Sunday, July 1, 2012

Death in the Desert

Earlier this week I glanced out the kitchen door and was startled to see this right outside my screened-in porch:


In case you can't tell, that's a cottontail disappearing pretty much whole down the gullet of one of the local coyotes.  I hadn't realized they ate their prey fur, toenails, and everything, but this particular coyote certainly wolfed it all down and left nothing behind.

I felt a little sorry for the bunny, but when the coyote turned and walked away I realized that she was a nursing female and painfully thin.  I didn't exactly start humming "The Circle of Life," but I did feel that at least the rabbit hadn't died in vain.




“Coyotes, by nature, typically avoid human contact.” ~Warner Johnston  [I doubt Warner ever lived in Arizona, where they don't seem particularly bothered by it.]

2 comments:

  1. We were parked in the desert outside Ajo, when we noticed a coyote casing the joint. We weren't especially alarmed until the big box marked ACME Can Opener was delivered later that day.

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  2. Yes, I was glad to see that at least the foot dangling from the coyote's mouth was clearly a rabbit's, and not one belonging to a roadrunner!

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