Hal, the Central Park Coyote, Dies

[magellan]

By MICHAEL VIRTANEN, Associated Press Writer Fri Mar 31, 10:09 PM ET

ALBANY, N.Y. - Hal, the coyote who paid a visit to New York City and was captured as he loped around Central Park, died as he was being tagged for release in the wild, a state official said Friday.

The coyote stopped breathing Thursday night during the routine tagging procedure and biologists could not revive him, said Gabrielle DeMarco, spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

Pathologists were trying to determine whether the stress of his capture or captivity or something else contributed to the death of the year-old, 35-pound coyote.
...
Full, sad story

Coyote Morning, A Poem

Old men
and old coyote dogs
boil their dreams in the sun
served steaming within a bowl
filled with shadows
rolling sticks onto the ground
and making wild songs
while they smack their lips
and spit out the dust
blown in by the winds
nameless
and place-less
but hard to ignore.

author unknown

Rest in peace, poor little Hal. :cry:

edited to remove 'advertisement', sorry

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

1. That is so darn sad. Poor baby........... eom

[ClayZ]

2. .

:cry:

[xchrom]

3. makes me sad.

[H2O Man]

4. I felt bad

when I heard Hal died yesterday. I had found the whole story about him interesting. It reminded me of one of the speeches that Onondaga Chief Oren Lyons delivered yearsago, and that we had printed in our newspaper. He spoke about seeing deer late at night in Syracuse, making their way through residential neighborhoods. And of seeing a dead red fox at the side of Interstate 81, in the busiest section of the city.

Oren pointed out that, in much the same manner that animals that are considered to be "wild" learn to accommodate "civilization" in order to survive, that Natural World people are being forced to make that same accommodation.
And that takes a toll.

It also reminded me of a poem that Rubin Carter sent me years ago. Rubin, for all his books and essays, has only authored one poem. It was about how people were unable to adequately define the meaning of freedom and liberty, but how the lack of them killed a caged "wild" bird. That same lack of freedom and liberty killed Hal.