing that came into your head? No, the
first thing that came into my head was never cry Wolf.
But I was like, that makes too much. I remember
that movie that, Yeah, that was a good one. That
was when we were kids, right Disney. It was a
Disney jam, but I think it was like a little
but it's scarier. Is there's something about it that made
it like groundbreaking for Disney. I don't remember what it was, Yeah,
(03:16):
I remember too. Uh. And then that that terrible looking
Call of the Wild Thing is out? Now, why can't
anybody stuff? Man? It's driving me crazy. Have you seen
these spectrum ads with Ellen degenerous on them? Apparently they're
just using c G I, Ellen, Because Ellen, if if
(03:36):
it's not, I was making a joke. It's the weirdest
makeup I've ever seen that actually makes her look c
G I. But it looks so much like that, it's
it seems likelier to me that it's a c G I. Ellen,
And I don't understand why. Surely not proved me wrong? World. Well,
I'm thinking now, if I'm Ellen and they say, hey,
(03:56):
we want to choot a bunch of spots with you,
we'll pay five million dollars, or we'll pay you three
and a half million for your image likeness, you could
stay at home. I would stay at home. I would travel,
you would, sure, that's true? A million a half bucks? Yeah,
it's a lot of dough how would travel? Plus? Also,
I mean, like curse spots in these spectrum commercials are
(04:18):
so small and limited that it couldn't possibly take more
than half of a day per spot. Yeah, and they
and when you're a big star like that, you can
dictate it. You can be like, sure, I'll do it.
You've got me for two hours, right, you have to
pay for the teleportation, that's right, you know, But it's
so Yes, they called the wild thing to stop. Stop,
(04:39):
everybody stop. Yeah. Of course maybe Harrison Ford was so
stoned he didn't even realize it wasn't a real dog.
God bless him. All right, So back to coyotes. There
are they are. The scientific name is Canis Latran's barking dog. Sure, boy,
they make a lot of noise. We'll get to at
(05:00):
their nineteen. Subspecies generally has to do with their range,
but sometimes it can be bigger or smaller, different kind
of coats um and they. One thing we will learn
throughout this whole thing is and we need a T
shirt that says this is dang it to the coyote
cannot be stopped. Boy do they persevere. There's probably no
(05:23):
greater survivor maybe currently alive on Earth that's a mammal
at least than a coyote. Yeah, I mean we will see.
There have been efforts over the years to extinct them
on purpose, like a coyote holocaust. Yeah. And the and
the coyote just trots away with that signature bounce and
(05:43):
gives the finger and and it's actually good luck. Yeah,
and has actually expanded the range and swollen in population
despite an effort to to drive them purposefully to extinction
a well funded really yeah at different times. Yeah, it's
pretty amazing, Yeah, it really is. I mean I feel
(06:04):
very bad for coyotes. I do to Um. One reason
I wanted to do this one is because there's coyotes
in in Atlanta, is in every major city in America
almost yea. And there's coyotes around humans in my neighborhood
and that means it's Momo's neighborhood too, And so you
(06:25):
me went off on this, like she found out about
that and just started learning everything she could about coyotes, Like,
we need a new fence. We got to get a
coyote vest for Momo, which she now has. Yeah, she
looks adorable in it. They work for hawks and things too, right, Yeah,
it's I think they're one and the same predate predator vest.
But I think it's called like the brand name as
(06:45):
a coyote vest. I think I think, Um, like, we
know a lot about coyotes because they're in our neighborhood,
and like the more we learn about it, the more
it's like I hate them in that they would take
Momo if they had a chance. Um, but I also
do feel bad for them too, because they are uh,
just trying to make their own way and live there.
(07:06):
You know, they're just being a coyote, right exactly. I
mean Emily and I saw coyotes in our neighborhood in
l a and Igorrock on walks and we saw, uh,
we've seen them in Atlanta. We saw one a few
months ago at night that looks very sick and was alone. Um.
But we will dispel some myths. Not every coyote you
see alone as rabid. Not every coyote see during the
(07:28):
day as rabid um. And we'll get more into this,
but they if it weren't for people, coyotes would be
out all the time during the day. Yeah. They're not
nocturnal by nature. No, they're not. They're diurnal and the
naught by nature. And well, they may be the ones that, um,
that that live closest to humans and urban areas or
suburban areas have actually adapted their behavior and become I
(07:52):
don't know what you call it. I guess they are nocturnal,
but they're most active at dawn and dusk. But they're
definitely not diurnal where they're active during the day and
sleep at night like they normally are. They've actually altered
their behavior, and it's just one of the many coyotes
are like, fine, that's that's fine, will change, will change
to stay alive. That's right. Uh. I think another Urban
(08:16):
County was another band name I thought was good and
I actually looked that up and of course there's an
urban County band. Uh. Speaking of urban counties, they actually
caught one in at Metro Atlanta recently, very very rare,
all black coyote named Carmine. They trapped the big reggoo. Interesting,
(08:38):
but I mentioned that trot. That's how you like if
you're out walking at night or walking your dogs and
you see what you think is a dog and it's
got this there's this little signature bouncy trot. You're like,
oh no, no, no no, that's no dog. All right. So
back to counties in general, Uh, they are wolf like,
but they have narrow, more narrow snouts. Uh, they're not
(09:00):
quite as muscular. Um Ed Grabanowski helped us put this together.
He wanted to point out that they're bigger than foxes,
which I thought was funny. It seemed obvious to me
that they're bigger than foxes, but maybe not everyone knows that. Well.
The first Uh, coyote that was spotted by Anglo Americans,
which was the Lewis and Clark expedition. Um, they thought
(09:22):
it was a fox from Afar, and then when they
shot one and got up close, they're like, oh, it's
kind of wolfe. They don't look like foxes at all
to me. No, but I guess it was like staying
far enough away that I couldn't tell. Who knows. People
were much dumber back then. They were all smoking opium
on that trip. I also like, I would like to
acknowledge a stuff you should know. First, we had a
(09:43):
mid show producer change. Jerry started out the show about
eight nine minutes ago. She said, to heck with this,
She's had it. Jerry had to go. Jerry had to
go do a call and said Josh, Josh, Josh. He
stepped in. Welcome Josh. Never happened before. Thanks for doing that.
(10:04):
I wonder who's going to finish up the show. I
don't know, our little pecking bird perhaps. Yeah, okay, you
acted like you didn't get the reference the dipping bird. Theah,
the dipping bird. Uh. So coyotes bigger than a fox,
smaller than an elephant. Uh, their tip nose to tail,
body length usually about two to five ft. Yeah. They
(10:25):
basically looked like somebody took a shrink ray on a
wolf and just dropped it by like, yeah, fifty pounds.
Their fur brown tan, kind of gray, kind of modeled. Uh,
and you know that's a coyote. Yeah. They eat mammals mostly,
but well also there are omnivores el eat berries. If
there's a lot of berries, Oh yeah, they'll eat They
(10:46):
love fruit. They love figs apparently, but they're diet as
mammals supposedly. Here's the thing. If you're just kind of
like coyotes, cool, whatever, they're related to dogs in there,
you know, all over the place. I want you to just,
first of all, listen to this episode. But things just
start like researching kyotes. You will be astounded and amazed
at every turn. Coyotes like fruit. So do you know
(11:09):
what coyotes do. They climb trees and balance on branches
so that they can get all the fruit that they want.
Look it up. Look up pictures of coyotes climbing trees.
They take small animals like dogs out of the backyard,
so coyotes can jump over fences six ft are under
and squeeze through slats of pickets three inches or wider.
(11:32):
They also dig under if they need to do all
sorts of crazy stuff. Coyote will say, hey, lizard, come
here your lunch. Yeah, they'll eat lizards, will so they'll
eat just about lead, insects, Yeah, they'll lead insects, they'll um.
They specialize in rodents, small mammals, rabbits, that kind of thing,
(11:53):
but they will eat just about anything. And one of
the things that its sounded me the most is um.
And I know we're hopping all over the place here,
that's right, And I want this to just evolve into like,
here's a cool coyote effect, but it may That's all right.
They engage in the social behavior called fission fusion, where
they can be they're totally fine hunting alone, living alone,
(12:15):
but they're also totally fine hunting and packs living in
packs depending on the kinds of resources available. So if
there's like deer in an area, coyote can't take a
deer down on their own, but at coyote, if there's
deer available in the area, they'll get with other coyotes
in the area and hunt in a pack. But normally
(12:35):
they just hunt by themselves when there's like say, lots
of rabbits, because all it takes is one. But depending
on the food available and the resources available, and how
many other coyotes are in the area, they'll come into
and out of these fluid packs, depending on basically the situation.
Like what you uh. Here's another thing, Like we said,
(12:56):
they small rodents and mammals usually, But if you're an elk,
like with a head cold, watch your back because that
coyote knows it, and he knows that you're not feeling well,
and he might come at you with a buddy or
two and feast on you for a few days because
of that fusion. They've entered that fusion mode and now
(13:17):
they're hunting impacts. Here's one thing you don't really need
to worry about, is coyote attack on yourself. It has happened,
but it's very rare. One of the most astounding things
I've ever seen is a coyote that was sneaking up
on a little kid playing in their driveway, must have
(13:38):
been in California or something like that, and the family
cat comes tearing around the side of the house as
at the moment the coyote is about a pounce on
the kid and jumps onto the coyote. That one pushes
off of the coyote, the coyote takes off. The cat
saved the little kid's life. Yeah, the most amazing thing
(14:01):
I've ever seen. I saw him just from last night. Uh,
a group of a pack of coyotes was fended off
by a cat and they caught up. Someone caught it
all on their house camera. You don't mess with cats, man, No,
I know they're they're vicious. Yeah so so yeah in
that one, if you watch closely, you can show me
that one that one of the coyotes all over the caches.
(14:24):
She's basically watching animal snuff movies for a while. Researcher,
I'm like, you have to stop. This can't be healthy
for you. But um, but like should just be sitting
in bed with her knees pull chest Like they're not
going to give home off, they're not gonna get up.
But one of those coyotes to get out of the way,
the cat just jumped right up on like this five
foot wall right next to it, like a vertical leap
(14:45):
up onto the wall. It's not even like it's nothing,
but but yes, cats still mess around. With coyotes, it's
pretty amazing. So uh, they live usually only about six
to eight years in the wild. Um, they have seen
them a oldest ten or fifteen. But I kind of
wondered about dogs and like just a dog in the
woods that never a feral dog that never was claimed,
(15:08):
Like if that really was a short lifespan as well,
probably kind of curious compared to a domestic dog for sure. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Uh.
If you are a coyote, you will choose your mate
for life, which is very very sweet. Yeah, unless that
mate dies and then they are allowed to go out
and find a new mate. Socially it's okay, yeah, but yeah,
(15:32):
they they mate for life. They raised their young together. Um,
and the the young grow up really quick. They usually
have about litters of I think I saw six on average,
but it can be as low as three. I'm sure
you can go even lower than that, but it can
get up into the teens. They need them. And this
is why coyotes have proven utterly impossible to exterminate. Thankfully,
(15:56):
we stopped trying to do that, but for a very
long time we tried to and we'll talk about more later.
But the reason why it proved impossible is because coyote
mothers basically change the number of coyotes they have in
their litter depending on how the population is expanding or contracts. Amazing,
(16:16):
and they do this. One of the ways that they
figured out they do this is that coyote howell where
you hear coyote howling nearby, and then some other one
is often the distance and another one even further off.
They figured out that they are basically taking a census
how many of you got, and the last response will
actually trigger a hormonal change in female coyotes who are
(16:38):
a reproductive age, and they will have more pups than
they would have if they got in a response to
their call. Unbelievable. Uh. They have their well talk about
their families in a sect, but they raise their young
in dens. Uh. Sometimes they will make their own den,
but a lot of times they will take over the
den of another animal and uh renovate it, make it
(16:58):
their own, usually expand it a little bigger, but a
little macromay. Yeah, maybe at a steam shower perhaps, Oh nice,
You never know. Uh. They returned to their dens if
they can, uh, year after year, if it's available, and
sometimes you will find them in weird places though, like
a drainage tunnel or in the cross space of a
(17:18):
house or something. But those are obviously urban coyotes. Yeah,
and so they're their territory actually is. It can be
really big, it can be really small. It depends on
how dense their food sources are. Yeah, they're really uh
flexible yep, with with how they live their lives, like
in every single way, shape or form, so so much so.
(17:39):
I mean we talked about the fission and the fusion
um social structure. It's just this fluid social structure um
in the pack. The basic unit of of coyote society
is the family, the mother and the father, the two
alpha's and then their offspring or betas this gets really interesting,
and their offspring again, depending on the resources, they may
(18:00):
stick around and help raise another litter. Those are called helpers.
They may stick around and basically just mooch. They call
those slouches. Yes, slouches are the ones who come home
from Appalachian State spend a lot of time on the couch.
But they're they're they're in the pack. But it just
says here they're not contributing in any way basically. Yeah, um,
(18:21):
and then so some some beata's depending like if food
starts to get scarce or whatever, some alphaals will be
like you, you need to go. It's time for you
to go find your own territory, of your own range.
Go be a loner, Go find a mate, just get
out of the basement basically. Um. But other times they
might be allowed to stay, depending on the food sources.
And and that's where that fusion and fission kicks in.
(18:43):
That's right. Uh, all right, maybe we should take a
break here and we'll talk about loner coyotes right after this.
M alright, we're back, and we were talking about the
(19:13):
pack size, how it can shift depending on the resources. Uh,
there are also lone or coyotes. Maybe their beta they
get kicked off the couch finally, or maybe they are
an aged out alpha. Um. And like I said, if
you see a coyote by him or herself, that doesn't
mean maybe I should say itself doesn't necessarily mean they're rabid.
(19:33):
Because you get on these Facebook neighborhood pages and there's
coyote sites sightings, and people lose their minds and give
out a lot of bad information. It goes both ways.
People are either like say kill them, kill it, kill
it with fire as fast as you can, or else.
Other people are like, well, I've been feeding it for
the last couple of weeks. It's nice. It likes to
come play with my dogs, right, Or it's out during
(19:55):
the day it's so it's rabid for sure, or it
was by itself, so it was rabid. There aren't There
haven't been big outbreaks of rabid cavities and many many,
many years. Yeah, apparently they made a concerted effort to
eradicate rabies among coyotes and so not just coyotes, but
I think mammals in the wild in general. And so
they started basically dropping vaccines bait basically but vaccinated. Would
(20:22):
you say wolf bait? I don't think that's a widely
known term that My buddy Eddie, he's just say that
for farting, he's dropping wolf baite. He might have made
that up. So imagine if that was vaccinated, that's what
they were doing, and um, dropping wolf baite, that's that's
good stuff. I gotta say, it's nice, haven't Josh t
laughing over there? Not? Jerry's just permanent lack of care,
(20:46):
no idea, no idea. Um. So they actually managed to
largely get rid of rabies among coyotes from what we understand. Yeah,
so maybe we should talk about the beginnings. Go ahead,
I was gonna say, but they do finally carry distemper,
and they can carry rabies. Is not to say like
there are rabbid coyotes. It's just not a big problem.
And one of those Facebook commenters I quoted saying that
(21:10):
it likes to come play with my dogs. That actually happens.
Coyotes are known to play with dogs. That's how Carmine,
the rare black um coyote was trapped. He made friends
with a Great Pyrenees in Smyrna and was playing around
and like they finally set up some traps in the
yard and he fell for one of them. Um. Those
Pyrenees are beautiful dogs, they really are. But um, that
(21:32):
pyrenees hopefully had distemper vaccine because just playing with the coyote,
it can be it can it can get distemper and
that's something you want your dog to have. No, not
at all. So uh, let's talk a little bit about
the beginnings of the coyotes. They were, or at least
what we think is that coyotes and wolves and then
(21:55):
now extinct. Uh, other kind of dog basically were around,
and they were sort of the starting point for what
are counties and wolves, but they were apparently much more
like coyotes and wolves. So they generally think that counties
were sort of the the o G evolutionarily speaking, right right.
I saw also that, um, there's a line of thinking
(22:16):
that they descended from red wolves whose range still is
over the southeast in Texas. I think there's still a
few around today. Um. But the the however they started
it happened anywhere from I think two million years ago
to three hundred thousand years ago. Coyotes evolved, and again
here in North America. This is there there um home continent.
(22:41):
But as they started to evolve, the ones that first
came along were bigger and um, heavier than the coyotes
we know today. But the problem is is they were
in direct competition be based on their size with wolves,
and wolves are and have always been much more aggressive hunters.
(23:04):
They don't tolerate other aggressive predators in their range, so
they'll go after a coyote. And so this is really interesting.
Over over the years, um, just from living with wolves,
coyotes apparently started to shrink down in size so that
they could fill an ecological niche that had been left
open rodents and rabbits, which wolves don't care that much about.
(23:28):
Wolves want to take down like caribo and elk, and
they hunt in packs exclusively. They don't care about rabbits, right,
So that that left the rabbits to the coyotes and
kyotes kind of shrunk in size and started going after that.
And then one other thing that happened to Chuck was
that meant that because they were confronting wolves, the coyotes
that were more aggressive and went after wolves or went
(23:49):
to go fight wolves when wolves are around, they died out,
which left just the timid ones, right. Yeah, so coyotes.
That's why you won't fighting coyotes that are super rest
of these days, because in order to survive the wolf Challenge. Uh,
there's another good band name. The Challenge is an amazing
(24:09):
band that's not bad. There's a lot of wolf band
zoh Will Parade and wolf Mother other Wolves. That's not
the name of the band of other wolves. There might
be it could be. Um. Yeah, so those those are
the ones that stuck around. Uh. And like we said,
cooties are that's just another example of how bad they
want to survive. UM. These days, they are listed as
(24:33):
a species of Least concern, which means don't we don't
have to do anything nothing, no conservation efforts whatsoever. The
only conservation effort that has been uh hung on coyotes
is that there's a law that says we we are
not allowed to drive them to extinction, which is a
reversal of original policies. We'll see, should we go ahead
(24:56):
and talk about that. So, yeah, there was a policy,
uh when was it in the nineteen thirties, starting in
the nineteenth century, I think, okay, where they basically said,
I mean a lot of it was sensationalist journalism, but
that basically that coyotes were the scourge of the earth
and they will kill every chicken and every sheep on
your and every cow and your property and your horses,
(25:19):
and we gotta get rid of them all. Yeah. So
basically it was a response to um Anglo American ranchers,
well actually any American ranchers moving westward, UM farming cattle
and sheep and all that um. And they were just
being predated on by wolves. So really they went after
wolves first, and they were really successful at almost driving
(25:42):
all wolves to extinction because wolves hunting packs, and so
if you kill enough wolves, they don't have enough wolves
to hunt in that pack any longer, and the remaining
survivors starved to death. Right, So they really worked at
getting rid of wolves, and it was really effective. Coyotes
were less effective, but they started the coyotes started preying
on the um the prey that the wolves were no
(26:04):
longer around to prey on. So they went after coyotes
and they went after him big time. They killed hundreds
of thousands, millions and millions and millions of coyotes over
the years with like sponsored I think they uh, they said, Congress,
give us ten million dollars for the next ten years
and we'll take care of them all right. And about
the same time, so that was the Biological Survey the
(26:29):
Eradication Methods Laboratory of the Bureau of Biological Survey. Um.
They basically said, we're going to start coming up with
strict nine pills and like um little misters that shoot
um cyanide in the coyotes face. And they were lacing
carcasses with all this poison and they were killing off
all sorts of other animals too, but no one cared
(26:50):
because everyone hated the coyotes so much that that they
just didn't care how many other animals died, just as
long as we were getting rid of the coyotes. But
around that time biologists started to be like, wait a minute,
I'm not entirely certain it's a good idea to get
rid of predators or any kind of animal that we
find a nuisance, Like, that's probably not the way we
(27:11):
should be doing things. Yeah. And it also coincided with
um sort of an anti poison movement where people were like,
wait a minute, maybe we shouldn't be putting poison all
over our forests for just any old animal to die
if it comes near it. Yeah, And that was the
around the thirties, at the beginning of the thirties. But
the the the government said no, we're getting rid of
(27:33):
We're getting rid of coyotes. The ranchers interests are above
the coyotes interests. Yeah, big money, you know, talking right.
So not only did they poison them, they would shoot
them from airplanes and helicopters and still today apparently killed
tens of thousands of coyotes by shooting at them from
helicopters like taxpayer funded programs do that. Yeah, they they
(27:53):
definitely are still culling coyotes and cooties are still giving
them a little skinny paw middle finger. Right. So I
have the seventies Richard Nixon apparently banned the use of poisons,
had no idea about that, signed the Endangered Species Act
of nineteen seventy three, and that gave the coyotes enough
breathing room to basically say, Okay, we're not going to
(28:13):
go extinct. But here's the thing. Because we were so
successful at wiping out wolves, the coyotes, which have been
limited almost exclusively to the southwestern United States sir to
spread and where the wolves had once been, Coyotes started
popping up in places they had never been seen before,
(28:35):
southeastern United States. There, They've been spotted in Central America
at this point. They were found in nineteen forty on
the Apostle Islands in Wisconsin, which is, at least from
what I could tell, half a mile swim from the mainland.
And apparently they're pretty good swimmers too. Um. And then
they started to move into the suburbs, and then they
started to move into the cities, and now today, there's
(28:55):
a guy at Ohio State named Stanley Girt who specializes
in studying coyotes in Chicago. Downtown Chicago has hundreds of
coyotes living in alleyways and crevasses and all sorts of
places right out of sight of human beings. And they
just come out at night and they've learned how to
navigate traffic and just basically stay out of side. Oh,
(29:17):
if you look, if you just type in urban cooties
to your favorite search engine and looked under images, there
are pictures of coyotes like in the middle of like
strip malls and with you know, casinos behind them, and
like they're just everywhere. Like I'm surprised I haven't seen
one in Times Square at this point. Wasn't it in
Heat where they show that coyote like crossing the street
(29:37):
or crossing the highway? I haven't seen that so long.
I'm pretty sure it's in Heat. Good movie. Should we
take another break, Let's do it all right? More coy
out speak right after this. So just just to point
(30:09):
this out one more time, if you remember from our
Lyme Disease episode, we've concluded that if we had no
wiped out wolves, ticks, wouldn't have been able to take
over and expand because the dear population wouldn't have exploded.
There would not be coyotes in Chicago right now if
the wolf population was stable in the United States or
North America. Yeah, and coyotes also, we're able to live
(30:32):
in and are able to live in urban environments, whereas
wolves could not. Oh no way. So they really were
basically like, hey, we'll we'll go where the wolves won't go.
We'll eat what the wolves won't eat. We'll hunt by
ourselves because the wolves can't and uh, look at us,
we're gonna we're gonna thrive. Yeah. And without wolves, there's
(30:52):
nothing to to keep them in check, to keep their
population in check. Angry facebookers. That's it basically, So that
whole eradication campaign has been put to the side. There's
definitely still lots of coyotes that are killed every year. Yeah.
I think between two thousand and six and two thousand
eleven they killed more than half a million coyotes legally.
(31:12):
I saw that there's a half a million that are
killed a year still, Yeah, like one a minute every year.
I've also seen thirty five thousand. I don't know if
it's just certain divisions are responsible for like half a
million or maybe certain years they ramp up the efforts
more than others. I don't know, but they're there are
definitely still a tremendous amount of coyote deaths. But as
(31:33):
we've seen, coyotes have been um extremely successful in the
face of this extermination campaign. Um, just by by reproducing
depending on the local population. Yeah. Yeah, And if you're
a rancher, you you don't have to be a part
of some program like you're you're taking care of things
(31:55):
in the rancher way, which is traps, guns, yeah, poison. Yeah.
There's no laws protecting coyotes whatsover. Again, the only law
as far as I know, I think it's part of
the Endangered Species Act that says we're not allowed to
drive coyotes to extinction. But that's it. You can kill
a coyote. The only things keeping you from shooting a
(32:16):
coyote like in city limits or gun ordinances. Basically, you
can kill a coyote anyway you want. Um. But here's
the thing, go visit in the hospital. Um. But the
thing is is what they're starting to figure out now
is because they're so successful that you don't actually want
(32:37):
to kill them. Killing them has this ripple effect through
their society where they start reproducing more. And here's the
other thing. If the coyote is still not if it's
not acting aggressively towards humans, if it hasn't started to
take pets, if you just know it's in the area
but it's trying to keep its distance, you may actually
be better off with that coyote because if you get
(33:00):
rid of that coyote, another coyote is going to move in,
and that coyote might be much more aggressive than the
last one you just got rid of. Like, if you've
got a decent neighbor, maybe that's good enough. So that's
kind of like the idea that's dawning over people with
coyote management is coyotes aren't going anywhere. They're staying put,
and the best you can hope for is one that
(33:21):
keeps this distance and is afraid of humans. Yeah, which
is generally what's going on in urban areas. Uh, when
we're talking about ranchers. The reason they're doing this is
not just because they hate coyotes, is that they lose
a lot of um animals due to uh, these predators
they that just sounded so mean. These predators. Uh, there's
(33:44):
it's hard to get good stats. But the US d
d A said in two thousand fifteen there was self reporting,
which you always got to kind of wonder of thirty
three thousand a little more in change of adult sheep,
four thousand lambs lost to coyotes, and again that self reported,
So take it with a grain of salt. But there
they do lose a lot of animals and chickens and
(34:06):
things like that. I've gone on my soapbox before about
keeping your cats inside. I'm not gonna do that again
except to say keep your cats inside. Yeah, if you have,
like you know, you're on the fence about keeping your
cats inside, you just watch some of the videos that
you be seen, yeah, or just cats being taken. Do
I want my cat to live several years longer? Because
(34:26):
the statistics show that outdoor cats don't live as long.
And not just that, um, not just with cats too,
but also with dogs if you if they're coyotes in
the area, and there's a really good chance there are
no matter where you live in the US, you um
do not You should not leave your small dog, in
particular outside unattended. You basically let them out, hang out
(34:48):
with them, and then let them back in. You definitely
don't leave them out at dusk or at dawn by
themselves or overnight. That's right. Uh, we said that you
don't need to worry too much about being attacked as
a human. There were a couple of kind of grizzly cases.
One that's just very difficult to even talk about, frankly.
In nine, little three year old girl was dragged from
her driveway in California and the dad did rescue her,
(35:12):
but she died as a result of her injuries from
that fracas. In two thousand nine, there was a really
strange thing in Canada where a nineteen year old woman
was stalked and killed by at least two coyotes while
hiking in the middle of the day. And this is
apparently the only, like only adult human killed by coyotes
(35:32):
on record. So yeah, and the only explanation for that
that I could possibly come up with is that she
was around their den. It was around their pup raising time,
right say, spring and summer is a pretty bad time
to be around, getting real defensive of their turf. And
then thirdly that those were um mated with wolves. Uh.
Interesting because when the coyotes will mate with dogs, they
(35:54):
will mate with wolves. It's not like super widespread, but
it does happen in producing coy dogs and coy wolves.
But the coy wolves in particular can be much more
aggressive than your standard coyote. Yeah, so I wonder if
those three factors played a role in it. Probably it
was definitely an outlier. It's it's very I mean, it's
sad no matter what did that girl also, she was
(36:16):
like an up and coming country singer, like on the
verge of breaking out and Taylor Mitchell. Yeah yeah. So
um they say, like we said that these kill couty
programs don't even work that well and that there is
uh their statistics to back up the fact that, um,
non lethal methods of county control or more effective, which
(36:39):
we're talking about scaring them, like wind chimes and air horns.
They're really skitty and jumpy, So if you make a
lot of noise in front of a county they're probably
gonna bolt. Yeah, it's called hazing. Yeah, and you don't
like anytime you see a coyote around your area really anywhere,
just be a good neighbor. You want to haze them,
(37:00):
do you not just let it happen? Don't just let
it pass by? Like, you need to take that opportunity
to haze them, to keep them feeling insecure, more secure. Right,
The more secure uh a coyote feels, the more the
more um audacious, embrazen, they're going to become coming into
your yard trying to take your your dog or your cat.
So you want to haze them every chance you get
(37:22):
so that they know to stay over there. This is
their turf, this is your turf. Right, So if you
have an umbrella, you want to open the umbrella. This
says to pick up your small dog. Um, I've also
read right, I've also read you don't want to do
that because you make yourself small when you do that,
and you when when when you're hazing a kyote, you
want to make yourself as big as possible. What do
(37:43):
you mean yourself? When you squat down to pick up
your dog, you seem smaller than you do standing up
with your arms spread, but do it very quickly. Well,
But the better thing to do is keep your dog
on a non flexi lead, like a straight leash. It's
no more than like six ft and things. Just keep it,
just pull it back close to you while you're like
waving your arm and shouting at the kyote to go away. Yeah.
(38:06):
And I also thought it was funny that Ed pointed
out that like even if you have a big dog
that could like kill a coyote, Like, is someone gonna say, like, oh,
I think you can take them, go get him zeus?
Yeah maybe not, some people would know. You never know.
Have you seen those Irish wolfhounds. M sure they're like
the largest, the largest dogs. Yeah, wolfhounds. They're like bread
(38:29):
to take on wolves, So they could take on a coyote.
I could see that having that temptation be like, yeah,
my dog really could take on this coyote. Maybe what
did I? Oh? No, that was dingoes that petted in Australia.
Of course, that they were coyotes is not North America.
But dingoes were a little they weren't dogs either, And
and it was like foxes No, I mean they look
(38:51):
like dogs, but when you're around them, and this was
at a place where you can hold koalas and stuff
like that, it was obvious that it's not a dog. No,
they're wild dogs right, Well not I don't even think
they're wild dogs. Um or maybe I mean they're they're
totally related. But I just remember getting the sense um
Scotty and I both did my friend that was with me,
(39:12):
um whom you know, they just there was a certain
the way they carried themselves. And I'm just like, you're
not a dog. It literally is a dog Canus lupus dingo.
So it's a subspecies of like dogs. Yeah, but what
I was saying, not a dog, like not a domesticated dog,
wild dog. Yeah, you could just tell the difference. And
(39:34):
I'm sure the same is true with coyotes because coit dogs,
like you said, are things. Look at that cute little dingo. Um.
Coit dogs are in kit puppies are super adorable and
technically you can raise one and even a full county
if you get it as a puppy, you could have
it as a pet. It's not a good idea because
(39:54):
they are coyotes and the cody's gonna coyote. H it
has happened there or you know, you see those eccentric
people out there that have like a pet coyote. It's
the thing, but it's just not a good idea. They're unpredictable. Yeah,
you don't want to like get a cat companion for him.
Um in the United States. So uh, the coyotes image
(40:18):
has really gone through some weird transitions. Early on had
a really bad reputation UM and apparently was made way
worse by Mark Twain when he wrote rough in It
in seventy two. There were a few pages dedicated to
how lowly a coyote is, and everybody was like, yeah,
we hate coyotes from that point on. But that actually
(40:39):
followed in partially this view that had been around for
ages that Native Americans had of coyotes, not necessarily that
it was a lowly animal, but that it was a trickster,
kind of like a brare rabbit type. UM. But then
he was also in some with some some groups like
(40:59):
the Creator God, the Creator Deity. There's all sorts of
different roles that the coyote played in Native American mythologies,
because there were so many different Native American mythologies. But
it was very prominent in Southwestern tribes UM mythologies, and
very frequently as a trickster, very frequently. Yeah, good stuff. Yeah,
(41:20):
I don't have anything else. I don't believe I do either.
If you see a coyote, Hayes, it really shouldn't kill it, like,
make sure that it's kept on its feet and insecure
your Petzil. Thank you. If you want to know more
about coyotes, go look up a coyote standing in a
tree and that will really set you off. Since I
(41:41):
said that it's time for listener mail, I'm gonna call
this grizzly trigger warning email. Has to do with our
body under the Bed episode, So you know, if you're
not into listening to this kind of stuff, tune it out. Hey,
guys listening to the body into the Bed episode, and
was reminded of a similar awful case in Jacksonville, Florida,
(42:03):
where I live. In my neighborhood, an eight year old girl, Maddie,
disappeared while playing outside one afternoon and year yard her yard.
Long story short. Her neighbor Josh Phillips, who was fourteen
at the time, was playing with her and accidentally hit
her in the head, she said, with a baseball bat
injuring her. I looked into this. Apparently the story was
she threw the ball, he hit the ball, and the
(42:25):
ball hit her in the face. She started bleeding and crying.
He and this is me talking now, not the email.
He freaked out because his dad was an abusive alcoholic
and he was afraid his dad was gonna come home
and see what he'd done, so he panicked back to
the email. He ended up killing her to keep her
quiet and stashing her body in the cavern beneath his
(42:47):
water bed on the second floor of his house, and
the eight days that follow, a massive community effort ensued
to locate her, and Josh, her murderer, even participated in this,
handing out flyers. He slept in that bed for seven
nights over her body. Police had even searched the home
several times, and the odor in his room was attributed
to many pet birds and cages he had and a
(43:08):
typical fourteen year old boy funk. Uh not a bad
band name either. She was discovered when they searched a
terrible four general boyfunk. Typical fourteen year old boyfunk. Well, no,
I just think boyfunk. Maybe none of that's good. I'd
take it all back. She was discovered when they searched
the home again and noticed a stain on the ceiling
(43:31):
on the floor below his room. Um, I thought it
was a blood stain. But I looked it up. I
think it was a leak from the waterbed and stained
and that fortuitously led to finding her. He remains in prison,
which has always been a big debate here when it
comes up for parole um. Just reason happened, m I
looked it up. I think this was in ninety eight
(43:52):
and he was fourteen. Wow. Wow, he's been in prison
the whole time. Huh. Yeah, and it was. It's a
very tough thing because you know, his father was an
abuse of alcohol. Like he reacted because he was afraid
that he was going to come home and find him out,
and freaked out and hit this girl with a baseball bat,
put her under the bed, and when he found that
she was still making noise, this gets really bad. He
stabbed her like eleven times and killed her. So it
(44:14):
is just a sad, sad, tragic case all the way around.
That is from Mary. She said, I love the show
and have my husband hooked now too. She said, the
trauma then emotions of those eight days is something I
will never ever forget. Yeah, very tough case. I don't
know if thanks as appropriate, Mary, but I can't think
of anything else to say. Yeah, I don't even know
(44:36):
why I decided to read that. That was really sort
of caught me, caught my attention. Yeah, I can see
how Chuck. Well, if you want to get in touch
with us like Mary did, don't. If you want to anyway,
you can send us an email to Stuff podcast did
i heeart radio dot com. Stuff You Should Know is
(44:58):
a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For
more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
M m hm hm
Stuff You Should Know News
Hosts And Creators
Josh Clark
Chuck Bryant
Show Links
Order Our BookRSSStoreSYSK ArmyAboutPopular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.