Fernmire: Who Killed Coyote 13?

Welcome back Nature-led friends to a dramatic update on the happenings around the Fernmire homestead in Northwest Washington State, US. I’ll be spilling the tea about the local political intrigue among both wild and human neighbors alike. I won’t be naming and names, because this little blog hasn’t got the bread if the crow mafia decides to lawyer up!

Humans/Hoomans/Homo Sapiens

It’s a local election year and things are heating up! There are basically two factions on the City Council, the Pro-Business and the Environmentalists and NIMBYs. The Pro-Business faction staged a political coup just before the start of the pandemic. They were playing musical chairs and one of them with the most name recognition on campaign signs about town won by hair, it would seem. About a year into his term, he started facing legal troubles for things like fraud, embezzlement, and which of his multiple residences was his REAL permanent residence. The one within city boundaries or the one on the water not in City boundaries where his wife would host dinner parties and decorate for the holidays? To avoid such a “distraction” from City business, he announced his resignation one rainy night during peak flu season and early in the pandemic to force a vote right then and there for a new Mayor when the opposing faction was missing two members and as such couldn’t challenge the motion or the council member subsequently voted as the new Mayor. The City Attorney let it stand. The little-known, first-term council member, now Mayor threw the doors wide open for development.

In the current divisive political climate both locally and beyond, I very much resent that voters are forced to choose between narratives that force a presumption that you must choose between Pro-business or Pro-environment. Instead of focusing on the issues where we could act like adults and find balance between both needs. Instead, we’re forced to deal with smear campaigns, shadow organizations financing candidates and no reliable third-party information. The longer this goes on, the less likely communities and eventually societies will be able to save themselves from existential threats. We all get to sink to our deaths while a few rich crazy people argue over who gets to be named Captain.

Wildlife/Animals/Not Humans or Plants

A Deer and A Gun

One Saturday morning we were heading down the road when a crazy, but predicable scene played out before us. A woman sitting in a white car with a bit of front-end damage, a police vehicle with two officers standing on the side of the road. One plugs his ears and turns his head, the other pulls out his service pistol and shoots an injured doe in the head. In unison we both say, “Ah, that’s a shame.” The number one killer of our wild neighbors are vehicles. It’s how the majority of deer and bears die around here.

Crow Mafia

Ther’s a larger rookery of Crows that live nearby in a eaves of some University-owned buildings. They number in the hundreds if not nearly a thousand in all. They darken the skies at dusk and dawn with black wings as they got to their daily haunts, human neighborhoods. There’s a crow couple at the end of cul de sac. I get along well with them. They are members of good standing in the crow community. They once stole a paper bagged lunch from a contractor working at a neighbor’s house. He made the mistake of setting it on the hood of his truck cab while reaching back into the cab to grab something else. That’s all it took for the crow couple to steal his lunch. The man just sighed, and I told him the nearest places he could go to grab a quick lunch.

The crow at our end of the street was a crow of low standing in his community. No mate, no assistance when harassed by the red-tailed hawk, no partner in crime for food theft. He got his meals by harassing young rabbits to flee into the street when cars were coming, thus earning himself fresh roadkill. Normally I don’t interfere with nature being nature, but this crow had the audacity to try picking up a baby bunny from right in front of my door with me standing there! The little rabbit was a bit too heavy to lift. The crow knows as well as I do, a stressed rabbits can die of fright alone if a stressful situation goes on long enough. If you’ve never heard a screaming rabbit, consider yourself lucky. It’s a terrible sound! I shooed the crow away while coaxing the baby rabbit along towards some tall brush with my bare foot.

This scenario wouldn’t even have happened if the crow was in good standing with his community. A few days later I went for a short in the morning walk and when I came back that crow was dead in the middle of my driveway. No visible wounds, not near a window, but with a broken neck, nonetheless. I moved it to the backyard and laid it in the middle of the grass to offer time for a crow funeral before dusk. I saw crow couple from down the street come and observe from high branches. I’ve always suspected he’ might have been one of their sons, but there’s no way to prove it. They never hoped down beside him, and they didn’t make death calls. Just quietly observed and then flew away. At dusk, I buried the outcast.

This summer for the first time ever, the red-tailed hawks that guard my Lapin cherry tree for me, let the crows feast and I too decided to let things be. I didn’t take a single cherry from the tree this year. I left them all for the birds this year crow and not crow alike and in return they left me all three of my blueberry bushes, which I prefer anyways.

Who Killed Coyote 13?

For the purpose of relating this story to other humans we’ll call one of last year’s most prominent coyote pups, Coyote 13, although he was one of a shared litter of eight, he’s the one that stuck around the most to this den. He wasn’t a very smart coyote so it’s tempting to affectionately refer to him as “Doofus” (meaning: not very smart) as well. Before winter last year he got into some kind terrible scuffle where half his fur was ripped of his back down to skin. It was a terrible sight to see. It broke my heart not to be able to do anything. I didn’t think he could survive the winter, but he did. Hours in the field everyday eating “field snacks” (field mice) for enough nutrition and likely sleeping in the den of his birth. He had no mate. He seemed to be doing well enough all things considered, but he wasn’t afraid of humans, just stood there like the pathetic beast that he was, but a lot of humans aren’t used to living with coyotes and are fearful of them. Make no mistake, coyotes can be dangerous, just like dogs and humans can be dangerous. (You can read my previous post with great pictures called: My Neighbor Coyote for more…)

I was worried he would get killed just for existing in plain sight, but I also worried that he might get desperate and stupid and try to snatch a small neighbor dog. There’s also a guy that frequently walks through our neighborhood that just isn’t right in the head. He doesn’t live on our street, but he seems to think he owns our street, all the other surrounding streets and well, the whole dang City because apparently, he was Mayor a long, long, time ago. He walks through peoples’ yards with his off-leash “designer” dog making everyone angry. I wouldn’t put it past Mr. Entitled to decide he’s got to do away with a weak coyote. I imagine he would call the cops to do it, and maybe it would have been a mercy killing at this point like it was for the deer. He was suffering but also determined to live. When do humans get to make that decision for a wild animal? The common practice around here is that if a wild animal can stand and feed itself without endangering humans it can stay. That last one is tricky, because someone people’s perception of a threat is a very low bar.

However, I suspect Coyote 13’s real killer was the bobcats. Our resident bobcat that has always been a powerful hunter found a mate and they had a couple of kits. It always surprises me how big bobcats actually are. I always think they should be around 20lbs ( 9 kg), but a healthy bobcat like these ones are weighing in closer to 35-40lbs (15-18kg.) One night, there was a terrible sound; A lost battle for life. I never saw coyote 13 after that night. None of the other coyotes came around anymore for months after. One of them, mom I think, used to check on him now and then. For the first time in 13 years this coyote den went unused. Sometimes on early morning walks I see a ghost of a new yearling skirting up between bushes at the far end neighborhood. Twice I’ve seen it come to the field skittishly searching to determine if it’s safe to hunt for mice here.

Wild animals have their own ways of keeping history. It’s nice to know that I’m an imbedded memory core in the family history of so many different animals. To them, my scent and shape means something in a way other humans will never see me.

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Do you have any wild animal friends?

I would love to hear your stories! If its too long to comment here or you’d rather do your own post about it on your page, send me the link so I can read! Until next time, stay healthy, stay sane, and get outside!