Reviled predator, often a target of ‘coyote whacking,’ is gaining a flicker of respect

It’s a small speck of brown moving across a seemingly endless valley of snow. The valley is so silent and so frigid, it feels as if the slightest sound could crack the sky. Franz Camenzind is unbothered by the cold. He lines up his spotting scope atop a tripod and moves it slowly, left to right. He stops, focuses. A smile creeps beneath his beard. A trio of coyotes is trotting around the carcass of a dead elk. Ravens flit around, taking nibbles. One coyote dives in and pulls at the meat. The elk around them barely even glance over. “Coyotes are incredible,” the biologist says. “They’re smart, cunning and incredibly adaptive. I admire them.” That has scarcely been the main sentiment aimed at coyotes, seen as villains in popular culture and vermin by cattle ranchers and killed in myriad ways. But things finally may be looking up for the coyote. New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is awaiting the arrival of a bill that passed both legislative chambers this month that would eliminate coyote hunting contests — making it the third state after California and Vermont to initiate such a ban. Grisham, a Democrat who took over from Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, has until April 5 to sign it. This year, bills to ban “coyote whacking” — killing the animals by running over them with snowmobiles — were introduced for the first time in the legislatures of Wyoming and Montana, hardly coyote-friendly refuges. However, neither bill got to a vote in the legislatures. And national nonprofit groups mostly focused on wolf repopulation have increasingly been adding coyotes in their call to action releases...MORE

They should have that "small speck of brown" in their city parks and playgrounds. The "smart, cunning and incredibly adaptive" coyote would do just fine.