Not to Be Confused with Wile E.

Sunday morning delivered a close encounter with Canis latrans on the fire road at Dalem Lake. Much as I would have liked our path-crossing to have endured long enough to provide a photo op, perhaps even an extended moment of inter-species communion, the coyote permitted only a glimpse before melding into the woods.

Those whose impression of coyote is informed by “Wile E. Coyote” of cartoon fame have been done a disservice. As a kid I got as hearty a laugh out of hapless Wile E. as the kid next door but the cartoon coyote was and is a fraud: a determined but hapless chump who could never win a battle of wits against the dodgy, bird-brained roadrunner he could never get for dinner. The coyote always lost. In the real world coyotes are not hapless chumps, not at all. In the real world a coyote is a better than even-money bet against even the nimblest of roadrunners.

In Cape Breton National Park a few autumns ago a young woman ran in fear from two coyotes, a decision that proved fatal. The park coyotes, grown too accustomed to human handouts of sandwich and hamburger, had lost their wariness of our kind. They chased and dispatched her. It was a bad decision for the pursuers too: the coyotes were themselves hunted down and liquidated. The Nova Scotia government initiated a coyote shooting season. In a given year thousands might be culled for their pelts. It was a sad story all around.

In the aftermath of the park misfortune signs have been placed along woodland trails where people like to walk and enjoy nature. Just such a sign has been placed along one of the Dalem trails. It counsels hikers to back away from an approaching coyote—never run in the opposite direction—and wave their walking stick menacingly should a coyote approach.

It is perhaps no surprise that folks fear coyotes; on seeing one up-close many would have nothing like the pleased-as-punch response I did Sunday morning. But my notion is that generally speaking a coyote has much more to fear from a human than the other way around. Many jurisdictions offer a bounty on C. latrans, so coyotes, which are about the size of a border collie and typically don’t weigh more than forty pounds, have good reason to flee whenever they encounter H. sapiens. I have never had a coyote do anything but flee at the sight of me. Perhaps there is advantage in being big, ugly and definitely not toothsome-looking.

C. latrans has dramatically expanded its range in modern times. Historically it did not occur in Nova Scotia. It was first seen here in the latter half of the 1970s. Now it is firmly established and doing especially well on Cape Breton Island. The coyote of Nova Scotia is bigger than his western cousin. Local coyotes are thought to be the result of past interbreeding with the larger C. lupus—wolf. The Nova Scotia population has grown from nil in the mid-1970s to an estimated eight thousand today.

On what do coyotes dine if there aren’t sandwiches and hamburgers on offer? Well, in these parts the prey species that have most to fear are varying hare—often quite plentiful here at Bigador—together with red squirrel and mice. Coyotes will also make do with carrion: they are not above capitalizing on fresh roadkill. Though principally meat-eaters they will exploit the annual fruit and berry bounty too.

I admit to liking coyotes. Foxes too. Both are among the charismatic fauna one is likely to see in a summer sojourn on Boularderie Island.  I count it a good day whenever I come across one or the other. I like coyotes because they’re intelligent, resourceful, adaptable. Good-looking too, by my reckoning. Not to mention athletic: there is no point in trying to outrun a coyote unless you too can leap fourteen feet and sprint at up to 40 miles an hour. All things considered they are far more worthy of our admiration and respect than Wile E. could ever be.

Finally, there is this: one of the delights of summer hereabouts is hearing a sunset chorus of coyotes yipping and howling from a pack’s enclave on Kelly’s Mountain or Boularderie Island’s woodsy spine.

Now if only I could get the next one I see to pause long enough to accommodate a photo or two before carrying on with the rounds of its day.