Tonight, I got to follow the coyote outside of the Hallett Sanctuary area.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the coyote leave the southern exit of Hallett, jump onto the path and go up the stairs towards Sixth Avenue.  I couldn’t see where the coyote went, but assumed it was up to Cop Cot, so I followed up that path.

In the winter from Cop Cot, you can see a good distance, and I was able to see the coyote south of the playground.  It moved around a great deal.  It spent most of its time trying to stay away from people.  The coyote must enjoy 1 a.m. when the park is closed!

While I was keeping track of it, a woman stopped in the road with a confused look on her face.  There was a loose black Lab. which I thought was hers.  I said “Is that your dog?”  She said “No, but there is a dog without an owner over there.”  I said “That’s a coyote.”  She said, horrified, “Oh my God, it eats cats and dogs.  Do you want me to call 911?”  I said “No, the Parks Department already knows it’s here.” 

For at least five minutes, I kept asking myself who thinks there are pet cats in Central Park?  Did she think the wealthy on Central Park West and Fifth Avenue have their doorman put their cats out at night?

The Coyote was active early Monday evening, coming down to the north fence but retreating before even leaving Hallett.  The noise from the skating rink must have been too much for it.

Later in the evening, the Coyote played on the ice.  The Coyote made a few passes over the ice and at one point went onto the southern most path of the park.  Scared by some people it made a gigantic leap over the fences and shrubs to get back onto the ice.

Here are a few photographs from the evening and a very short slow motion clip.  This Coyote is hard to photograph in the dark!

The Central Park Coyote was hard to spot over the last few days.  On Friday, we only saw footprints in the fresh snow.  On Saturday, I didn’t see it.

On Sunday, I only saw it for only a few minutes.  It exited the hole in the northern section of the Hallett Nature Sanctuary fence and headed toward the west around 6:45 p.m.  The Coyote got spooked by some people, so it immediately came back to Hallett and then finally left for good about five minutes later.

I saw the Coyote for only a few minutes on Thursday evening while the weather switched between snow and rain.  The Coyote certainly does not like being near people.  If it sees you looking in its direction, it instantly moves away.  This bodes well for the Coyote.  If it can stay out of people’s way, there should be no need to remove it from the park.

I’m always surprised when people don’t expect there to be nature in New York City.  Given the expansion of Coyotes in the eastern United States, it was only a mater of time before we got another one wandering into Central Park.

If I look at my ancestors in America, they started as rural farmers, then moved to towns and then cities.  (Ironically my first ancestors, which date back from the 1640s, were from what is now Brooklyn.) The towns protected them from wild animals and as they moved to cities there was this added artificial concept of a “man-made world”, separate from the natural world.

The natural world never really left, but an illusion was created that nature had been tamed, as though somehow animals were as controlled as the city’s landscaped gardens.

When we have a Red-tailed Nest (the Trump Parc nest was only 300 yards from the Coyote), a Wild Turkey or a Great Horned Owl in the city, it makes news. While the wild animals captivate us, what really seems to excite us is the realization that despite our best efforts to create a “man-made world”, we’re still really living in the “natural world”.

My photos and videos of the Central Park Coyote have generated lots of email.  They have mostly been about what to do with the Coyote. The emails I’ve gotten have basically fallen into three categories, Shoot It, Move It or Leave It.

An interesting article in Scientific American (just for full disclosure, a division of the company I work for) details recent studies of Coyote populations in suburban and urban areas.  It turns out they aren’t so bad, if you don’t feed them or leave your pets outdoors.

A very nice PDF has been created by the Cook County Coyote Project.  It explains the results of an extensive study of the Chicago area population of Coyotes by Dr. Stanley Gehrt of The Ohio State University.

As wild mammals and raptors reclaim our urban areas, they bring with them new urban wildlife management issues.  It’s fascinating to see how unprepared our local governments are for these arrivals.

I went looking for the Coyote tonight and missed seeing it.  However, others did see it.  There are two ends of the Hallett Sanctuary fence.  One end is near Gapstow bridge.  The other end is near Sixth Avenue and the Coyote can exit by walking over a small dam without getting wet.  I had staked out the wrong end of the fence tonight!

Update: Robert Sullivan (author of Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants) wrote a nice piece for the Intelligencer column of the March 8th issue of New York Magazine about this evening. 

I’m back from vacation and went by The Pond in the southeast corner of the park after dark looking for the Coyote.  Other than my sighting up at The Pool, most of the other sightings have been from this location.   The Pond is steps away from The Plaza Hotel, Bergdorf Goodman and the flagship NYC Apple store.

To the west of The Pond is Hallett Nature Sanctuary.  This is an area free of the presence of dogs and humans. It would be a perfect place for the Coyote to sleep during the day and was the favorite spot of the 2006 Coyote, Hal.

As luck would have it, I had chosen the right spot and time.  The Coyote came out onto the ice four times.  It played with a bottle, went after some ducks, and eventually disappeared.  It seemed quite shy, hiding in the sanctuary between forays onto the ice.

I frown on giving wild animals or birds names.  But if this new Coyote needs a name, rather than giving it a name like Hal II or Hal Jr., I vote for Urbana as an homage to Arthur C. Clarke and 2001.  It retains a reference to Hal(lett) and includes Urban in the name.