He’s back.
Richard emails: “Just thought it would be diligent of me to get a learning out to the neighborhood that I spotted a full-grown coyote trotting down NE 98th St just east of 15th Ave last night (9/22). Hope nobody loses a pet.”
September 23
The return of the coyote of Maple Leaf
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7 comments
That’s Wiley. Maybe he’s the guy who’s stealing our mail. He works the night shift at the Acme factory.
Domestic cats, mostly feral, are a significant source of small bird mortality:
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v4/n1/full/ncomms2380.html
Lol, cats are funny, and so is this thread. Lol!
Pat, you missed the point. For the record, when I still had a cat – mine succumbed to a variety of maladies at the age of 15 years and four months in April of 2014 – I kept him inside the building where we lived, for the very reason you mentioned. For years, after we moved to the neighborhood, raccoons were the issue, not coyotes; but raccoons can kill a cat as readily as a coyote.
More recently, a friend of mine who lives in Victory Heights had his cat, Smokey go missing; and to my knowledge, Smokey is still gone.
So I acknowledge the truth of what you wrote. But it is substantially different in intent, and tone, from what I was taking issue; that of an anonymous person, emitting glee that someone’s cat had probably been eliminated by a coyote, raccoon or, possibly even worse, a human driving an automobile.
I don’t like that and consider posting such snide, self-righteous venomous tripe anonymously, the mark of a coward. The Internet is filled with such people and is the reason that no news site should allow anyone to post under an assumed name. The NYT and WSJ doesn’t, as do a few others. It was standard practice before proving “traffic” for ad dollars became the norm – at the price of civility and asking that someone making a statement, stand behind it.
Terry, like it or not, cats out at night are fair game for coyotes and studies on urban coyotes show that cats are their primary prey.
At least five cats have been reported missing in Victory Heights in the last month or so. Cat owners please keep your cats in at night. We live in coyote territory and that is not going to change.
“Jameson,” think about this (if you haven’t); the cats are out at night and they’re not stray cats; rather, they are someone’s companion animal.
Since the cats are out at night, it’s highly unlikely that the cats would harm any birds, or even other mammals. There used to be plenty of raccoon troops milling about at night – would see them on walks – and it’s (again) highly unlikely that a cat would take out a raccoon.
Furthermore, if you aren’t willing to post inflammatory comments without using your full name, please stop.
Coyotes – best rat control. Ever.
This is the best thing to happen to those stray cats. They decimate small birds and mammals.