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.

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.

Jack Olsen describes how, in the vast stretches of the America 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, bears, mountain lions, coyotes – all now on the verge of extinction.

By decimating those species which seem to him inconvenient or wasteful or unprofitable, man has laid a waste his own heritage, sown the seeds of a poisoned earth, a dead land…and gone far along in the destruction of his own humanity.