Why Did the Coyote Cross the Road in Downtown Zeeland?

Because there are no Donkeys or Elephants in Zeeland...?!

By STEVE RALPH

The Holland Sentinel

Posted Oct 17, 2008
A local coyote crosses a roadway in Fillmore Township. One was spotted roaming near State Street and Main Avenue downtown Zeeland Thursday night, Oct. 16.

Zeeland Township State St. Animals' Orchestra found it all very amusing...

A animal spotted downtown Zeeland Thursday night, Oct. 16, was probably a young adult looking for a new pad after his folks kicked him out of the homestead, or maybe it was just hunting for squirrels or rabbits, said Travis Williams, executive director of the Outdoor Discovery Center of Wildlife Unlimited, 4214 56th St. in Fillmore Township.
“Just like human young adults, often coyotes old enough to make it on their own still beg from their parents, until the parents kick them out,” because of limited food availability as winter approaches, Williams said.

“You start seeing young animals wandering around in the fall. Sometimes it takes a negative experience with humans to teach the young animal that they should stay away from people.”

Zeeland police responded to a call of a coyote running through town near State Street and Main Avenue around 8 p.m., according to police records. They found the wild animal trapped in a fenced-in area behind Lincoln Elementary School, 60 E. Lincoln Ave., but it jumped the fence and ran back into a wooded area between the school and Yntema Funeral Home, 251 S. State St., the report said.

State conservation officials advised police to leave the coyote alone so it would return to the wild “He’ll go back to the upper Macatawa watershed,” said Tom Medendorp, president of Chick-Owa Sportsman’s Club, Outdoor Traditions columnist for MyZeeland and co-host of WHTC-AM’s Saturday morning outdoor radio show.

The more than 600-acre watershed provides a prime habitat for coyotes and other wildlife, including muskrats, rabbits, ducks, geese and squirrels, he said.

“They’ve migrated into cities — not only like Zeeland, but larger cities like Detroit and Chicago — because they’re highly adaptable, and they’re predators. If you think about it, in town there’s squirrels, there’s rabbits, ... it’s a smorgasbord for the coyotes,” Medendorp added.

Though coyotes might go after your dogs or cats, they won’t go after children or attack people at all unless they’re rabid or cornered — the same factors that make dogs, coyotes’ cousins, dangerous, Travis said.

“Typically, if they see somebody, they run as fast as they can in the other direction. If you see one running around town, don’t do anything. Don’t approach it, but it wouldn’t be in their nature to attack.”

If a coyote does appear aggressive, Travis recommends contacting the police. Travis said coyotes roaming downtown Zeeland likely isn’t an unusual occurrence, due to the abundance of food sources there, such as squirrels and mice, and the need for young ones to relocate. With each coyote mating pair birthing two to 12 pups every year — of which five or six survive, on average — the coyote population is growing locally and regionally, Travis and Medendorp agreed, creating another reason for the small wild dogs to encroach into urban areas.

“We’ve taken their habitat, so an adaptable creature like a coyote will come into our habitat,” Medendorp said. (Ralph, Steve; 10.17.2008. holland sentinel, retrieved HERE)