Posted on 11/06/2004 3:37:00 AM PST by SLB
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Coyotes, the rangy animals associated with the American West, have been spotted in the U.S. capital for the first time, sparking gossip in precincts where talk usually turns on politics.
"On our way home from a party tonight, my son spotted a coyote trotting among the trees," one writer said in an e-mail group for one of Washington's tonier sections.
"One ran across Military (Road). No question, a healthy smallish coyote!" another wrote on Oct. 21, referring to a location about 5 miles from the White House.
Residents of the Washington area have reported seeing coyotes for months and The Washington Post warned last summer that household pets could fall prey to the omnivorous creatures.
But coyotes' presence inside the city limits was confirmed only in September by a naturalist on duty in the woods of Rock Creek Park.
"I suspect we've had coyotes close by for some time. We've just discovered them recently," Michael Bean, chairman of the wildlife program at the Environmental Defense group, said on Friday.
Coyotes originally roamed in what is now the northwestern corner of the United States, but have expanded their range over the last 200 years to include all of North America except the extreme northeast portions of Canada.
With its thick fur, pointed snout and bushy tail, the coyote appears similar to a domestic dog like a collie, but its adaptability has enabled it to survive where a household pet might not.
A typical coyote diet includes small mammals, insects, reptiles, fruit and carrion, but in areas like Washington where it shares its habitat with humans, kitchen garbage and pet food are likely menu additions.
It is not unusual to find coyotes in a city setting, naturalists say, and they have been spotted in cities in Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin and Illinois, including in Chicago.
The real-life coyote should not be confused with the hapless cartoon Wile E. Coyote, eternal loser in his desert battle of wits with the Roadrunner, Bean said.
"Unlike the cartoon character, they're not dumb. They're quite capable of surviving in some inhospitable surroundings," he said. "If they were as dumb as the cartoon character, they would never have made it this far."
Geeze.
Tell me about them.
The gov let the bear hunt go on in spite of the environuts and the scheduled 6 day hunt lasted less a few hours because the "limit" was reached so quickly.
How many bears have to be wandering around for hunters to get almost 30 in just a few hours, taking into account the amount of acreage in W.MD?
We had a bear hanging around here a couple of summers ago.
The idiot neighbor thought it would be "nice" to feed it.
When that became financially draining, he stopped.
The bear got really upset.
It started tearing up property, destroying trash cans and casually shoved my fence down trying to get to my bird-feeding area.
[that fence keeps my dogs safe so that *really* ticked me off]
Eventually it wandered off and *tried* to cross I-70.
Coyotes in Rock Creek Park? I'll bet they killed Shandra Levy!
Shoot the coyote. Hang it on a fence post. The remaining coyotes will leave.
A 22-250 should do a nice clean job from 100 yards.
We have coyotes all over Michigan & have had them for several years. First I knew they were here: My grandma, who grew up in Arizona said she heard them. "You never forget the sound of a coyotes." We're close to the Ohio border.
We've seen one or two. Have yet to see our resident cougar.
If it's that big it's a WOLF, not a coyote!
Ping
I have heard of Coydogs but did not know that Coyotes had interbred with the gray wolf. I live in the Northern PA, the Coyotes we have seen are the size of a medium size dog, none were as big as our German Shepherd. Something new to watch for.
Oh Yeah! They are much larger than their western cousins. I 've heard them refered to as coy dogs or brush wolves. It makes sense that they are some hybrid specie. They are plentiful. .270 is good medicine for these guys. They look like more like wolves than coyotes. There has been an increase in mountain lion sightings in the Catskills and bordering Pa counties of Pike and Wayne.
The city whiners will never hear of it.
W.MD has become a hot-spot for yuppie/hippy tourist types and they think it's *so* cool to come up for a weekend "back to nature" trip.
They leave after Sunday and have no clue what's happening to the people who -live- here the rest of the week.
One of these days, it won't be somebody's beloved dog getting killed by a bear...it'll be somebody's little kid like the one in CT.
Maybe then they'll shut up about saving "Smokey".
Unfortunately, "playing dead" doesn't work on black bears like it does on other bears.
If they decide to attack, you're done for.
Considering what "conservation" has done for white tails, they'd have to "introduce" thousands of bears, wolves and lions before it even started to make a dent in the deer population. [thousands starve every winter, even if it's "mild" which it usually isn't]
What do they suggest "introducing" when mountain lions become a problem?
African lions? Grizzlies?
Screwing around with nature is taunting the "law of unintended consequences".
My dad is definitely not an easy man to spook but the sight of them just -staring- at him, as though they were deciding whether he looked tasty or not bugged him big-time.
He was on foot and the rifle was a hundred yards away in the truck.
He'd have never made it in time.
They'd already slaughtered every one of his hybrid cottontail bunnies and were probably getting pretty hungry.
He was breeding and releasing them because the now "protected" chicken hawks killed all the rabbits in our area.
The hawks don't seem to be very fond of eating squirrel [or they have a hard time catching them] so now the hawks are all starving, too.
You can see them sitting on power lines along I-70, looking emaciated and sickly.
We even found a hawk trying to kill my pet rabbit while he was in his grazing corral in the back yard.
[Booger is a big ol' bunny so he survived the attack and is fine, but still very nervous about being in any pen without roof, now]
The hawk-caused lack of rabbits has driven the coyotes and foxes ever closer to houses, in search of food.
You can't mess with one "balance" without destroying another.
And how do they explain all the "imbalances" and extinctions that occurred before evil humans ever hit the planet?...LOL!
My dad has "usage prohibitions" on his mountain acreage that have to do with a "stream" that stopped running a hundred years ago.
Because the "stream" shows up on the original 18th deed/map, he can't do anything that would "disturb" it.
So, he has to arrange his life around a worthless, dry gully that runs parallel to my lane.
Where I live, there are underground streams and springs galore.
They change paths constantly.
Many years ago, a well was right under my house and the pump came up through the kitchen floor. [the house is 18th century].
Now, that stream is "gone" although it now runs east/west through my front yard, 30 feet away from where it originally was.
Dad also has a "wetland" [read; sunken swampy area that doesn't drain quickly after a rain] that cannot be molested.
This wonderful wetland is home to only rotted stumps and more mosquitos than you can imagine.
Even water fowl won't go near it.
A Canada goose hatched her babies on my dad's catfish pond and foolishly took them over to the "wetland" to raise them.
The resident snapper turtle got all of them in less than hour.
One of dad's Toulouse geese went over there and we never saw it again, either.
[it's a very big turtle]
Years ago our DNR rangers were the go-to guys if you had a nature question.
The new ones look like they should be reading poetry at Starbucks.
[but the new ones have "degrees"...the old ones were just local mountain men...go figger]
You got tourist trouble up there, too?
Cheer up...tourist season has no bag limit...LOL!
[I'm just KIDDING!].....;)
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