What was that walking down the road?

The wildlife in our urban community is getting wilder all the time.  In addition to the usual squirrels, rabbits, skunks, raccoons and occasional opossum, we also have foxes and, now, a coyote.  At least, I think it’s a single coyote.  I have read and been told that they usually travel in packs and if you see one, it’s the scout for the pack.  I don’t find that a particularly comforting fact, so I’m pretending it’s a single coyote – a one-off, an urban loner.

I don’t know quite what to think about this addition to our community.  I have seen him (I’ve nicknamed him Ralph) enough times to know that he hangs around often.  I have been told that coyotes are shy; they will go out of their way to avoid contact with humans.  Ralph doesn’t seem particularly shy – he walks down the middle of the road, moving onto the sidewalk if a car approaches, then back to the middle of the road.  The last time I saw him was just this past weekend; he was walking across front lawns, seemingly in search of something, and I was walking along the sidewalk in front of those same houses.  I don’t know if he noticed me or not – he was intent on something other than me.

I am not the only one who’s seen Ralph.  He has followed a friend when she was walking her dog – never approaching too closely, but keeping pace with them until my friend turned to face him and gestured and yelled until Ralph ran away.  Then there’s the acquaintance who will no longer walk past my yard in the dark because she saw Ralph lurking behind a large tree in our side yard, silently watching as she and her dog passed by.  We have checked and there’s no evidence that Ralph has taken up residence behind our tree; more likely it’s just a resting spot or a safe place to settle in to watch what’s going on.

There is no reason to be afraid of Ralph, from all accounts, except that I have an old dog.  If Ralph is, indeed, watching and looking for easy prey, my old dog is going to fit nicely into his dinner plans.  We are out at the same time Ralph would be out – just before or around dawn and just around sunset.  It used to be that I‘d be watching for skunks but they are now the least of my wildlife worries - I’ve switched to watching for signs of a lurking coyote.

I’m not used to being nervous about walking in my neighbourhood.  I used to feel safe walking at any time of the day or night.  Now, even if I am walking alone, I feel a little apprehensive as Ralph is a real wild card in my very urban environment.

There was a news story a few years ago about a coyote in another area close to us.  The gist of the story was that nothing could be done about it – no one is allowed to catch and relocate wildlife (which annoyed me at the time because we were trying to evict a family of skunks from under our shed), so the only option was to shoot it if it seemed threatening.  At that time, I was rooting for the coyote.  I’m a bit of a bleeding heart, don’t-hurt-the-animal type, and I prayed they wouldn’t shoot the animal.  Now there’s a coyote in our neighbourhood, and while I don’t want anyone to harm him, I really feel that Ralph has to go.  This really is a case of NIMBY - I literally don’t want a coyote in my back yard.

Poor Ralph.  I hope he finds our neighbourhood to be a poor hunting ground and heads back out to the country where he belongs.