Tomorrow the world

[supergee]

Coyotes starting a new species.

Thanx to andrewducker

Comments

[kaffy_r]

Although the story doesn't mention the eastern seaboard of Canada, I can tell you that Nova Scotia has been dealing with the larger coyote/coywolf for several years now. In an extremely unfortunate incident just a few years ago, an up and coming young folksinger was attacked and killed by two of them while she was hiking a trail in Cape Breton. When my brother mentioned it, and when I first read the CBC reports, I thought the story was crazy, because I know the size of traditional coyotes; my brother said, "No, we've been seeing these huge ones now for a while." The poor woman was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the coyotes were probably trying to find something for their young.

[howlingsilence]

I was at the Living With Wildlife gathering in Toronto a few years ago when this incident was discussed. Apparently the "coyote" in question was a "coyote-like animal", genetics indeterminate. It's rare. There is no evidence that coywolves are more likely to be aggressive than either full-blooded coyotes or wolves.

[kaffy_r]

And I wasn't saying that coywolves - or coyotes or wolves, for that matter - were aggressive, even in that one unfortunate situation. What I said was that it was an unfortunate situation, and that the animals involved in it weren't aggressive; that they were undoubtedly trying to find food for their family. They aren't evil, or awful, or dangerous, or invading.

The animals are there; "rare" is a very mutable term (as is genetics, I'll warrant.)