My Next Quest...

   So, I asked Uncle Joe if coyotes attack people, and he said, no. On account of it isn't in their nature. Unless they're rabid. But -- hey -- any animal will do that if they've got rabies. Even a rabbit. And get this -- compared to dogs attacking people, there is no contest. There are thousands of dog attacks every year, but only a few documented coyote attacks in all history.

   Coyotes are mostly night creatures. They sleep and hide during the day, and can adapt themselves to almost any environment. Which is why when that scientist guy up in Cape Cod heard about the golf course coyote family, he decided to check it out. On account of they're territorial. If it gets too crowded they just spread out or move somewhere else. None of his coyotes had made a home at the golf course, so maybe it was a new family.

   The maintenance guy told him they saw those coyotes all the time, even the little pups. They were so used to everything that went on at the golf course, they didn't run off when the lawn mowers went by, or even when a golfer got too close. He said, go ahead and take a look, because you could walk right up to about twenty feet away from them. So, they headed over there.

   There were a lot of people around that day, and the scientist saw a large male coyote that he didn't recognize, just laying at the edge of one of the overgrown places, watching everybody. He noticed some people got pretty close when they passed by, but the coyote didn't move. Nothing the people did seemed to bother him.

   That is, until he got a whiff of the scientist from about a hundred feet away. All of a sudden he was up on his feet, barking and growling so much, the maintenance guy was embarrassed. Said he'd never acted that way to anybody else before. About that time, the female showed up and started doing the same thing. But, now, it all made sense.

   That female coyote was one of the scientist's radio-collared ones, that he had been trapping and studying for years. She knew exactly who that scientist was, and she did NOT want him around her new pups. Which is natural. The weird thing is, the scientist and the male coyote had never seen each other before, but that coyote recognized him in a whole crowd full of people, and sounded the alarm.

    Considering the female coyote was the only one he could have found out about the scientist from, they must have had some amazing communication skills to even get a point like that across to each other. Way amazing.

   Which is why the next expedition I'm taking my patrol on is going to be a coyote expedition. They are the coolest animals I've heard about, yet. And -- if they're practically everywhere -- we ought to be able to at least find some sign of them in our own piece of the wilderness.

   Besides that, a coyote picture would be the perfect thing to enter into the WKC Wildlife Photo Contest that's gonna start on November 1. But I'll have to fill you in about that next week, on account of telling the end of this story has made me late, again.

   Have a great weekend!
           W.K.

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