In Coyote Conversations, Mark Surls provides dialogue and reflection on his time spent in the field with America’s ultimate survivor, the coyote.

While many photographers focus on species that are easy to love such as elk and deer, Mark celebrates coyotes, beautiful too, albeit more difficult to live with. Throughout history, wild canids have gained an unfavorable view in much of the public eye. Wolves were exterminated in most of the USA, yet the coyote was able to survive. Trappings, killing contests, and hunts have only kept these sentient animals adapting.

Serving as a reminder that predators have a purpose in life, Mark’s photography and poetry elicit compassion and reinforce the need for human-wildlife coexistence.

"Combining exquisite photography with short, ingestible and engaging poetry, Mark Surls takes us on a journey into the lives of Coyote—North America's native Song Dog. Coyote Conversations is a sumptuous treat for the senses and a gift to our underappreciated and much maligned wild Song Dogs—and for anyone who appreciates wild and poetic beauty." — Camilla Fox, Founder and Executive Director of Project Coyote 

“Coyotes are fascinating sentient beings. They're smart, cunning, incredibly adaptable, and deeply emotional and these traits make them highly successful in all sorts of habitats, ranging from their wild, natural homes, to crowded city streets and everywhere in between. Mark Surls's insightful and eloquent poems combined with his beautiful photographs provide an unusual and alluring glance into the life of America's song dog, and we can only hope that those who think of them as disposable pests and intruders into their lives--often in places where coyotes used to live before we trespassed here, there, and everywhere--will come to respect them for who they truly are and allow them to live peacefully and to coexist with us in their rightful former homes.” — Marc Bekoff, PhD, Biologist and Author 

"As Mark Surls writes in one of the subtle but throbbing poems that graces these pages, Coyote Conversations is a book built on compassion. The author’s considered words and photographic eye match the poetry of his canid subject, America’s ultimate survivor. And Surls is right: the coyote deserves all the empathy we can offer. And admiration, too. This book is a fine place to develop both." — Dan Flores, Author of Coyote America and Wild New World