Read an Excerpt
The Voice of the Coyote, Second Edition
By J. Frank Dobie
University of Nebraska Press
Copyright © 2006
University of Nebraska PressAll right reserved.
ISBN: 0-8032-6659-6
Introduction
In J. Frank Dobie's fine and timeless work we experience the fascinating
narratives of a true naturalist, one who understands and
has deep sympathy for the natural world and the intelligence that
imbues it. When Dobie first published
The Voice of the Coyote in
1947, the American West was vanishing, mythic terrain. Dobie's
stories, accompanied by Olaus Murie's transcendent illustrations,
perfectly capture this way of life, one that defined the American
West, and the nation as a whole. Read from a cultural perspective,
Dobie's text remains an important and charming document. His
tales of ranching culture, trappers, and life lived close to the land,
although perhaps harsh to modern sensibilities, remain always
vibrant and true.
Dobie was a rare man, at once highly educated and also firmly
grounded in the Texas ranching culture where he grew up. He had
one foot planted in the practical world of cattlemen and natural
history, and the other in literature and human culture. His stories
bring us to understand how once, not long ago, we lived in rather
than on top of our world. It is this ethos of belonging that runs
through Dobie's work like the light tracks of a coyote across the
landscape, traveling but also tying us tothe real. We are drawn
in, nostalgic and occasionally horrified-it is disconcerting work
to be truly immersed in the domain of the natural. Today we
live without strong connections to the ecosystems that sustain us.
Dobie and Murie lived in intimate harmony with them. But we
must not be overly nostalgic about that harmonious state, because
it required toughness-the ability to tolerate blood, suffering, and
death. The Voice of the Coyote is the best combination of literature
and natural history, the integration of the horrifying and the sublime.
From the American West of the early nineteenth century little
remains but small islands of intact ecosystems, along with the
iconic and eternal figure of the coyote: predator, scavenger, trickster,
and survivor. Dobie was fascinated by coyotes, which are, in
a way, so perfectly American. Coyotes are the avatars of adaptability,
the ultimate generalists among the carnivores.
Today, coyotes remain tremendously important ecologically.
As humans have eradicated large carnivores throughout their historic
ranges, coyotes have moved in, and they are now the largest
apex predator in approximately forty-five percent of the continental
United States, filling the role of both predator and scavenger.
Recent research has shown that predators serve a critical part in
stabilizing ecosystems, and throughout North America it is the
coyote that provides an essential component of system stability.
It is the coyote's storied adaptability, switching from one food
source to another, that equalizes predation pressures and dampens
population oscillations in other species from small mammals to
ungulates. Ecologists are beginning to understand that ecosystems
without predators are more vulnerable to degradation, and
that the roles of generalist and specialist predators alike function
to stabilize and protect these systems.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Voice of the Coyote, Second Edition
by J. Frank Dobie
Copyright © 2006 by University of Nebraska Press.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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