The Last Coyote
(Previously published as Slaughter the Animals, Poison the Earth) It is the extermination of the coyote – a shrewd, wily, solitary scavenger— that serves as the central theme of Jack Olsen's ragingly indignant, beautifully written and deeply moving book, perhaps the most gripping and important work of its kind since the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Poisoned, hunted, a bounty placed on their heads, their pelts nailed to fence posts, the coyotes symbolize the heartless and brutal way in which man has made the West his own as if nature had no place there. Olsen describes how, in the vast stretches of the American West, the wildlife is being systematically exterminated for the profit of ranchers and stockmen ... with the cooperation of government agencies. Hardest hit of all the animals are the great predators -- wildcats, wolves, eagles, bears, mountain lions, coyotes -- all now on the verge of extinction.
