Lifestyle Changes for Wild Critters

Yesterday morning I was taking my son’s dog for a walk. We are her keeping for a couple of days while my son is out of town.

At a corner in the neighborhood a car stopped and the window rolled down. It was a lady I have known for many years. Our paths kept crossing. Years ago my neighbor kept her children when she was a flight attendant and she is the ex-sister-in-law of Joe, my deaf ex-co-worker, whose dog was mauled by a bear while he slept undisturbed up in the mountains, and worse of all, his all his three children were killed in a single car wreck because his wife tried made a wrong choice in turning. Which was a turning point in their lives.

There is a post someplace on this blog about poor deaf Joe.

She asked me had I seen any coyotes. I told her no.
She told me saw a coyote eat her cat in her backyard the other day.

You would think coyotes are creatures of the western plains. Maybe that used to be, but they have expanded their business I guess. About six or seven years ago James Bentley complained about all the coyotes on Blackjack Mountain. He and his siblings owned a good portion of the mountain and he used it for farming cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs. I think the coyotes killed some of his livestock more than several times.

A friend of mine saw a coyote two days ago on his daily walk in south Cobb near the only covered bridge in the county.

I think this is a new life-change we will have to adjust to. The more wilderness we humans bulldoze away and build shopping centers and subdivisions we are driving the wild life out in the open. This county is seeing more foxes and coyotes than ever before and last year even a few black bear found themselves in neighborhoods. The wildlife is having to make habitat adjustments and so do we.

The lady sitting in her car asked me did I see the picture of the cat on the telephone pole down the street. I said I did. She said that looked just like the cat the saw the coyote eating on anther day, also in her back yard.

The said she called the number under the picture and told the people there were wild coyotes roaming around and they might have eaten their cat. She said of course she didn’t tell them she saw the coyotes eat a cat that looked like their cat. Never the less, I bet that was received as a strange telephone call.