Wit and Wisdom
by Beth Broderick
I saw her first: a lovely coyote walking just twenty steps ahead of us on the opposite side of the street. It was about 8:30 PM, darkness just beginning to settle over my Beverly Hills neighborhood. She looked right into my eyes, and I nodded with a neutral expression. Fairness, the pup, caught on at that point and strained toward her, wanting a better look.
“No,” I said gently as I turned him around toward the busy street behind us. Just then, I saw her spouse, a larger male keeping pace from 50 feet back. Of course, I am assuming he was her spouse. They could have been a couple of teenagers venturing out for the first time or maybe cousins headed to a “howl off.” There is no way to know without getting up too close for comfort. Neither wanted anything to do with the tall lady and her ninety-pound pup. I am sure they were grateful we turned around, so they wouldn’t have to worry about us behaving in an untoward manner.
For all the worrying and “NEXTDOOR spottings” and warning cries of “Danger! Coyotes seen on Swall Street!!!” these creatures have been co-existing with us in our cities for several decades now. They are largely beneficial. They eat gophers and rats and snatch up the stale french fries that were left on the curb. We are more dangerous to them than they could ever be to us.
These animals average about 30 pounds apiece, and yet they loom ever large in our culture. There is, of course, Wile E. Coyote of Road Runner fame. He is a notorious scoundrel, dreaming of ever better ways to capture his avian target. Road Runner is too clever for him, though, and the Coyote is routinely hoisted upon his own petard, his schemes literally blowing up in his face.
Then there are human coyotes: the folks who smuggle any number of things across borders—drugs, guns and, most notably, desperate individuals. People who have crossed deserts, rivers, and even oceans, and put their last cent of cash and final scrap of faith into the hands of said “coyotes.” Some succeed in finding their way into a new land, a new life. Many perish in the effort, left to suffocate in cargo vans, allowed to drown in unsafe vessels. Human coyotes are not a beneficial variety.
Then we have coyote mornings, which have been described by Wikipedia thusly:
A coyote morning is when one has too much to drink the night before and, as a result, wakes up next to someone less than desirable. Like a trapped coyote, one would rather gnaw off their own arm than risk waking the creature next to them.
"I drank way to much last night and woke up having another coyote morning."
"That chick at the bar was hot last night, but she turned into a coyote morning for me.” by The Add November 19, 2007.
Lastly, there is the moniker of “coyote ugly,” which, I believe, refers to a person’s visage or demeanor, being the cause of a “coyote morning.”
The actual coyotes walking through your neighborhood are crafty, to be sure, and they are talented, too. Like their cartoon representative, they can and do tiptoe to avoid detection. They are also good swimmers and are almost catlike in their ability to climb. Their biggest asset, though, is the ability to adapt. They have evolved into having very large litters of pups to compensate for what will most surely be the loss of several offspring to predators, both human and animal. They have learned to read traffic and have been known to wait patiently at red lights. They travel alone or in pairs to avoid distressing humans with the fact of their abundant numbers.
They will not approach humans unless they are cornered. Like most animals, they will run off if you wave your arms and act scary. Just make sure there is a place for them to run to before you begin to engage in any such behavior. Do not corner or trap any wild animal, not even a deer. Deer have, in fact, killed more humans than have coyotes and wolves put together, so just make sure the creature has a path to escape. The best plan of action is no plan. Just ignore them and leave well enough alone. A small dog is safe as long as it is tethered to your person in some manner, but if you are concerned, by all means pick up your pup until you are well away from the last sighting. Like most wildlife around us, they are just trying to survive, and they truly do not want a piece of you.
That is not to say that they are above snatching your toy poodle if it is left unattended in an accessible yard. They will 100% eat an outdoor cat if they get the chance. This is a tricky subject because I love cats. I am thinking about getting one for Fairness. He likes them too and needs a pal. Cats are great when they are kept indoors. Outdoor cats are an environmental hazard. They are responsible for the needless slaughter of countless birds, and the feral ones breed at an alarming rate. The shelters are teeming with unwanted kittens, so the urban coyote is helpful in keeping the balance there, too.
One woman in the foothills reported that a pack of coyotes had taken to howling in her front yard every night, making it hard to put the kids to bed and watch her nightly programs. She tried howling back as loudly as she could to try to scare them off. They just stopped, looked at her, and gave the coyote equivalent of a shrug and went right on telling their nighttime tales. Finally, she persuaded a local sheriff to help relocate the noisy lot. He slowly approached with his siren wailing until they dispersed. He did this twice more before they got the hint and moved their nighttime ritual to a distant location.
They are wildly adaptive and can be taught to behave in a more harmonious manner. We just need a bit of patience for and some understanding of one another.
I think about them a lot. I actually say a prayer for them some nights because I know that humans fear them, and we are not a great lot when we are afraid. We are the deadliest species on the planet. Some of us kill for sport, but most of us do so out of fear.
“If you talk to the animals, they will talk with you, and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them you will not know them, and what you do not know you will fear. What one fears one destroys.”
— Chief Dan George
RUNNING WITH THE PACK.
You are reading this on the 4th of November. Tomorrow’s election, whenever and however it is decided, will live on in infamy for as long as history is being recorded. One side is peddling fear, and the other hope. I am praying mightily for the hope side because God help us if the fear folks win.
We will have to learn to talk to them, though, to reach out to the other side somehow. There must be a way to honor their fear while also demonstrating that there is no need for it.
There is room for all of God’s creatures on this wondrous planet if we can just learn to accept each other’s place in this beautiful place.
It is my dear hope that tomorrow will bring a new way forward because waking up with Donald J. Trump reinstalled in the White House would be the penultimate “coyote morning,” and we all stand to lose more than a limb.
On we go …
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Coyote Nights