Living In Sacramento: An Injured Coyote

I am still amazed at some of the things that I see since I've been living in Sacramento. I grew up in the South Bay Area, San Jose, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale areas. Most of the areas there are city and suburbs. I saw your ordinary cranky squirrels, raccoons would often raid my trash cans and now and then I might have to drive around a stubborn opossum who didn't want to get out of the middle of the road.

But since I've been in Sacramento I have had close and personal experiences with wild turkeys, snowy egrets, sand hill cranes, turtles in the park, a snake coming through the front door at work, huge jack rabbits on the front lawn and 'herds' of Canadian geese flying over head. Most of these experiences, less than a block away from my apartment.

On my way to work this morning I came out of my street and in the field just before I got on the freeway I thought I saw a cougar or some kind of large cat. I parked the car and grabbed my camera to take some pictures. After I took a few photos I decided that it was just a dog. When I got to work, I loaded the pictures on to my computer and the woman standing next to my desk said 'oh my God, it's a coyote'. The pictures showed that he wasn't doing so well. You can see that he's been hurt, possibly, by the hawk that was dive bombing him. The field has been the local buffet for the birds of prey because there are so many jack rabbits. The coyote was digging to try to get at the rabbits.

It was very strange to see the animal out in the open at 11:00 in the morning in such a populated area. He was just yards away from the local Starbucks, the gas station and the grocery store. He wasn't walking well and he seemed to be disoriented. Not good for the coyote or for the kids that would be walking home from school in just a few hours. The animal was obviously sick and might charge a small child.

I called the Sacramento Wildlife Rescue to report this poor guy but got caught in a sea of recordings, voice mails and referrals. I almost gave up, but on the last call, I was in the process of leaving a message on one of the volunteer's voicemail. I explained that I thought it was pretty urgent and fortunately, the volunteer picked up the phone. I didn't realize that she was in Nevada but she knew how to get in touch with the right people without going through all of the recordings. Hope Mr. Coyote can be helped. I'll let you know if I get a call back from the Wildlife Rescue.