John, remember that coyotes gotta eat, too. Unfortunately, they find cats and small dogs, which never should be allowed to wander away from home, easy prey. For years, there was a coyote who carried his right rear leg; I thought of him was Wiley the Coyote. Every morning, very early, he trotted along our gravel road toward the ocean, only far enough to confirm that it was still there. Then, he came back along the road and used our driveway culvert to cross the big marsh so that he could hunt pine squirrels along the edge of the marsh.

One day, a doe followed by two very young fawns came racing along the road, with Wiley in pursuit. The doe crossed the marsh using our culvert, and I feared that I'd see something dreadful. About a hundred feet up our driveway, the doe ducked into thick woods, followed by both little fawns. Wiley stopped in the driveway for a moment, then turned and sauntered back out to the road. His coat was always good, and I often saw piles of cat hair where some unfortunate cat who'd been dumped along our road met a bad end. It was obvious that the effort of chasing those little fawns just wasn't worth it for Wiley. I could only blame bad people for all the cats that are dumped or allowed to wander through the woods...remember, I have no close neighbors.

A year ago last fall, I failed to see Wiley. Since he'd been here for years, I assume that he may have died from some problem of aging. Although I hear the coyote pack tune up whenever there's an accident on Hwy 101 and all the emergency vehicles race out of town, I haven't seen Wiley since the fall of 2021, and I've never seen another coyote in our yard or along this section of road. It is possible to see some of the coyotes when I hike back into the hundreds of acres of woods, but they never appear to be threatening to either me or my large dog.

Now, if I could just figure out a way to teach those coyotes to dig out pocket gophers, my yard would look far nicer and be easier to mow!