Streets And Cars
12 Nov 2010 Leave a Comment
in coyote behavior, coyote living areas
Even the smallest streets with minimal traffic pose a risk to wildlife: possums, skunks, raccoons, but also cats and dogs. In this instance a coyote was able to dash onto the grassy area beside a road as the car came by. The car stopped and both car driver and coyote fixated on each other after the near accident. And then, the coyote proceeded to walk down the street again! This was a tiny little roadway in a residential neighborhood.
However, two years ago, in July, I observed a coyote whose incapacitating limp I tracked for a full month. I did not know what had caused the limp, but I found out six months later when I was talking to someone about the dangers of life in an urban area for coyotes. She told me that six months earlier, on one of the busiest thoroughfares during peak rush hour traffic, as cars slammed on brakes to avoid it, a coyote meandered its way across the traffic and was struck by a car: she had observed this herself. The coyote dragged itself out of sight before anyone could get to it, so no one could have helped it after the accident. This was one of only a few coyotes in the area, so it had to have been one and the same as the one with the bad limp that I had observed during that same time frame. The injury healed and the coyote is still kicking around, so I suppose it was lucky. Only a year before this, as another coyote was crossing that same street, it was hit, with a less happy outcome — that one did not survive.
