Coyote Watch Canada

Who is Lesley Sampson?

Coyote Watch Canada, under the leadership of its founder, Lesley Sampson, presents itself as a scientific authority on all things coyote-related. The only problem? Sampson is not a biologist, a wildlife scientist, or even a trained ecologist—she's a school teacher with a penchant for misusing scientific terminology to sound authoritative. Case in point: her baffling application of the word fossorial to describe coyotes, a term that actually refers to animals adapted for digging and living underground, like moles or gophers. Coyotes, being neither mole-like nor tunnel-dwelling, might be surprised to learn they’ve been reassigned as subterranean creatures by Sampson’s creative vocabulary.

One of her more colorful linguistic misfires is calling coyotes an eco-thermometer, a term that, as far as actual science is concerned, doesn’t exist in any ecological framework. Presumably, she meant indicator species, a term used for organisms that signal environmental health or degradation. Even then, slapping that label on coyotes is a stretch, given their adaptability to nearly any environment, healthy or otherwise. If coyotes were environmental thermometers, they’d always read “room temperature,” because they’re just as comfortable in pristine wilderness as they are in a county dump or behind a fast-food joint.

Then there’s her insistence that coyotes are a keystone species, a claim that’s misleading at best. Whether a species is truly keystone depends entirely on scale and location—what might be a keystone predator in one ecosystem could be just another mesocarnivore in another. Declaring coyotes as keystone everywhere is ecological oversimplification, the kind of broad-stroke claim that sounds profound to the untrained ear but falls apart under scrutiny. Real wildlife management is about nuance, but nuance doesn’t seem to be on the syllabus at Coyote Watch Canada.Sampson’s enthusiasm for her cause is undeniable, but enthusiasm doesn’t equal expertise. Her knack for dressing up flawed ideas in scientific terminology doesn’t make them any more valid—it just misinforms the public, who might mistake her self-assured delivery for actual ecological knowledge. As a secondary educator in Canada, one can only hope she doesn’t pass these same half-baked ideas on to her students, lest we end up with a generation that believes coyotes are underground-dwelling, climate-measuring, ecosystem linchpins in every landscape they inhabit.

Cash for thesis

Leslie Sampson claims her expertise on coyote behavior comes from a thesis she supposedly wrote in 1997/98 on canid pack movement analysis at Brock University. But where is it? Despite this being the foundation of her credibility, Sampson hasn’t published it or made it available for scrutiny. Why? Maybe it’s a scientific disaster, given her tendency to misuse terms like a kid playing Mad Libs with a biology textbook.So, let’s put on our detective hats—if this thesis exists, it should be out there somewhere. Let’s track it down and see if it holds up or crumbles like a house of cards. Are you up for the challenge?Cash reward for anyone who can find a legitimate copy of Lesley Sampson's imaginary thesis

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Aversion what?

Lesley Sampson's use of the term "aversion conditioning" is a perfect example of someone trying to sound smart while missing the mark entirely. It's like calling a toque a “head sweater”—it might sound good to a novice, but it’s wrong on every level.The actual term is aversive conditioning, which refers to using an unpleasant stimulus to modify an animal's behavior, like loud noises or projectiles. But Sampson, apparently not up to date with basic behavioral science, tosses out "aversion conditioning" like it’s a legit term.Aversion conditioning often occurs without direct confrontation usually involving passive learning. Example: associating a food source with sickness (e.g., taste aversion). The animal forms an unconscious, long-term association rather than responding to direct stimulus.If you're trying to convince people you’re an expert on wildlife management, maybe don’t flaunt your lack of scientific terminology. It’s a classic hoser move, showing that when it comes to coyote conservation, she’s just making it up as she goes.

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