The Bay Area has a nutty coyote that has, so far, bitten five humans. It started back in July in the town of Moraga, where it first bit a toddler in a park.
It also bit a man running track in the dark at a high school.
Then it bit a grocery store employee on a break.
Then it bit a toddler walking with her mother in the morning in a residential area.
Then it bit a man sitting in front of a quik mart.
There was a full article about it in yesterday’s newspaper. Yes, I still read them, made out of paper, that get delivered to my driveway.
When I mentioned it on a Facebook page called I Grew Up in Iowa (I did), someone replied that the coyote must be rabid. It isn’t. It has been biting people since last July.
Then a woman on the same Faebook page called me a fear monger. Uh, I was just stating the facts, ma’am.
We can all agree that this is not a normal coyote and that is why it is being pursued by both police and Fish and Wildlife officers in order to remove it and put it down.
The Iowa animal lover who shamed me me for saying such terrible things about a coyote, which is a beneficial animal because it eats rodents (her words), missed the point completely. This is one weirdo coyote, and it needs to go bye-bye.
The coyote is coming into human areas and biting people – in parks, by grocery stores, in residential areas, by quik marts. Only the guy on the high school track at night could be labeled as intruding on a wildlife area.
I’ve walked early mornings where coyotes would step out in front of me and not even turn their heads. They were going home, and I was no threat. Had I brought a dog with me, it could’ve been different.
Coyotes eat cats and small dogs. They work in packs, and they howl to celebrate before and after a kill. Yes, they eat rodents, and Iowa coyotes come across fewer people than the Bay Area coyote with the taste for humans.
Maybe its regular territory was affected by last summer’s fires. Maybe its mother dropped it on its head as a baby. Maybe it’s been watching too much violent TV. At any rate, it’s not a normal coyote, and it needs to be captured before it strikes again.
That’s what I get for talking to strangers on the internet, a scolding from a woman who didn’t watch as a coyote grabbed her toddler’s leg while she carried her infant in front of their home. Fortunately, the mama bear human was able to scare the coyote away after it released her daughter.
I’m all for leaving wildlife alone, but this time, I am with the police, the Fish and Wildlife officers, and the five victims and their families. The coyote has crossed a line, is not fearful of humans, and is not acting like a regular wild animal. Just like the black bears in Tahoe who get too comfortable with eating people garbage, once they taste the human world, they can’t go back to being a normal wild animal.
Sad, but true.
FIRST DATE, WORST DATE EVER! 