It's theorized that the earliest dogs hung out near human camps and ate garbage and rats and leftover food and even poo.

In 10,000 years, these coyotes are going to be sleeping in our beds.

Enticing dogs.

when I was picking up my daughter from a theater camp last summer.

Across the country numbers have grown since the early 1990s when coyote furs (and fur in general) fell out of fashion. By the mid 2000s the population was starving out here on the plains. Mange was widespread. .it was common to see coyotes with no hair or huge patches missing..they would ultimately die of exposure.

now the populations are lower and seemingly more healthy. One morning last spring a pack killed 9 of my chickens. They get several of our farm cats every year. I shoot them when I see them on my farmstead...usually I shoot 1 or 2 a year..i go walk around it and pee in the area..then don't see any for a couple months. They are smart and have learned how to avoid dangerous areas. .

I expect there will be bounties on them again in some areas. Culling is necessary for some species to curb dramatic swings in populations.

I see them and hear them all the time. Beautiful creatures.

Maybe he was after the wild turkeys that thrive in the area too.

I also had one cross my path in the outer reaches of San Jose. It was clearly after some of the gophers/prairie dogs(?) inhabiting the empty lots near the Santa Teresa LRT station. My two encounters with coyotes have both been in urbanized areas.

homesteaded here 125 years ago, coyotes were still unique to the west. In his book he referred to them as little desert wolves. They hated them, blamed them for everything and thought they could wipe them out, like they did to the real wolves. He softened towards them in the 1930's when they found and raised a coyote pup and kept as a family pet. He used her as a cattle dog, which she was really good at, but she failed as a retriever. Every time he shot a bird, she'd grab it and eat it.

Edited to add; I really like coyotes. To me they are just doggies. We have cattle, horses, chickens and ducks by the way. They respect our territory and we respect theirs. We don't hunt or poison our wildlife, so there's enough rabbits/gophers to keep the coyotes well fed. They were here first.