Coyote Yipps
Information and stories about San Francisco coyotes: behavior & personality, coexistence & outreach, by Janet Kessler: Unveiling first-hand just how savvy, social, sentient and singular coyotes really are!
Information and stories about San Francisco coyotes: behavior & personality, coexistence & outreach, by Janet Kessler: Unveiling first-hand just how savvy, social, sentient and singular coyotes really are!
Coyote Yipps 
May 15, 2017 @ 18:01:30
Have followed your blog for years…please keep it coming! I’m a teacher of elementary students. We study native american culture and beliefs. It’s no surprise that indigenous people’s stories featured coyote as the creature most symbolic of man and his balance of intelligence and ridiculousness. Coyote stories teach children simultaneously about human foolishness, and human cleverness. Coyote is a survivor…and we can learn from Him!
May 15, 2017 @ 18:30:26
Hi Audrey —
Thank you for your comment! YES — coyote is the focus of those stories because in many ways he is so like us. This is what I would like to get across: that coyotes, like we, are trying to eek out a living, raise our families, play-tease-and-joke, have feelings including happiness and sadness, make mistakes and learn from them, and have direction in our lives. They are known as “tricksters” because they plan ahead, even though sometimes the trick doesn’t work out. I think of coyotes as living parallel lives to ours — not unlike the Hobbits “in the Shire *over there*”: separate (and this part is important) but parallel lives to our own. Society isn’t ready to hear all this yet, but I direct as many people as possible to Carl Safina’s book: Beyond Words, for insights. Thanks again, and thank you for spreading the good word about coyotes! Janet