Coyote Yipps

Photo of the coyote hanging out the previous day.

The injury was first noticed the previous morning. I was told that it was a bad limp — the devoted neighbors were worried and concerned for his safety and his life: “What should we do?” I advised that, if the coyote was mobile, he should be left alone — he would be okay.

I went out before dawn the next day to assess the extent of the injury and exactly what was injured: be it paw, leg, joint, or hip, along with the coyote’s demeanor and mobility. I spotted the fella and his mate right off, foraging in the bushes.

Well, he was very mobile, and his disposition was great. In fact, he was more concerned about his mate than about himself! This was ever so sweet to see. When I first encountered them, SHE ran off to stay hidden, after which HE spent time looking around for her, found her and ran to be with her. She is much shyer than he is. They then both walked together for a stretch, but as dawn broke and people started to gather, she hurried down a little used street to keep away. He watched her go, staying back so that HE would be the attractant and not her, thus allowing her to slip away undisturbed. As he watched her go, he gingerly walked on his leg a little but did not put much weight on it when he stood still. Then, when she was almost out of view, he hurried along after her: this is when the limp became noticeable: at a faster pace, he had to hold up his injured leg.

So, as the video shows, he’s quite mobile, and he has not lost his spirit, indicating that he was taking care of himself just fine. It’s always best to allow wild animals to heal on their own: nature is a marvelous healer if you allow it to do its magic. Intervention is not necessary here, and in fact could do more harm than good. The process of intervening would be traumatizing not only to the injured coyote, but to his entire family which depends on him as the leader and authority figure for his family — it would be extremely disruptive for them to find him gone. Intervention may indeed be needed sometimes, but more often it is not necessary. We’ll keep an eye on his improvement over the next couple of weeks to make sure he doesn’t regress.

I’ve seen lots of leg and hip injuries. Every one of those I’ve seen has resolved itself pretty quickly except one, which simply took longer — several months. THAT coyote had been hit by a car. I was lucky enough to run into an eye-witness of the accident. The witness wanted to help the coyote but the coyote slipped away and they could not find her. It turned out to be a good thing because, months later, we discovered that she was raising two pups as a single mom. They would have perished without her. We knew that her mate had been killed before the pups were born, apparently by rat poison. This speaks volumes for coyotes’ resiliency: normally both father and mother raise the young.

Here is another bad hip injury which resolved itself in a couple of days: Injured coyote – collapsing hip and leg.

UPDATE from three days later: Good news to report! The injured fella has been walking AND trotting solidly on all fours, in addition to howling with the sirens. Injured animals tend to remain quiet and under-the-radar for a while, but this coyote’s injury clearly is no longer hampering his style.  Yay!

Chewing on a three-inch hard plastic vial found left on the ground in a park

Please don’t leave your trash lying around! It could injure an animal, even if it’s something as simple and seemingly-benign as a hard plastic container, as seen here. There’s enough out there that these animals have to deal with without having to deal with our made-for-human toss-offs.

This coyote found and chewed on a hard plastic vial. A piece of the hard plastic splintered off and could have become stuck in the coyote’s mouth, possibly lodging between her teeth or in her gums, creating discomfort and maybe an injury more severe than mere discomfort.  She used her paws in attempting to dislodge it. Pets are often taken to the vet for items that become lodged in their mouths, throats or stomachs. Wild animals don’t have this option.

3″  hard plastic splintered by the coyote’s chewing.

At first glance, it looked as though she was dealing with a paw or an eye injury, but notice that she used both paws and continually brought them to way back of the jaw on both sides. And this behavior happened right after chewing that piece of hard plastic. She worked hard to dislodge the uncomfortable or painful item, standing there patiently as she did so, but I have no idea if she was successful. When an animal can’t “fix” something like this, they learn to live with it. If she didn’t get it out, maybe her body will somehow expel it: nature can fix many things. But what if it doesn’t? We can prevent many of these occurrences simply by picking up after ourselves.

I’m not sure she was successful in removing what was bothering her :(

Unrelated to this story, but of interest, is this story involving my brother’s dog. Several years ago my brother’s Golden Retriever began avoiding him, slinking into a corner for several days before my brother forced the issue and discovered a substantial piece of metal wedged around his dog’s teeth. The dog apparently was fearful of being ostracized for this new *malady*, preferring not to be seen rather than asking for help. In the wild, many animals are shunned from their social groups if they look or act odd. Might the dog have been fearful of this?

This is Molly. Molly was running in an open field when her foot got caught in a gopher hole. She began limping. Her owner took her to the vet where they learned Molly had sprained a ligament in her arm. After about four days, with rest and time, the limp slowly wore off and Molly went back to living as she had before her injury.

Injuries that are common to dogs are also common to coyotes. But time and rest are not so available to wild animals who must continue to hunt and protect themselves, come rain or shine or disease or injury. It’s why most coyotes don’t live beyond about 5 years of age on average, even though their full natural life span could be as long as 14 years. Dogs, of course, with state-of-art medical care can expect to live out their lives almost to the end of what is genetically expected for their breed. Humans, too, are aided by state-of-art medical aid.

Only a couple of generations ago, if a human fell and broke a hip or injured a knee or broke a leg, it was “the beginning of the end”. You lived with your injury, hobbling around with a cane if you were lucky. Being bed-ridden was the clincher — it caused pneumonia, atrophy and all sorts of other problems which often led to a premature death. Luckily, this isn’t so anymore.

I’m having my turn at this now. Scrambling around the parks doing my coyote observation work — in fact, doing what any other coyote or dog might be doing in a park — I myself sustained a debilitating injury: I was hurriedly descending a steep incline covered with tangled brambles. I didn’t trip in that booby trap, but I must have come down wrong on the leg or twisted it as I descended ski-fashion.

I could feel something was wrong, but it didn’t hurt much at first, so I pushed my luck rather than take a break. I should have done what Molly did. Instead, I continued, like a coyote. Within a couple of weeks, as I walked carefully so as to avoid pain, I heard a “POW” and fell to the ground — I could not walk another step and the pain was excruciating. It was already dusk. I wondered how I would get out of the park. I was too proud to scream for help. So I found two sticks to lean on and inched my way out of the park — about 500 feet took me over an hour.

X-rays showed I had perfect bones — I was told to wait it out. But my friends all told me to demand an MRI. I finally did, and discovered that my meniscus was a mess of rips and even the root was torn apart. Dogs and coyotes also have meniscus injuries. My prognosis: knee replacement within a year if I didn’t have the meniscus repaired. Isn’t that called Hobson’s Choice?

I had state-of-the-art surgery and had to remain off the knee for six weeks. I wore a full-leg-length brace and hobbled around on crutches, with the warning words ringing in my ear, “You have one chance at this — the minimal tissue in the root won’t allow a second repair — if you mess it up, you’ll have to have knee replacement.” When you live for being out-of-doors, it’s excruciatingly difficult to take “time out”. Fortunately, my hiatus is up. I’ve missed only the coyote mating season. I’ll be out there observing within the week, though full recovery will take many months. I’ve been thinking about coyote leg injuries. Coyotes can’t afford to take an extended “time out” to heal, nor do they have doctors to help the healing process.  But they do have four legs instead of two which allows them some “wiggle room” for recovery. I was just sent a video of a coyote using three legs. Although the coyote was somewhat hampered, he was not incapacitated, and he kept up with the other coyotes.