So this latest installment of Mike Bowditch, Maine Game Warden, unexpectedly hit home for me. The featured animal was not the usual moose, wolf, elk, or deer, but rather the coyote. Friends, I live in coyote country (actually, most US residents do). But they have been my neighbors most of my life.
I live in Southern California in a suburban area that directly backs into National Forest land. Not to mention that directly behind my back wall is a heavily brushy hill, with a couple of fire roads. Prime coyote territory. There are hundreds of prairie dogs, quail, rabbits, mice, and Lord knows what else living in the underbrush. So pretty much party central for coyotes. And if you have never heard a pack in full throat? They don’t howl. They basically yodel. On a good hunting night it sounds like a bunch of frat boys having a kegger. In the mornings, they are still occasionally out on the streets, where you think at first it’s a German Shepard, but then you notice the ears, and the rangier build, and realize, ah. Coyote.
All this to say that when two young female hikers go missing in the Hundred Mile Wilderness, the most remote part of the Appalachian Trail, there are a few theories. Others have gone missing as well, is it a serial killer? Then when the bodies are discovered at the bottom of a steep precipice – did they fall to their deaths? Except that the bodies are pretty well gnawed – is it Killer Coyotes? Because there was that one girl, a few years back. . . That’s all it takes to launch a bounty on coyote pelts. Not a pretty sight.
And look, when a hungry carnivore runs across a dead body, well. I hear even a Pekinese locked up with a dead master can cause some damage. Not all dogs are Greyfriars Bobby. Party on, coyotes, party on. But bring your cats in at night.