A p r i l 2 0 1 8 3 7 Wildlife ed king Coyote in the City By sarah moore O ne evening in May 2015, Belinda Erskine was sitting down to dinner with her family in Cape Elizabeth when she spotted something moving in the yard through the living- room window. “It was small and fluffy. At first, I thought it was a kitten.” Erskine went out to get a closer look. The creature was small enough to fit in her hand. “I sent a picture to my brother-in-law. Then he asked for a shot of the paw. That’s how we figured out it was canine and not a kitten.” At a loss, Erskine called the animal war- dens who service South Portland and the Cape Elizabeth area, which includes “Cape Elizabeth Land Trust and a lot of wild- life,” she says. “They told me to leave the pup outside.” Erskine, reluctant to forsake her to the cold night, “brought her indoors, wrapped her in a blanket, and placed her in a box on the kitchen table.” The next day, animal control officer Corey Hamilton and local game wardens transferred her to a re- habilitation clinic. Hamilton believes the foundling was either a baby coyote or gray fox. And while it came as no shock to Er- skine that she shares her yard with a host of non-human residents–“There are coy- otes all around here. I see them lounging on the picnic tables at Kettle Cove Take Out & Dairy opposite my house”– the experience illuminates how closely she truly cohabits with her wild neighbors. “​ While most of us are familiar with squirrels, raccoons, and the odd opossum, few know that the Portland area–especial- ly the urban fringe–also plays home to crit- ters like striped skunks, foxes, minks, ot- ters, fishers, and larger carnivores such as bobcats and the eastern coyote,” says Dan Gardoqui, founder of White Pines Pro- gram, an organization that aims to in- crease education and engagement with the natural world. “We’ve had coyotes, bear, and moose all spotted within half a mile of the Casco Bay Bridge,” Hamilton adds. “I get a large num- ber of calls simply because someone’s spot- ted something they think shouldn’t be liv- ing around humans. This is Maine; we have lots of wildlife. These animals were living here long before houses were built in their habitat.” While we might thrill at the sight of bears and bobcats, the common coyote is derided as a more prosaic and verminous type of hunter. Have we simply been pro- grammed to mistrust the canny canine? “The coyote is an American original,” says Dan Flores, author of Coyote Ameri- ca, in which he explores how the creature became the victim of a negative PR cam- paign in the early 19th century. Flores calls out government agencies and even Mark Twain, for his 1870 travel book Roughing It, as culprits in the anti-coyote regime. De- spite this, the coyote has proven to be one of the nation’s most enduring and adapt- able icons, now inhabiting every state ex- cept Hawaii. “[Its howl] is our original na- tional anthem.” Wile E. Coyote, perhaps we’ve been Take a walk through the urban forest with your wild neighbor, the eastern coyote.