Urban Coyotes

Last year after I moved to Akron, I began driving through the valley on my way up to 271 N to work every morning. I started seeing these large, scruffy, mean looking dogs roaming around the fields and woods from time to time. One morning I had to slam on my brakes as one of these dogs raced across the road at lightning speed. My curiosity was piqued. Were these wolves? Wild dogs? It turned out that they were coyotes and up until that point I never knew that coyotes existed anywhere outside the desert regions of the country.

It turns out coyotes are turning up in increasing numbers in cities throughout the country due to their highly adaptable nature. This article from the Smithsonian does a great job of explaining this phenomena better than I can. It's really fascinating, I encourage you to read it.

In the west, they've dealt with this problem for years by encouraging homeowners to keep a close watch on their pets and not to leave pet food lying around outside. Not sure why this Chicago Tribune editorial thinks that midwestern suburbanites will find such tactics more inconveniencing than their western counterparts.

Unrelated

The Tribune also had another article about the perils of myspace yesterday. Yawn...I think this is becoming the lazy journalists new fallback story. Anyways, the only reason I bring this up is to point out my own myspace page and the fact that anyone out there who reads this blog who doesn't know me should stop by and introduce yourself.