Oregon L.O.W.F.I

Archive for March 26th, 2010

New York City is a long way from Eugene, Oregon, but this story has my interest for these reasons: it’s related to my earlier post about coyotes seen in residential areas in Newport, Oregon, on the coast (literally, coyotes on the beach), and I’m interested in stories of wild animals interfacing with humans, or, vice versa.

Also, it seems that in the past few years, stories of known animals — meaning, mundane, recognizable creatures as compared to unknown, anomalous, cryptid types — behaving more boldly as well as more strangely, have increased. I noticed this pattern about ten, twelve years ago. For some reason I started collecting news clippings and stories of strange animal behaviors. When I told one of my professors about this he agreed it was certainly interesting, but wanted to know so what; what was I going to do with these stories, why was I collecting them? “Because they’re cool and weird” wasn’t enough of a motivation. Well, I still don’t know what I want to do with these stories, except to share them, for now.

So, we have coyotes in New York city. Part of my fascination of stories like this is the juxtaposition of humans, especially in places so seemingly out of touch with “the wild,” even though “the wild,” may be less than fifty miles away. Well dressed people eating perfect food in lovely places, and two blocks away are coyotes. Or deer, or bear or wolverines or cougars or . . .

Even in places not so la de dah as New York City, like Newport, Oregon, the juxtaposition still fascinates. Newport is a funky yet somewhat large beach town, (not a criticism) where, however, “gentrification” is going on in some areas. Expensive condos and too too cute and over priced shops are shoved up against older and poorer homes, often in disrepair. And just a few miles away from the touristy beach spots are the rural areas; some poor, some with one way glass windows wrapping around beautiful homes atop hills, and some in between. Add to this the presence of animals coming down from the hills, or out of the forests, onto the boardwalks and surrounding neighborhoods seems like both poetic justice in some ways, as well as tragic for the animals. Obviously their presence is a sign of what’s happening to their environment and the effect that has on the animals.

Well that was gloomy. I didn’t intend it to turn out that way, it just did. Maybe it’s because right now it’s a dark, rainy, windy cold day here in Oregon. Not at all unusual for western Oregon, true. . .

So, back to the coyotes in New York. This recent news items tells about a captured coyote in the city: Not wily enough: Cops corral roving Tribeca coyote along West Side Highway.

New York’s runaway coyote has been corralled.

The elusive animal was finally nabbed in Tribeca on Thursday after cops found it in a parking lot near the West Side Highway.

“He didn’t seem too Wily by the time we found him,” said Detective James Coll, who collared the coyote with Detective Robert Mirfield.

Limo driver Ralph Rothstein, 63, who witnessed the capture, said the creature “had one ear up and one ear down, like a cartoon character, and didn’t know which way to go.

“I was reading about it earlier in the day then, all of a sudden, I see the coyote and I couldn’t believe it…It looked scared,” he added.

Naturally the poor thing was scared! Fortunately the coyote is in the hands of animal caretakers and will be released into the wild. Other coyotes have been seen — and captured — in New York City over the last five years or so.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/03/25/2010-03-25_not_wiley_enough_cops_corral_roving_tribeca_coyote_along_west_side_highway.html#ixzz0jIfHWU3N