Coyotes have an undeservedly bad reputation.

Coyotes have an undeservedly bad reputation.

Out west, ranchers look on them as furtive predators who will kill and eat their sheep, even though naturalists say the animals' diet is primarily rodents, including rabbits. Basically, coyotes are opportunistic feeders. They'll try anything for a meal, including porcupines: They're one of that prickly animal's few successful predators. You could say coyotes have the same wide-ranging tastes as humans. They'll just settle for less.

Coyotes look a lot like a rough-and-tumble version of man's best friend, and they have wonderful singing voices. Still, coyotes seem to be the animal folks love to hate. There's even that Wile E. Coyote character in cartoons, who's constantly the butt of practical jokes perpetrated by the Road Runner.

Coyotes' biggest success is their adaptability, and it's also their biggest liability. They get along very well alongside humans. And these days there are enough coyotes in Pennsylvania, for example, that there's an open season on them. Such is the disrespect in which these versatile animals are held that they're treated like vermin. You can hunt them almost year-round, even at night, even using using bait.

And that brings us to these howling hounds' undeserved bad reputation. Even the wiliest coyote who, taking a break from bunnies or moles, manages to wangle an occasional tender farm-raised animal for dinner, doesn't compare in deviousness to some of the truly sneaky types who hunt them.

Just look at the rules for the upcoming coyote hunt that Promised Land Sportsmen's Association is sponsoring from Jan. 25-27, complete with daily and grand cash prizes for the heaviest coyotes. According to outdoor columnist Ron Tussel, "hunt organizers have the right to have a necropsy performed on any entry in order to prove that the animal was not previously frozen or altered for weight enhancement."

Now, that's low-down.

Then again, that's humans for you. They'll do anything for a buck.