Wildlife in the City

Take a walk in Griffith Park and this is the view:

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One gets a very good impression of how this huge area of unchanged natural habitat nestles right here into the city. One can observe a wide variety of wildlife – from woodpeckers to Red-Tailed Hawks, from lizards to snakes, from bunny rabbits and deer to – yes, coyotes.

Coyotes have been here forever. It’s their land, so to say. They live and thrive and multiply. That’s what coyotes do. They also leave the park now and then and wander down into residential regions. First of all, it is their land and second, food is quite easy to find. The odd small pet gets caught and taken away. Ever since I saw the spectacle of two coyotes trying to round up a cat in a residential street, I know. Granted, the coyotes were young and somewhat inexperienced and the cat was a true city cat, thus thumbing its nose at the intruders while making a clean getaway. Interesting was that this happenend on a Thanksgiving afternoon. Maybe the two young coyotes wanted to have a barbeque – and there are more cats in LA than turkeys.

So, yes, they do come down from the park for food. Lately however, they seem to become more sophisticated. Coyotes have been seen on Melrose. For a spot of shopping? Where would they go? To “Aardvark” for some retro fashion or to “Urban Outfitter” for the latest in city chic?

8 thoughts on “Wildlife in the City”

  1. Those are some sophisticated coyotes, all right. Here in Kobe we have a problem, not with coyotes, but with wild boars coming down from the mountainside, presumably for a spot of city chic. They don’t usually bother the cats, though.

  2. Oh, that sounds so much like Germany. ๐Ÿ™‚

    Especially in Berlin the wild boars are a real pest. Last summer they had to round up and shoot quite a lot of them – in the middle of the city.

    I was not aware however that you have the same problems in Kobe.

    By the way, they make a yummy roast. The females, that is, the boars are a bit…smelly…yuck.

  3. Yes, they are a big pest here, especially when they go through people’s garbage. Wild boar meat is consumed in a kind of hot-pot dish in this part of Japan, but it’s reputed to smell bad, so I’ve never tried it. Hey, did you know that they can breed with “regular” pigs?

  4. Actually yes, I knew that about the breeding with domesticated pigs – but then I know everything about just everything really not that important. ๐Ÿ™‚ The interesting thing about these “bastard” or “hybrid” pigs is that you get the best of both worlds – the hardiness of the wild pig and the high meat yield from the domesticated animal.

    Wild pig meat is a delicacy in Germany (again, provided it is not from a boar.) It certainly does not smell “bad”, but just as certainy the smell is stronger than that of regular pork and very, very delicious. I would kill for a wild pig roast, just as I would for a proper deer roast, which you can not get here. People in SoCal do not eat game, so it is not available. Eating game is concidered something for “rednecks” from other parts of the country.

  5. Or NZers! The only thing I miss about that place is the food, and that’s really saying something considering that NZ doesn’t actually have a cuisine. You miss wild pig and venison, I really miss roast lamb (with mint sauce, yum!). Have you ever tried NZ lamb? Japanese won’t touch it, again because of the “smell.” But in all fairness this country was basically vegetarian until recently in history, and there are still a lot of food prejudices to overcome.

    I would kill for a decent batch of fish and chips.

  6. My niece lives in a house that backs up to a wildlife area (belongs to Michael Dell). We can sit on their patio at night and hear the coyotes. Their stupid neighbors had a little yappy dog, which they let out at about 3 a. m. one morning, and never saw again. Oh, golly, wonder why. Coyote snack, maybe?

  7. Yes, poor doggy that his owners were so stupid. They came wandering around to the niece’s wondering what could have possibly happened to Fluffy, whom they tossed out the back door at 3 a.m. Yoohoo, head rectum inversion. Wile E. Coyote.

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