Follow the link if you want to see the photos (I don't know how to post them):
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/wednesday/localnews/stories/lo031004s4.shtml Poughkeepsie Journal
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
Not-so-wily coyote caught in city
Young animal cornered in parking garage
By Dan Shapley
Poughkeepsie Journal
Spencer Ainsley/Journal
This coyote, thought to be less than a year old, was captured Tuesday morning between the second and third levels of the municipal parking garage across from the Mid-Hudson Civic Center in downtown Poughkeepsie. The young animal was later transported to Trevor Zoo at the Millbrook School.
Spencer Ainsley/Poughkeepsie Journal
Officials at Trevor Zoo at the Millbrook School declared the young coyote in very good health.
A 33-pound young coyote caused a stir in Poughkeepsie Tuesday morning, after being discovered in a parking garage on Market Street.
Responding to calls two drivers made to the police department about 8 a.m., Dana Davis, an animal control officer for the city, used a six-foot ''snare pole'' to corral and then cage the coyote. A snare pole has a retractable loop that can tighten around an animal's neck.
''The person that called it in to me thought it was a dog,'' Davis said. ''Many people would think it's a little shepherd-mix dog.''
While it isn't unusual for the police department to take calls about coyotes in the city, this is the first animal that needed to be removed, at least in the four years Davis has worked in the department.
''There are coyotes in the city,'' Davis said. ''Many times they're just running through someone's backyard. I think this particular coyote got in there and didn't know what to do. He was frozen with fear.''
The coyote is thought to be less than a year old. Though it struggled against being captured, it wasn't aggressive, Davis said.
It huddled quietly, shaking a little, in the back of Davis's van Tuesday morning before its trip to the Trevor Zoo in Millbrook. A small crowd of police officers, including a German shepherd police dog named Drago that joined the force a week earlier, gathered around the van, admiring the coyote and swapping stories and jokes.
Coyotes returned to the Hudson Valley in the 1960s, having extended their range from New England and northern New York.
They eat just about everything -- fruits, vegetables, small animals, livestock and rodents, roadkill and garbage. Because they find a lot to eat where people live -- including the occasional house cat or small dog -- they are often seen in suburban and urban environments.
Coyotes, considered a fur-bearing animal, can be hunted in New York statewide, except for New York City and Long Island, until March 28.
A checkup at the zoo turned up no parasites -- unusual for any wild animal -- and Trevor Zoo Director Jonathan Meigs said the coyote was overall in very good health. There was some question about whether the animal was a coydog -- a cross between a coyote and a dog -- but experts shown pictures believe it is a coyote, Meigs said.
Meigs has been in contact with the Department of Environmental Conservation to choose the best place to release the coyote back to the wild.
''The DEC doesn't want to move the animal too far from its home base and stick it out in other territories,'' Meigs said, ''but you don't want to let it go in a parking garage either.''