And it doesn’t hurt to have a naturalist’s intimate knowledge of the land.

Those who cultivate these species successfully combine a farmer’s intuition with a scientist’s methods. Nurseries are vital in restoring native plants. Fish and Wildlife Service, Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife, The Nature Conservancy and private land conservationists have all been working to restore native habitats – vital for a host of interesting creatures from indigo snakes to ocelots, as well as a tremendous variety of bird species. Pons currently has an ample store of “scat seeds” in a sealed refrigerator, where they’re protected from rodents and insects. That is still to be determined, but the results speak for themselves.Ĭoyotes frequently travel roads and human trails, so gathering their scat is easy. Is it simply because the beetles don’t eat the seed in coyote scat? Or does the seed germinate better because of something that happens to it in the coyote’s gut? In fact, he’s achieved a previously unheard-of 97 percent germination rate on the seeds. “I said, ‘Guys, from now on we’re going to the coyotes.’” “Two weeks later we had sabal palms popping up all over the place,” he says with a proud chuckle. Pons and his crew planted a bunch of the coyote-eaten seeds. When we removed the other, well, crap, we had a mass of sabal palm seeds.” A coyote scat with sabal palm seeds. “We gathered it up and put it on a sieve and ran water over it. “When I realized that, I told my staff to go collect coyote scat,” he says. Pons found old seeds that bore no marks of beetles. And once they passed through the coyote’s digestive tract, the seeds were no longer appealing to the beetle. The coyotes beat the beetles to the seeds. “There was only some gummy stuff holding it together.”īut it wasn’t the mere presence of seeds in the scat: they were unblemished, without the damaging marks of beetle predation. “They were nothing but seeds, with none of the hair you usually find in a coyote scat,” he says. Pons was finding 30 to 60 palm seeds per scat. They will just vacuum them up.” A pile of coyote scat with many sabal palm seeds. “On the preserve, I’ve seen them eating oranges and grapes in our fruit groves,” says Pons. That’s what has enabled them to thrive around the country, around farms, in suburbs, in city parks.

On his daily forays, he noted something unusual in coyote scats – they were jam packed with sabal palm seeds.Ĭoyotes are the quintessential opportunists. He slams on the brakes to point out a green jay here, a black-bellied whistling duck there, his eyes glowing with a feral excitement. Sabal palms at The Nature Conservancy’s Southmost Preserve. This is evident driving around the property with him: he’s constantly shouting out the names of grasses, birds, snakes. You couldn’t beat the beetle to the seed.”īut Pons has always had a keen eye for natural happenings at Southmost Preserve. “By the time, we collected the seeds, almost all had holes. “You’d find holes in the seeds made by a beetle,” he says. When Pons began attempting to grow the seeds in the nursery, very few germinated. In fact, only two substantial sabal palm forests exist in the United States, one of them on the preserve. But almost all of the sabal palm habitat has disappeared in South Texas. One of the most important plants is the sabal palm, a native tree that provides habitat for a diversity birds and other wildlife. Preserve manager Max Pons runs the nursery, which can produce as many as 80,000 plants a year for conservation purposes. In addition to conserving vital wildlife habitat along the Rio Grande River, the preserve serves a native plant nursery, supplying a variety of species to other Conservancy projects and partners for reestablishing native habitats. That’s been the key behind the successful propagation of sabal palms at The Nature Conservancy’s Southmost Preserve, located in south Texas on the Mexican border.Īnd, in the case of one native tree, they need coyote turds. They need the right soil, the perfect water levels, natural light conditions and essential pollinators.Īnd, in the case of one native tree, they need coyote turds.

Conservationists cultivating native plants must mimic nature.

Coyote poop