I saw a coyote today

[atteSmythe]

I was driving home through a lightly wooded residential area, and a coyote ran across the street, right in front of my car. It was a big, healthy animal. Gorgeous.

It was a little otherworldly - I think this was the first I've seen in person. I have a lot of experience with dogs, and he was so like one, but so...not. It was like the canine version of the uncanny valley for me.

Anyway, thought some of you might appreciate the (mostly pointless) story.

[Max]

I saw some coyotes prowling around in the street late one night in the hills above Portland one night.

[jombra]

I saw a coyote just recently run across the highway! I hear them lots too at night since I'm out on a farm.

[legion]

Only foxes here (Europe and all).

[Mezzaphor]

I've seen coyotes at a research orchard in Georgia, and, oddly enough, crossing a Chicago street.

[wombat]

Once I saw a coyote walking along the edge of the road in my neighborhood; when it reached where the sidewalk started, it turned up the driveway it was at and then turned on to the sidewalk and continued. When it got to our other neighbor's house, it turned up the driveway and took the path that went to their front porch. Unfortunately, they weren't home at the time.

I got on my bike to go follow it and take a picture (which now that I think about it seems like a really, really bad idea and now I'm wondering why my parents were just like, "Yes, go, stalk the wild animal!"), but it was already gone by the time I got there.

[bingli]

saw one just wandering around in the parking lot of our national guard armory in broad daylight once, it was on the edge of Seattle, near Puget sound.

[GK Sierra]

I live on the outskirts of the LA sprawl. We're right next to the foothills so we get interlopers all the time. Coyotes come into the city in broad daylight all the time. Once, I saw one waiting at a crosswalk downtown with a bunch of people. They seemed to think it was just a dog or something. It crossed with them and then went around to an alley behind a restaurant. Probably after the dumpsters.

If I leave my window open at night I can sometimes hear the coyotes making a tremendous racket up in the hills, just to take the mickey out of the dogs, y'understand.

[lackscreativity]

I've seen one in the ravine near my school. It was kinda scary, but at the same time I was fangirling all over the place because of all the portrayals of coyote being so awesome. I swear folklore is gonna get me killed sometime.

[mochakimono]

I never saw one in person, but I used to hear them howling all night long when I lived way up in the forested mountains of Idaho. Pretty cool stuff.

[superstarletce]

There's a warehouse out on the west side of Atlanta where mostly terrible parties and dances happen- last time I was out there I saw the most gorgeous-looking white dog- almost like a coyote had bred with a Great Pyrenees or other similar breed. I figured it must be wild/feral- but who knows. Took my breath away. Looked eerily like a real-life Reynardine, white wolf style... didn't even think of that at the time.

Anyway, yeah, there are coyotes all over the place round these parts.

[imaginaryfriend]

I don't think I've ever seen a coyote or wolf in the wild but I have seen some large foxes. About a year ago I was driving home really early in the morning when there was no traffic at all around. I stopped at a red light and was looking around while waiting for it to change. Off to my left about a hundred feet or so was another intersection and sitting motionless square in the center of that intersection was a huge gray fox. It was almost the size of a medium dog and was incredibly mangy, but the weird shape of its face marked it undeniably as a fox. I watched it a few minutes past the light change (why not? no traffic) to see what it was doing but it did nothing. It just sat sphinx-like, ears fully trained forward. My best guess is that it was waiting to see if a rat or stray cat would come out of one of the alleys or cross the roads nearby, because that's the only advantage I can think of it could gain by doing that, but it was a pretty strange sight.

Also: Welcome to the forum, Lackscreativity and any other newish people I haven't greeted before.

[lackscreativity]

Thanks for the welcome!

[warrl]

The only wild non-flying predator I've seen lately was an abandoned housecat. And it didn't really qualify as wild, as it apparently had only been abandoned a couple days before.

Wild herbivores on the other hand... elk and mule deer abound. Also we saw a couple bighorn sheep crossing the road a few weeks ago.

And there are plenty of bald eagles, robins, and other flying predators. In fact we're getting annoyed with the robins because they keep bashing into our windows trying to chase away their reflections.

[snuffa]

ohhh, saw a bunch of coyotes (at least six or eight) in NC once, back when I still lived there... first freaked out thinking it's a pack of wolves, then remembered that there are no wolves in this area for many years now, also, they were not too big. But still beautiful, yes.

[Per]

Today I saw a magpie chase a pigeon from an aerial. It has all the media sector now.

Also seen a few foxes, but not doing anything interesting.

[Morpheus]

I saw several vultures about a week ago on my holiday, flying through this gorgeous canyon. Sadly the wildlife back here in Denmark isn't quite as impressive as, well, everywhere else in the world really. We've got a few badgers and foxes and rarely some eagles. Yay.

[zaferion]

Only coyote I've ever seen was the one that my dog got into a fight with. Cool part? My dog was winning. That is, until my dad came out with a shotgun and scared it off with a warning shot. Which is good since my dog was probably about to take a vicious bite to the neck or something. It's a cool story now, but at the time I was terrified and kept trying to call my dog back and yell to scare the coyote off.

[Nnelg]

Coyotes ate two of my cats. And animal control refused to do a single thing about it.

I'd hunt them down myself if I had a gun. (And this wasn't a suburb.)

[GK Sierra]

Jul 26, 2013 15:56:28 GMT Nnelg said:

Coyotes ate two of my cats. And animal control refused to do a single thing about it.

I'd hunt them down myself if I had a gun. (And this wasn't a suburb.)

Ah, that's a shitty break, sorry to hear that.

That's how I got my first 'lil runt. Coyote killed his mom out in the field behind my house, terrible noise. The next morning I heard all the lost kittens meowing in the grass so I set traps for them and kept one. He's actually trying to climb up on my keyboard right now.

You probably won't be able to discharge a firearm in a suburb, but I have found that commercially available BB guns above 1300 fps do the trick just as well. Heck, if you just wanted to scare him you could use an airsoft gun.

[feraldog]

There's at least four coyotes that live near my stepdad's house in Gig Harbor, and I've seen many coyotes running around Tacoma.

The difference between wolves and coyotes is the same as that between ravens and crows: They're similar animals with similar needs and behaviors, but when humans get involved the former will usually leave while the latter simply adapts to their presence.

Adds a little extra to that whole "Coyote loves humans/Ysengrin hates them" thing, doesn't it...

Nnelg: Coyotes don't fall under animal control's jurisdiction, because they're wild animals. Animal control's job is domesticated animals, you need an exterminator or (if you're going the government route) Fish&Game, though the latter isn't likely to get involved unless the coyote in question is a danger to humans.

[snipertom]

See kangaroos, wallabies, parrots, lizards out here (though due to being a hermit I haven't seen any recently); as well as extensive roadkill consisting of wallabies, roos, rabbits, foxes, possums. Thankfully I haven't seen any dead cats on the road lately, that makes me sad .

Re coyote in suburban area- surely there are organisations that will trap and relocate 'em?

[Marnath]

Jul 28, 2013 9:35:12 GMT snipertom said:

Thankfully I haven't seen any dead cats on the road lately, that makes me sad .

Why, aren't they a horrible hellish blight on the native fauna over there?

[GK Sierra]

Jul 28, 2013 9:35:12 GMT snipertom said:

Re coyote in suburban area- surely there are organisations that will trap and relocate 'em?

Trying to relocate all the coyotes out would be like trying to play a game of ping pong with a ball made of water vapor. They come down from the foothills every night along with the skunks and opossums and whatnot. My cats are all indoors and I don't have a garden, so I don't have anything to worry about unless a bear wanders down here.

[Per]

What about cougars, road runners, armadillos and deathclaws?

[legion]

To say nothing of bugbears.

[GK Sierra]

Jul 28, 2013 17:54:31 GMT Per said:

What about cougars, road runners, armadillos and deathclaws?

The cougars tend to keep to themselves, the road runners and armadillos don't fare well in the city, and the deathclaws... well, lets just say if you run into those you had better hope you are an NPC for the Lone Wanderer because you are about to receive a structurally-superfluous new behind.

Jul 28, 2013 18:18:25 GMT legion said:

To say nothing of bugbears.

The less said about them, the better.

[snipertom]

Jul 28, 2013 12:27:08 GMT Marnath said:

Jul 28, 2013 9:35:12 GMT snipertom said:

Thankfully I haven't seen any dead cats on the road lately, that makes me sad .

Why, aren't they a horrible hellish blight on the native fauna over there?

Only really see house-cats dead on suburban roads in Australia. You don't see many feral cats on the road for a bunch of reasons- most of them live in wooded areas in national parks which don't have high volume high speed traffic while most of the roadkill is generally in flat dry grasslands or desert.

[GK Sierra]

Apparently loose house cats now account for a vast majority of birds killed in and around human developments.