Growing up on Cape Cod, Jon Way was a typical outdoorsy kid who excelled in Track in high school and loved sports. Always
outside with his friends, he couldn’t help but frequently run across the area wildlife, from deer to coyotes, and often met researchers who chose Cape Cod to study them. Now he has written possibly the most comprehensive book available on coyotes in the suburbs of the Northeast. Taken from the journal writings of the author, this book is by a young, idealistic scholar that grew up loving
animals and managed to weave his educational accomplishments around the study of them in their own secret worlds. These encounters sparked a desire in him to further his education in this area, something he was able to do with the help of Ecology teachers from his high school who were already involved in their own similar pursuits. That started Jon on his way. After ten years of field study, tracking coyotes all over Massachusetts, during which he got his BS at UMASS Amherst, went on to get his Masters Degree, and then his Ph.D., Jon was ready to put it all down in print. His nearly fifteen notebooks filled with data on box-trapping coyotes and fitting them with radio collars and then using a receiver to track them, became his manuscript. The coyotes were numbered, catalogued, and their behavior and eating habits studied, genealogies tracked, their mates and hunting habits logged, where they slept, gave birth, and died. Dr. Way explains that coyotes lived primarily in the southern and western US, and few if any ever ventured into the Northeast and survived. Wolves were driven out when the country was settled and the thick human settlements prevented most predators from co-existing with man for over a hundred years. But in Suburban Howls, he says that in the last 50 years, the tables have turned. Not only has most wildlife learned to live in the green nooks and crannies within our cities and towns, but eastern coyotes have virtually become experts in such ventures and may be the most successful of all wild predators to live among us. Jon chronicled his tracking events and all that he learned from each individual coyote and their pack members. This was the beginning of his nonprofit research organization, Eastern Coyote Research, an organization that came into being officially with the publication of this, his first book. He writes boldly, questioning the need for wildlife “management” that is simply a word that is used to disguise ‘killing for fun and profit’ to fill state coffers. He calls for readers to become gentle activists by letting local governments know they want to interact with live wildlife, not just kill it. Our world has changed, Jon says, and we are no longer an entire civilization of hunters. In fact, less than 1% of the population of Massachusetts hunts, and this, he says, is the reason for extending hunting seasons to sell more licenses – people aren’t participating any more. He urges us to get with the program and encourage photo contests instead of using lethal weapons. Entry fees for such events would put far more money in government coffers than current programs pushing hunting on now disinterested civilians. While doing all this, Jon also had a dream of someday raising wild coyote pups and studying their behavior up close, knowing they could never be pets, and once habituated to man, never returned to the wild. It was a dilemma he couldn’t solve, until a local zoo needed coyotes for an exhibit and with many entities working together, they all literally saved a large coyote family that was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and were facing apprehensive neighbors and possibly threatened by state officials. Jon became a surrogate parent to five infant coyote pups, and his bachelor pad was turned into a coyote nursery/laboratory to document their every poop and morsel of food consumed, first whines, first social interactions, and he tells it all with humor any
animal lover will delight in. But there are down sides, and when periodically some of his study animals might disappear, it fell to Jon and his helpers to try to find these suddenly missing coyotes by their radio signals. The emotion runs high at many points in the book as Jon describes how he played detective and then had to relay the news of what he has found to his colleagues. Jon also has dreams of a Coyote Discovery Center in the dunes of Cape Cod and he tells the reader about how he envisions it all to come to pass, from the vantage point of a 105-year-old. At the end, he writes a touching Ode to Caspar, the largest and oldest coyote he had ever trapped and tracked, who although no longer able to produce pups, is still occasionally spotted by him today, roaming the wilds of Cape Cod and eluding both people and other coyotes, as she seeks to live out an old age on her own. This book is appropriate for ages 10 to adult. Explanations are provided in the text from discussion on wildlife management policies to the converging mindsets of rednecks and animals lovers. There is a glossary in the back, along with multiple simple appendices. An interesting and informative book by a new author who is obviously a dedicated educator as well.