The Curious Case of the Alcatraz Coyote – RedState

Coyotes (Canis latrans) are great survivors. Cousins to the grey wolf of the north, coyotes are smaller, more nimble, ready to eat nearly something, and fast, curious beasts. Any given coyote is always trying for the main likelihood, and one California song-dog appears to have discovered one thing of a coyote paradise, after braving a long, cold, harmful swim to Alcatraz Island.

The adventurous coyote that has been residing on Alcatraz since paddling more than a mile across the San Francisco Bay is growing “much fatter” thanks to the former prison island’s all-you-can-eat fowl buffet.

The yet-to-be-named canine is “well and thriving” on the 22-acre island — and has been feasting on fowl, whose carcasses he’s apparently littering across the state-run grounds.

“He not only survived, but he is well and thriving,” Janet Kessler, a “self-taught naturalist,” reported on her Instagram account that paperwork San Francisco’s city coyote population.

Here’s the downside: He’s all alone. But he does appear to be doing moderately effectively and is growing considerably plump.

An image confirmed the beast basking in the solar on a nook of the island, showing noticeably thicker than the bony, shivering coyote that dragged itself onto the former prison’s rocky shores in a video that went viral earlier this month.

The new snapshot of the lonesome animal was apparently taken by a buddy of Kessler on Jan. 24 and reveals a large turnaround within just two weeks of the animal’s daring 1.25-mile swim from the mainland.

The coyote’s health can principally be attributed to a feast of fowl discovered in the many fowl nests close to the historic island’s parade grounds, where officers say the animal has principally been residing and leaving harvested carcasses in his wake.

You have to admire that variety of get-up-and-go.

I like coyotes. I attempted trapping and looking them when they first unfold into my previous stomping grounds of Allamakee County, Iowa, with no success; they had been just too canny for me, although my trapline and .22 rifle introduced in enough raccoon, beaver, muskrat, and fox pelts to keep me in ammo and pizzas. But later, while residing in Colorado, I spent many a evening under canvas in the mountains listening to coyotes singing their late-night serenades. Some people discover it discordant, but I moderately prefer it. 

And, sure, I respect coyotes. They are, as our Alcatraz buddy proves, good and adaptable. That’s why they’ve unfold all over the continent, and that’s also why they do fairly effectively around people.

Read More: Alcatraz: The Walls Fell.

An Alcatraz Alternative: Former FBI Agent Has a Better Idea

If there’s something that would possibly, in time, entice this critter back to the mainland, it might be the search for a mate. There is one intuition, after all, that runs deeper even than food. And staying alone on an island surrounded by cold water and swift currents is not a great way to cross on one’s genes. So, I’ll be a tad shocked if, at some level, our Wile E. buddy does not attempt the return swim – and I hope he makes it.

Even so, this is a neat instance of just how adaptable and enterprising coyotes might be. This one hit on one thing that was a stroke of genius; all-you-can-eat seafowl, no enemies, no people. 

But then, genius appears to run in the coyote household.

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