All my recent photos of coyotes
I've taken a lot of pictures of coyotes recently. It's coyote mating season, so they are all over the place here in LA.
Many local parks have coyote warning signs. This one is my favorite. I like how it attempts to characterize coyotes as evil, aggressive villains. I suppose that this is a well-considered public health comms decision, but it's very funny to me and seems like it would probably make a biologist sad:
Coyotes in the area do approach people very closely, and people are definitely constantly feeding them or allowing their dogs to approach them. When I was at Ascot Hills a few weeks ago, I saw a man with an unleashed german shepherd walk off the main park path. The dog shot off like a bolt into the undergrowth. About twenty seconds later, I saw these two guys emerge from the bushes and trot away, the german shepherd quietly following thirty or forty feet behind.
Nobody was fighting, but I was astonished that anyone was walking their dog off-leash in a park obviously completely packed to the brim with coyotes. The funniest thing is that the guy walked into the bushes with his dog right next to this sign:
PLEASE LEASH YOUR PET THANKS
Later, at Ernest E. Debs park, I was approached very closely by a pair of coyotes. Within the span of five minutes, these guys walked right up to every human who went past their spot, basically - we were the second of three groups they approached. Each time, they retreated into the bushes to wait for the next group of people. Very sly!!
They came extraordinarily close to us. The entire time they were walking towards us, I was slowly backing up, taking pictures, and wondering if I was fucking stupid for not screaming at them. The social pressure I feel not to scream in public is very strong!!
This is precisely the time of year, apparently, when coyotes are the most aggressive and weird and chaotic, so next time I'll see if I can get myself to scream. I'll imagine the snarling guy from the park warning sign.
Very cool on some level, though, to have gotten picture of doggy so close and clear... I just hope nobody's feeding these guys!!