Reply #72: 16 years in Tucson (central, not the outskirts) and literally scores of coyote neighbors

[havocmom]

Picking daughter up from Christmas job at Park Mall, watched a coyote every damned night, standing at the curb and waiting for traffic to clear so he could beat feet across the street from mall to an open field where I had seen him catch a poodle before (I tried to tell that woman not to let her little dog run off ahead of her)

Trickster will use our creations to get by. In Tucson, the little (usually) dry creek beds and constructed flood control drainage channels are wildlife corridors that allow critters to get across a very large city with minimal risk.

Pools and 'water features' in yards provide more useful habitat than the un-touched desert for many critters. I lived by a racket club with pools, Where they let out water from back flushing was such a grand 'watering hole' that I found all kinds of tracks there all the time. Even mountain lion tracks. IN TOWN.

Walks a couple hours before dawn are amazing.

My sis kept calling Fish & Game re a mountain lion that kept walking past her house. One day it came out of the housing tract across the street from her with a poodle (mt lions much like French cuisine) One time it had a small spaniel. She has big dogs but does not let them spend time alone in her fenced yard. That lion might have cubs every so often! She also had a dog that was a dog/coyote hybrid.

Wildlife is closer than most of us think. I hear there are more deer in the midwest now. And the Trickster like Bambi.