My Wildling Neighbors: The CoyWolf

The coywolf isn’t an animal you normally ever see. I did come face to face with one yesterday, but he was moving so fast I probably wouldn’t have known what I saw were it not for regular sightings on one of  the trail cams. Researches who study these animals for a living rarely see one. But at a population of 50,000 and growing in my state I wouldn’t say we don’t see them because they are rare.

When you live close to a variety predators it’s good to know their habits and favorite haunts so accidents like yesterday don’t happen often. This guy patrols the marshy bottom land below my house nightly. As do a number of other predators like bobcats, bear, fox. I don’t know if wild boar are predators but they are dangerous and they love that spot too.

My dog weighs fifty pounds and this guy looks as big or slightly larger at terrifyingly close range. According to the local research, coywolves here are about 66 percent coyote, 24 percent wolf and about 10 percent domestic dog. Coywolves are not pack animals like wolves. They tend to keep to themselves with their mate having an overlapping territory. They help control the deer population and that is desperately needed where I am.

So Big Red and I (he has such a lovely red-gold mane) are neighbors that agree a nice big social distance is a good thing. Happy Earth Day.

~Nara