“Careful going that way. A coyote was following us.”
We thanked the lady and her hiking companion for the warning. I remember thinking, I ain’t afraid of no coyote, but no sooner had I thought it than the lady pointed down the road and said, “there it is!”
Sure enough. There it was! A large coyote appeared down the trail. He (or maybe a she) walked slowly towards us, deliberately with head down. It struck me that he didn’t react to our presence at all. I would not have been surprised if he had looked at us and said, “hey guys. What’s up? Nice day for a hike, innit?”
Our little group took a few steps back and looked at the creature in bewilderment.
He did not seem the least bit fazed. Tall and strong, he was larger (and more threatening) than I imagined a coyote would be in real life, having only seen them in pictures and videos before then. Silently and calmly, he headed down a smaller trail and disappeared into the forest.
Little did I know then that it was the beginning of the great coyote apocalypse. Since the spring of 2020, hikers, joggers, bikers, yoga practitioners, tourists, children, and even a romantic couple having a “picnic” at 1:30 am have all been victims of the wily creatures. Beginning shortly after the pandemic “lockdown," over forty attacks have been registered, and there are likely many unreported encounters as well.
No one is quite sure why the coyotes who live in this park have been acting up. Some blame people who feed animals, teens partying at night, homeless disrupting their habitat, heavier foot traffic because of pandemics, inaction from the park board, and even discarded drugs from addicts. Yes, I live in a place where coyotes high on meth and fentanyl may have taken over a large portion of the city by force.
While four or five coyotes have already been culled, the biting fest has not stopped. Their modus operandi is stalking an unsuspecting victim and then jumping out of the bushes for a quick guerrilla-style attack. More concerning, however, is their recent change in behavior, as reported by a hiker who was out on the trails with her pooch, when they were accosted by three coyotes. The animals followed them and surrounded them, working together as a pack. She ran away from them and hailed a trucker on the nearby road that cuts through the park. He opened the door and let the panicked hiker and her pooch on board.
To stem the tide of coyote attacks, authorities decided to enforce park closures after 10 PM. That didn’t stop the attacks, in part because people are stubborn and insisted in going to that area during late and very early morning hours. After a series of attacks, they decided to close the park at 7 PM. Predictably, this new curfew didn’t stop people from breaking the rules and more coyote mayhem ensued. So at last, authorities decided to put up a fence around key entrances into the park to keep humans and coyotes away from each other.
Sadly, this story will not have a happy ending, regardless of what Bryan Adams says. Over thirty coyotes will be culled because it has become clear that in a tightly confined environment like this park, coyotes and humans cannot coexist in harmony. There is already opposition to this plan from activists, celebrities, and academics. Moral and ethical questions aside, they believe that the problem will not be solved because the coyotes will repopulate and proliferate in this territory, then we’ll be back to square one. The way I see it, the writing is on the wall. The experiment is over. Coyotes are highly adaptable and aggressive. Their population will keep growing, and they will attack anyone who ventures into their ever-expanding territory. This town ain’t big enough for our two species, and one must ride off into the sunset.
