Risk in Perspective

14 Jul 2024 7 Comments

by yipps:janetkessler in weighing risks

It’s unfortunate when any injury occurs to anyone, but did you know that most injuries and accidents can be avoided? How it could have been prevented usually isn’t considered until after the fact. It might help to read about the myriad of accidents, sometimes leading to death, which people experience every year: life is risky, and even in your house risks are tremendous. Because of the few coyote incidents in the city, some people have thought of drastic measures to get rid of them. A *perspective* is a particular attitude towards something; a way of thinking about something. Maybe a new perspective is needed.

We know what coyote behavior, and especially denning behavior entails. We need to get this out to the public through better signage and education.  I’ve urgently tried giving input to RPD/ACC for signage which was immediately squelched by them [“we can’t have Janet telling us what to put in our signs”], and my scheduled educational talk was outright cancelled by RPD/ACC based pretty much on personal animosity possibly based on my superior knowledge and understanding of coyotes. So they see me as a threat to their organization rather than an asset.

In the case of coyotes, scapegoating also occurs, not only of the coyotes themselves, but of me and my efforts, and the effort of others. It’s so much easier to blame and tear someone down rather than look at reality and deal with that.

I’ve assembled this page as a reference for when needed, to address the *amplification of fear* generated by many people about coyotes, especially on NextDoor. Note that much of what is reported on NextDoor is baseless sensationalized opinion, and it’s spread like wildfire. The fear of coyotes is similar to the fear of flying: the risks are minimal, but there indeed have been accidents which for many, justifies their fear of flying. [images are from the internet].

  • guns kill close to 50,000 a year with suicides being the highest and murders next. Accidental deaths amounted to about 550, USA facts.  
  • unintentional poisoning kills over 100,000 people a year including from drugs: CDC.

  • bees, wasps and hornets kill 62 a year in North America: During 2000–2017, a total of 1,109 deaths from hornet, wasp, and bee stings occurred, for an annual average of 62 deaths.   62 a year from hornets, wasps and bees, CDC.
  • drowning deaths mount to 4,500 a year in the USA
  • falls cause many injuries and kill about 30,000 a year, mostly older adults, CDC.
  • venomous snake bites: to humans amount to about 7,000 a year and about five of those die.
  • dogs send 1000 people to emergency rooms every single day of the year and deaths to humans from dogs amount to about 43 a year. We’ve had several right here in San Francisco
  • choking: causes 5500 deaths a year, Statista.com
  • boating accidents: cause 3,000 injuries and 500 deaths a year in the USA, CoastGuard.
  • bicycles: of the 1,230 bicycle deaths in 2021, 853 were in motor-vehicle crashes, and 377 on other accidents. InjuryFacts.
  • trees: OSHA reports that over 100 people are killed by trees every year in the USA, Reifflawfirm.
  • wolf deaths have amounted to a total of 8. Dog attacks, drowning, and hunting and boating accidents claim far more lives than wolves have or ever will. Yet I don’t hear anyone demanding that we eradicate all dogs or ban hunting, swimming, or boating so that we can protect ourselves from such dangers. TheDodo.
  • coyote bites to humans amount to 17 a year for all of North America, mostly from interfering in a dog/coyote altercation, hand feeding, or to a small child. There have been only two deaths to humans from a coyote ever recorded in all time.
  • Sharks kill about 10 humans a year, whereas humans kill about 100 million sharks per year.
  • Falling television sets kill about 29 people a year.
  • Champagne corks kill about 24 people a year, and often cause permanent eye injuries.
  • Golf balls injure about 100 people a year, of these about 10 are fatal.
  • According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, of the 888,220 workplace injuries that were recorded in 2019 that resulted in time away from work, 244,000 were from falls, slips, and trips, resulting in 75,420 sprains, strains, and tears, 46,800 fractures, and 6,740 cuts, lacerations, and punctures.
  • As of Mar 10, 2021 · The number of people struck and killed while walking has gone up 45 percent in a decade

On and on including roller-blading, making a bed, cooking, painting.

What Coyotes Do: Deliberately & Consciously Weighing A Risk

23 Aug 2016 Leave a comment

by yipps:janetkessler in coyote behavior, trekking, trekking behavior, weighing risks

We were out on a trek this morning. I say “we” because I am allowed to tag along in the distance sometimes. Not always, and not even often by any means, but sometimes. Today I wasn’t given the “look” which says, “please don’t follow me”. It wasn’t an invitation to come along, but neither was it a “no, you can’t come.” So I tagged as far behind as I could without losing sight of him, as this male coyote made his circuit — or at least for most of it.

This is the last 1/2 minute of a 5+ minute howling session. You can hear *her* faintly in the distance at the end.

The day “for us” began with me finding him in his park howling in response to a siren as dawn broke. His mate responded from far, far off — barely audible, but distinctly her response. I’m sure he knew where she was. I did not, this time. She was obviously tucked away and safe, which gave him one less thing to be concerned about at that moment. So off he went, with me bringing up the rear at about 100 feet. It was very uneventful. We met few people or dogs and then only two at the very end of the trek.

Over hill and dale, within the park, we remained on a long path, he stopping to sniff now and then, and mark sporadically. At one point he pooped — diarrhea — and I wondered at the cause.

We came to the edge of the park, and here he paced along the edge of the road, watching out for traffic. Coyotes trek through areas much larger than their park territories — this is part of their daily behavior. As he began to cross the wide road, one car whizzed past. When this happened, he edged his way slowly and carefully back to the sidewalk, away from the car, where he stood very still and on full alert, with all of his senses focused and with every muscle taught and ready to respond. He had obviously gone through this experience many times and had learned to avoid the risks of quick-moving traffic. When the way was clear, still focused and tense, he crossed the road quickly and directly, and headed towards the long open space in back of the houses lining the street.

There were no fences between those apartments or between their backyards, so it was a perfect coyote-corridor. Here, he continued stopping, sniffing and marking the length of the very long block of connected apartments. He was always on alert. Sometimes he would stop longer at certain spots. Occasionally, nonchalantly, he turned his head, or head and body, just enough so that he could keep an eye on me.  This one knows I’m interested in him. He also knows that I’m not at all interested in getting close — it’s probably confusing for him. Other animals who would be interested in him would either be interested in him as prey, or in messaging him antagonistically. I simply didn’t fit the bill.

After about half an hour of trekking, he came to a fence with a plank missing. The gap was big enough for him to fit through. Should he try it? He spent well over a minute intently assessing the opening. His head would go forward and then he would withdraw it and look up and around in all directions, including at me. He did this maybe about 8 times, and finally, bravery won the day and he went through. I went up and examined the opening: the opening abutted the low support beams under a porch, and these were less than a foot off the ground. The coyote would have had to squeeze tightly and then bend to make it through. There was no chance for me, so I returned to the park, thinking my observations were over for the day.

But, within twenty minutes, who should come trotting up the path to the spot where I had first seen him howl in the morning, but Mr. Coyote himself! He continued along the path, now going in the other direction, somehow avoiding detection, between a couple of runners. He climbed a steep knoll where he then spent a few moments surveyed his domain — this “surveying” is a common coyote activity — and then he continued on his way, over hill and dale, through a field of waist-to-chest-high dense brush. I hurried over his lookout hill to the field below and was able to, at times, see his back as he slithered along, hidden by the bushes. When a dog and walker appeared in the distance, the coyote loitered behind one of these bushes until they had gone, and then he himself hurried along his chosen route and disappeared into a dense thicket, and I knew he had “gone in” for the duration of the day. His trek lasted a little over an hour.

slithering away in waist-to-shoulder high shrubbery

slithering away in waist-to-shoulder high shrubbery