From an evolutionary standpoint, coyotes have “business” to be where ever there is food. Survival is their business. They have as much right to invade our space, as we do invading their dwindling environments with urban sprawl. An animal that threatens the human environment rarely lives to tell the tale. However, the argument becomes whether that animal is actually a threat or whether we’re just overly fearful of any wild predators.

When I hear of word that their are rabid coyotes in Oakhurst, I will change my tune. That’s not funny stuff, because the animal is now exceedingly dangerous to everyone. Until then, I support Michael Ellis’ effort to educate the community on the myths and facts of this new neighbor.

You might not be so benign to this problem if you were to lose your own pet to a predator that has no business whatsoever in an urban environment. Their native range is the prairies of the western US and Canada so this idea that they “belong here” is false. They have plenty of new habitat now out in the rural areas of the eastern US, which they never previously occupied until their own predators (wolf and cougar) were eliminated many years ago.

And then there is the issue of rabies and other coyote-carried diseases, but I’ll let you visit your nearby CDC for more-than-enough information on that subject. In the meantime, note that Texas had a BIG problem with coyotes a few years back, so take a moment and Google “Texas Oral Vaccine Project”. (BTW, the “vaccine” was actually the very lethal canine parvovirus– an example of biowarfare being used when all other options are ineffective.)