Its spring in the Kansas outdoors and all the critters are on the prowl around chicken coops and corrals looking for quick easy meals to feed dens and nests full of youngins’.

I’ve already had a call from a local sheep farmer asking me to come trap coyotes and a bobcat hanging around his sheep pens. Those coyotes and that cat would undoubtedly be hanging out there anyway, but usually at night, unseen. This time of the year emboldens predators to hunt and prowl during the day when they would otherwise never think of it.

In late spring a few years ago, my friend was busy in the big round top shed that sits toward one corner of his yard, when his little Blue Heeler dog began raising cane from outside. He stuck his head out the door to see what was agitating the dog and noticed the roosters and the rest of the chickens in his chicken pen crowing, cackling and nervously milling about.

He glanced behind the barn nearest the pen and noticed something bounding around wildly just behind the corral, less than 50 yards away. He headed around the barn and through the corral and found a whitetail doe jumping and dodging frantically around something in the field drive ahead. That “something” turned out to be a pair of coyotes with a small whitetail fawn pinned to the ground between them.

My friend ran toward the melee shouting and waving his arms, the doe retreated into a nearby patch of weeds and the coyotes scattered toward parts unknown, leaving the lifeless looking fawn on the ground before him. Even though only a few scratches were apparent, the fawn lay there limp and listless. He said that as he stroked its small spotted body, the light suddenly came back into its eyes. It jumped to its feet and after getting its bearings, instinctively headed for cover. As he watched from a distance, the doe joined the fawn and they disappeared into a thicket some distance away.

Like springtime on the farm, springtime in the wild is a season filled with babies everywhere. Just as that whitetail doe had her fawn to protect and feed, you can bet those coyotes had a den full of hungry little mouths to feed also. It is no coincidence that there is more prey available in the form of young, easily caught critters at this time each year, just exactly when every wild animal needs extra prey to feed its young.

Isn’t it amazing how everything seems to come full circle back to the fact that God knew exactly what He was doing when he engineered the order of things! Even with the glut of easily caught lunches right now in the wild, predators are still opportunists at heart and will not think twice about grabbing a young farm animal if given the chance. As spring turns into July and August, increased predation seen in the spring will slow again, but in the meantime, there are a few extra precautions that can be taken to at least make the opportunists think twice about grabbing’ something from the coop or corral.

Even though you can’t keep an eye on poultry and young farm animals 24/7, giving them a place under roof to spend the night will help dramatically. Giving poultry a place to spend the night behind a closed door is a good thing any time of the year. Remember, despite their willingness to prowl more during daylight right now, a predator’s favorite time to hunt is still after dark.

Playing a radio at night and keeping a couple lights lit in the barn where sheep and goats spend the night will help make predators think humans are there.

The most effective predator prevention is probably the presence of a good watch dog, even if it’s small. Dogs of any size make predators nervous, and even though any coyote, bobcat or raccoon worth its salt can easily overpower most small dogs especially if they catch them out in the open, a noisy little mutt relentlessly yapping away at them as they slink around the barn or sheep pen will usually make them back off and look for quieter pickin’s.

Yup, its spring time in the Kansas outdoors again, and all the critters have families to feed. Unfortunately that means predators too, so as they follow their God-given instincts to protect and feed their young, young farm animals might be taken if the chance arises. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not condoning that, after all, I’m a coyote trapper. But I am saying that understanding why it happens helps me look at it from a slightly different perspective ….Continue to Explore Kansas Outdoors!

Steve Gilliland, Inman, can be contacted by email at [email protected].

As I write this at my summer desk in the entomology museum at Northwest Agricultural and Forestry University Entomology Museum in Yangling, China, about one hour west of Xi’an, workers have been continually carting new insect drawers through the walkway to the insect museum. And this is the second day they have been bringing in these supplies. The collections here already form the largest collections of leafhoppers in the world, and they are expanding all of their collections.

What makes this more ominous for the United States is that our National Science Foundation has placed a moratorium on museum grants for the 2016 year, putting on hold the same types of activities I describe above for China. Collection curators across the United States are tightening their belts and holding their breath. But as we observe both the U.S. and state legislatures downsize funding for most things “science” including emergency requests for the Zika virus, there is a stark contrast between the public and political attitudes toward science in China and the United States.

This became even clearer last week when Chinese President Xi Jinping addressed the Chinese national conference on science and technology in Beijing on May 30, 2016. His address reflected the attitude of Chinese today that so reminds me of the U.S. attitude toward science in the 1950s and 1960s.

Door-to-door surveys of Americans back then asked “Will tomorrow be better than today?”

And Americans responded enthusiastically “Yes!” Not only were our economic conditions generally improving, but we were going to the Moon!

Ask that question in this last decade (Great Recession, greater income disparity, two-party gridlock) and the answer in America is a resounding “No!” And data show that while America has never had as many millionaires as we have today, the average American has good reason to believe that our children will have a more difficult life.

Ask about science today and far too many Americans likewise fear advances in embryo research, cloning, and GM agriculture. Many see science as another politicized or commercial activity, from global warming to driver-less cars.

China reminds me of the U.S. in our former science enthusiastic decades. Yes, China is going to the Moon. But they know tomorrow will be better than today because today is dramatically better than yesterday. They joke that the national bird is the crane—the construction crane, that is—because construction is still moving full steam ahead and cranes are everywhere.

I edit the English of nearly a hundred Chinese science papers per year and most of them are partly underwritten by their National Natural Science Foundation. The criteria for promotion at all of China’s universities is publication—modeled after the U.S. Carnegie I Research Universities—and it is highly rewarded. As a result, the number of Chinese authors of research published in the top science journals Nature and Science is poised to overtake the number of American authors.

China’s President Xi Jinping laid out the clear goal that “China should establish itself as one of the most innovative countries by 2020 and a leading innovator by 2030” according to Xinhua News. The final objective is to become the “world-leading science and technology power”—read that as “Number One” in the world—by the 100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 2049. They are backing up those words by doubling their national natural science foundation budget over the next few years. Yes: double!

The contrast between the parade of new insect drawers that is occurring behind me as their collection expands 55 percent, versus the year-long freeze in U.S. museum spending my colleagues face back home, is ominous.

I again recall the words of India’s first Prime Minister Nehru: “The future belongs to those countries that make friends with science.”

And right now, the U.S. is not very science friendly.