The Associated Press notes that there are rising numbers of reports of coyotes attacking humans in Southern California.
LOS ANGELES – The coyote was limping as it approached a girl in a sand box at a public park — but it was still dangerous. It snapped its jaws on the girl's buttocks and her nanny had to pry the toddler from the wild animal.
Less than a week later, a coyote in a mountain resort town some 35 miles away grabbed a girl by the head and tried to drag her from a front yard until her mother scared it away.A spate of coyote attacks in the fast-growing suburbs east of Los Angeles have left parents on edge and puzzled wildlife officials.
"Their aggressive behavior seems to be on the upswing," said Steve Martarano, a spokesman with the state Department of Fish and Game. "They just seem to lose their fear of humans."
Coyotes normally avoid contact with humans and hunt rabbits and rodents. But scientists said some that live near suburban developments are becoming bolder, raiding garbage or even attacking pets and humans.
An increase in coyote attacks on humans in the past decade is most evident in Southern California, where bedroom communities have quickly pressed into wilderness, allowing the canine scavengers to roam backyards for food.
In recent years, coyote populations all across the country have been on the rise. This is not a good sign – when these animals begin losing fear of humans, it is only a short step to seeing humans as just another food source. We have a very large coyote pack running in the area I live in. Most nights you can hear them howling as they chase something. We have taken to watching the pets when they have to go out after dark, as a matter of fact.
It is dangerous to have wild predators live without fear among humans. And though that statement could be taken to apply to a variety of tribes of uncivilized bi-ped vertebrates, I meant it to apply to the four-legged and furry versions.
One fix is to make use of some otherwise obsolete cartridges–.22 Hornet, .220 Swift, .218 Bee– and do both sides of the issue some good from medium range. A 20-gauge with No. 2 is a good option for close quarters, as would be a carbine in a good pistol caliber–.357, .44, .45. Please note the intended omission of the 9mm Europellet.
A recent encounter with a rabid fox in my suburban neighborhood brought the issue close to home. Discussing the event with a neighbor brought another issue close to home: The right of self protection. The neighbor insisted that the city ordinance "prohibiting the discharge of a firearm within city limits" was more important than preventing an attack from a diseased animal. He is wrong, but his insistence upon stifling an organic right to self-defense is even more so. I suppose that I should not put out a kitchen fire, but wait for the "authorities" and just watch it burn. Right?
The time has come and gone when we should throw off the feminized robes of oppresive government (the "authorities"), add testosterone to our bloodtreams and take control of ourselves. Again. When a danger is observed do not wait for someone to give you permission to protect yourself, and do not expect the predator to be controlled by a high sense of kindness; what he wants is to take what you have, eat you, or both. Illustrate your mind with whatever form of predator you’d like, but they all want the same thing. And we are becoming easy, easy prey.
Dan Patterson
Arrogant Infidel
A few weeks ago I was driving on a side residential street in Glendale, CA (a suburb of Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley) at about 11 pm. I came upon a small pack of maybe 8 coyotes who were wandering around right in the middle of the street. The amazing thing was that they weren’t particularly startled or bothered by my truck driving up. They moved aside and let me through, but they just stood there a few feet away as I drove by. It obviously was THEIR neighborhood, and they weren’t afraid of me.
Here in Tallahassee, Florida a woman was walking her dog on Sunday afternoon when a wildcat came out of some bushes and attacked her dog. She tried to save the dog and it attacked her, as well. The cat is in the process of being tested for rabies now. Last week a baby brown bear was trapped in an inner city neighborhood here and taken back out to the woods. The simple fact is that as the human population continues to increase at a rapid rate, the simple requirement for living space has us taking more and more wildlife living space away from them. Their only choice is to encroach on our living space or die. Some of them are likely to fight rather than die meekly. We should keep this in mind as we continue to pump out more and more human beings.