Texas ranchers turn to 5,000-year-old solutions to combat returning coyotes

CENTRAL TEXAS — Coyotes are resurging across Central Texas, threatening the region’s ranching industry decades after the predators were nearly eradicated.

The surge has caused severe economic losses for sheep and goat farmers, a crisis that intensified in the late 1960s. At Hillingdon Ranch, the Giles family lost 400 head of livestock in 1970, a loss representing 70% of their potential annual income.

Ranchers have found that traditional methods—including steel traps, aerial hunting by helicopter, and reinforced fencing—often fail to outsmart the intelligent predators.

A primary cause for the coyote comeback is the fragmentation of historic land. As large ranches are subdivided and sold, new landowners frequently neglect the predator control efforts maintained by previous generations.

Rather than relying on extermination, experts now advocate for the use of livestock guardian dogs. This 5,000-year-old method provides a more effective deterrent than killing, as the presence of well-trained dogs significantly reduces attacks.

The conflict between ranchers and wildlife in the American West is more than a simple dispute over livestock predation; it serves as a microcosm of a profound structural shift in the region’s socio-economic landscape. At the core of this tension lies a fundamental transformation in land use. The sprawling family ranches that once formed the backbone of the local agricultural economy are increasingly being fragmented. As large tracts are subdivided for suburban development or sold to urban elites as recreational retreats, both the ecological balance and the localized culture of land management are being disrupted.

This transition has practical implications for predator management. New landowners often lack the incentive or the institutional knowledge to participate in established community-based predator control networks. This vacuum has created an ecological opening for highly adaptable species, most notably the coyote. The persistent struggle of the Giles family highlights the limitations of traditional lethal intervention. As coyotes adapt to traps and bypass fencing, the result is a violent and ultimately unsustainable arms race.

The path forward suggests a pivot in policy and mindset: a transition from extermination to managed coexistence. By revisiting ancient solutions—specifically the use of livestock guardian dogs—ranchers are finding success in deterrence rather than destruction. This model relies on natural balance rather than brute force. Ultimately, the Western experience offers a lesson in policy humility, demonstrating that sustainable solutions for modern ecological management may well be found in the rediscovery of methods that have existed for millennia.

This narrative captures a side of rural life and Western Americana often seen in movies but rarely felt in the lived experiences of the Vietnamese diaspora. For a community largely concentrated in urban enclaves like Little Saigon—where daily life revolves around the nail salon industry, family-run phở restaurants, and the complexities of navigating F2B or H-1B visas—this rustic landscape feels like a world apart from the metropolitan centers we call home. While our collective impact is often measured by urban entrepreneurship and the flow of remittances back home, this story explores a facet of the American spirit that remains foreign to many in our community.