Coyote brings death to special setting

To the editor:

April 7, 2012, was a sad day on Peach Ave. in Fairfield. A kind, loving pony mare laid down to give birth, not knowing a coyote who is owned by the DNR can smell her. As she gets up to walk to the pond for a drink of water she is followed. Foot prints in the mud is that of a coyote beside her foot prints. Flick is the name the little boy called his pony. Now his dead pony. Yes, Flick had fresh mud on her feet and hocks to prove the rest of the story.

As Flick walked back to lay down in the clean green grass to give birth, so did the coyote. As the baby colt?s nose came out of Flick, the coyote was ready for breakfast. This is the wild west her in the middle of Penn township, Jefferson County. Teeth marks on the little nose, Flick gives another push, not knowing what was behind her. This time the coyote grabs the right ear, pulls the skin off the right side of colt?s head over the eye. Baby lays dead. Flick jumps up. To late, coyote grabs mouth full of flesh leaving teeth marks. In doing this Flick lost a part of the bowel.

As I walk out over a small slope I see Flick laying on the grass with her head across her baby?s neck, she had tears in her eyes, with her nose moving back and forth on the dead baby?s mane. I got Flick up to give her a shot to help her clean out the afterbirth. She was weak, shaking and could hardly stand.

I called the veterinarian, I knew I needed help. When he arrived he said he had seen this before when he worked in the western states while in school. The coyote can smell a cow, ewe or mare ready to give birth. This is easy prey for them. The smell of blood is all the same to the predators the DNR owns. Baby calves, lambs, colts or human babies all have blood.

I was advised by the vet. I could take Flick to a big city and have reconstructive surgery done on her rectum. I looked at Flick, looked back at the vet. I asked him to draw up a syringe full of medicine and follow me back to the pasture and put her down by her baby to sleep. That is what Flick wanted. I admire the vet for his honesty and for what he did to help a little boy?s pony. He advised me to call a game warden.

Now the fun begins. I asked the DNR if they would like to pay a vet bill and for a pony since they own the predators. No way are they liable, for anything. I was also told there is no problem. Who pays his wages to defend the coyotes? In the April 4, 2012 Farm Bureau paper there is in big letters ?Coyotes threatening calving season? in Henry County. Same week, 20 miles east.

I was told by a DNR worker that he realized I was a horse lover. I called him back and told him there were 44 baby lambs and 21 ewes in the same pasture that Flick was eaten alive by their predators.

To all DNR, the vet bill came to me today. Do you or any of your game wardens care that your predators killed a little boy?s pony. That they have killed pheasants, quail, rabbits and more. Man is the only predator the coyote has.

If I shoot a deer to feed my family, I have to pay a big fine to pay your wages. Than there are costs for wormer, shots for a mare that is in foal, feed and hay. Who is going to pay all this?

30 days later who cares? I care. I can?t forget the look in Flick?s eyes as she fell to the ground by her dead baby.

I want the farmers and public to know that there is a big problem when this kind of a killing takes place in our state.

? Jeanette Lacey, Fairfield