Coyote (Journal)

Billy Petersen

Professor Williams

11/19/2019

Coyote

              On a crisp afternoon in Chicago, I decided to take my dog Kane for a walk. Very enthusiastically I said, “do you want…”, and before I could finish my sentence his ears lit up and he was ready to go. I didn’t have a specific route in mind for our walk, but I wanted to pay close attention to everything around us.

The trees swayed in the wind as their florescent orange and red leaves fell from the branches. You could hear a woodpecker in the distance fighting furiously to break through the wood. Every step I took dead leaves crunched beneath my feet. It’s the end of fall and the air is colder than an ice cube, as it climbs through my jacket to the bottom of my spine.

As the leaves continued to fall, the sight of everything living came to an end. The sun slowly set, and the birds have ceased. The dreary fall day in Chicago has left me tired, cold, and ready to head home. Kane and I headed back to my house and suddenly he froze. A small shadow slowly approached from the edge of an alley and out popped a coyote. Its yellowish-brown fur fit perfect in the depressing environment. The coyote pranced by us almost motionless. I was amazed how sleek and quietly it moved through the city. In seconds the coyote was gone carrying on his journey.

Seeing the coyote reminded me how humans have impacted animals’ natural habitat. “What was a coyote doing in the city of Chicago?”, I asked myself.  We have urbanized so much of our natural environment that wild animals are stuck to survive in cities. I hope that as a society we understand the impact we on animals. We need to continue to remember that we are not the only ones inhabiting our earth.