Coyote. When I was a little girl growing up here, saying that word conjured up images of New Mexico mesas, Dakota grasslands, dry riverbeds snaking across a Nevada desert. Not the parking lot behind the Embassy Suites in San Rafael.
Canis latrans. Prairie wolf. American jackal. It's yipping and broken howl now echoes not just off the walls of red-rock canyons and saguaro-studded expanses, but also off the wood-siding walls and asphalt-shingle rooftops of my home here in Marin. A family of coyotes lives near my home, up on the hill that I stare at through my kitchen window, one of those typial oak-and-bay hummocks that bump out of the wetlands surrounding the North Bay wetlands. A beautiful rusty male and a slender, dusty brown female. I haven't seen pups yet but I suspect I will soon--the parents are already progressively bolder about winding down from the hills to slip between our homes, used the paved roads as easy routes to their key hunting grounds, the marshlands and shrubby chaparral flanking Las Gallinas Creek (no shortage of rabbits and voles there).
My frequent sightings seem to be in the norm these days. According to the CA Dept of Fish & Game's "Keep Me Wild" campaign, coyotes are found just about everywhere in California these days, from Sierra peaks to and Sonoran deserts to suburban LA and San Francisco. As for the latter, I think I was one of the first to report seeing coyotes in the Presidio a handful of years ago; officials suspect the animals used the Golden Gate Bridge to get to city parklands.
So are these human-tolerant coyotes a good thing? A bad thing? Are they a terrifying addition to urban wildlife landscape? True, they don't mind raiding garbage can or compost bin if it smells interesting, and they do nab Persians and Chihuahuas if they stray too far from home. There have been scary incidents with small children, and some folks in my area are freaked out that coyotes lope along the streets of San Rafael (and most other Marin communities). It's not really practical--or even possible--to catch them and move them away: GGNRA spokesperson Chris Powell was quoted in the Marin IJ as saying the coyotes are so smart they "see our people coming in the vehicles and they run away. The even recognize the uniforms."
So these savvy, uniform-savvy coyotes are likely here to stay. I for one love them--their wild stare through my fence, their hunched gait as they weave through the (aptly named) coyote brush, their propensity for letting loose wth a big "ah-wooooo!" when a fire truck goes blaring by. Makes my skin tingle. For now I'll grab the cat, scan the tall grass on the hill, and search for that little bit of wild.
-----
Just in case, here are tips from the Marin Humane Society (though Item 2 makes me laugh--I mean, so we have to worry about some Marinite pulling a "Grizzly Man" on us and going native with the coyotes?? Spare me...)
COYOTE TIPS
o Never leave a food or water source outside.
o Do not attempt to approach coyotes or make friends with them. (!)
o Make coyotes visiting your property feel unwelcome: Shout, make loud noises, spray them with a hose.
o Keep your pets safe with proper confinement, especially at dawn and after dusk.
o Walk your dog on a leash.
o Don't let your dog approach a coyote.
o Make your yard "coyote proof." Remove bushes against house walls, enclose decks and staircases, reduce rodent populations, contain waste and compost, and remove fallen tree fruit.
o Report sightings to the Marin Humane Society 415/883-4621.
No comments:
Post a Comment