BOOKS: The World of the Coyote
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 1994:
The World of the Coyote, by Wayne Grady. Sierra Club Books (730 Polk
St., San Francisco, CA 94109), 1994. 143 pages, 72 color photos, $25.00 hard-
back.
“In the early 1940s,” Wayne Grady recounts, “the citizens of Klamath County,
Oregon, instituted an intensive campaign to eradicate the coyote. By 1947 there was not a
single coyote in Klamath County. But there were field mice. The cost in lost crops soared
into the millions of dollars, far more than had ever been attributed to damage by coyotes. In
the end, Klamath County began to reintroduce the coyote.”
This episode alone is worth the price of the book ––and is just one of many quotable
passages in a richly illustrated text that belongs in every school library. Those who already
know and appreciate coyotes will be enthralled; so will be many who have never met one.
