The coyote responds:
First of all, what did you expect to find in your great big woods? It's a forest, you idiots, and forests have to have carnivores or there'd be nothing in them but fluffy little riffraff like squirrels, bunnies, voles, and rats, millions of chattering little pests and more every day because they have huge litters over and over again. (The wife and I have four pups twice a year, and they call us prolific. A brown rat has 12 little ratlets five times a year. Do the math.) Somebody has to – what do you call it? – thin the herd, or everybody starves. And that's carnivores like me who do that, carnivores who incidentally were in that forest a long time before you showed up, a long time before you built your city by cutting down all the other forests so we had nowhere else to go.
So now you say how you're turning this "park" into a "Wildlife Habitat." You mean like a place where wildlife live? Or is what you're really talking about a Habitat For Very Carefully Selected Pissant Little Wildlife Plus Clams, one that won't upset your useless pets and children, one where nothing's too wild and nothing's too attached to life? Because look at what happens the first time we have a co-existence problem. I'm willing to discuss it, work something out; my species has always been adaptable. We're born negotiators. But what do you do? You immediately get your rifles and traps and Navy sharpshooters and say things like, "It will likely be euthanized."
Euthanized. Hmmm. My human is a little rusty. What's that mean again? It means instead of shooting me outright, you clamp my leg in an incredibly painful way or shoot me in the butt with a syringe or drop a net over me, and when I'm completely terrified and frantic, then you kill me "humanely." Thanks a lot.
Yeah, I admit it, I popped one of your cats. I didn't do it because my Hickory Farms Meat of the Month didn't show up, I did it because that's what I do, that's how I survive out here in your "habitat." But I'm not the only one with blood on my paws. Did you ever wonder why all those cats come sauntering over from the Naval Habitat? They come to kill birds and torture mice, that's why. Your furry little pets are vicious, but you choose to ignore their villainy because they rub on your leg and don't try to eat your offspring. They kill for fun and then go home to fill their bellies with Friskies. I got no real home and no Friskies, and I don't kill for fun. So which of us deserves to live? (And let's not even talk about the thousands of your "pets" you kill – oops, euthanize – every year because nobody wants them, because you're too stupid to give them the snip they deserve. There's a lot of blood to go around.)
The irony here is that we created you, if you believe a lot of the native peoples (who were also here a long time before you were.) They tell great stories about my ancestors, including a creation story where human beings came from a coyote kicking a ball of dung around until it formed into the first man. That's right, a ball of dung. No surprise to me.
So you've decided not to kill me, at least not yet. If you expect me to thank you, you can forget that right now. Having lunch is not a capital crime, except maybe in Texas. You've finally realized that I eat what's easiest and safest. It's true, of me and every other carnivore on earth. I haven't the time or energy to do a lot of needless running around. You think if you lock up the easy eats I'll move on. You're telling people to keep their cats inside, leash their dogs, hide their garbage, and not leave their babies alone under trees in the forest. I'll admit it, it might work, and I will move on.
I'm thinking Laurelhurst.
