by John Kiseda, Animal Curator

Depending on where you live in El Paso, there’s a medium-large sized mammal that often wanders throughout our neighborhoods and yards. Like all the wild creatures that live in our city coyotes are out and about, ‘earning a living’, sometimes while we sleep and sometimes during the day.

If you’re lucky, you may see one. When I took these photos recently of an interesting encounter between a coyote and someone’s little [but loud] dog, I was birding around the Coronado Country Club with a friend. A coyote went by us at a fairly slow speed, sometimes stopping to watch us before moving further. As the coyote got to the edge of a small arroyo area, a small dog began to bark at the coyote and went towards it. The coyote wasn’t perturbed or distressed, and by the time the dog got about as close as you could get to the coyote, s/he had stopped barking. The dog simply walked right past the coyote, who at least from outward appearances couldn’t even be bothered to look at the little guy, and just crossed over the fairway. Soon after, the coyote came closer towards us to take a final gander, and then moved on. To end the encounter, the little dog came by us and proceeded to bark at us louder and for much longer then it had for the coyote. I guess we looked more ornery and we were pegged as trouble makers.

Have fun and get out to enjoy and experience the outdoors!