As I pulled into work around noon today, I saw what I first thought was a stray dog sitting on the grass under a large tree just a few yards off the parking lot asphalt. As I slowly drove by I realized that it was a coyote! Huh what? I stopped the car and rolled down my window. He was less than 40 feet away (so I was even closer when I was driving right by him). I looked at him and he stared back at me. This photo isn't mine but he looked like this one.

This is on school grounds which was an immediate concern but there were no children around. As soon as I took my eyes off him to grab my cell phone the coyote got up and started walking down the hill away from me (but definitely not in any hurry). He stopped at the bottom of the hill, so I got out of my car to get a better look, but he then continued further away on to the school's baseball field and out of view.

It was obviously surprising to see a coyote on school grounds but several other things made this just weird. We've heard coyotes howl a few times out where we live on the outskirts of the city but the school grounds where I work are not rural at all. This encounter was just a few miles from the skyscrapers in the center of uptown Charlotte. Also, it was noon, and coyotes are nocturnal. Why was he out in the middle of the day in the first place? Very odd.

After this encounter I looked up some more details about coyotes in North Carolina. In the mid-80s there were only a few counties in North Carolina with coyotes. In less than 20 years they're now in all 100 counties.


PDFs from NC Wildlife Resources:

• North Carolina Coyotes
• Coexisting with Coyotes
  

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