Kensington resident Barbara Ruben says the yips, howls and barks of coyotes that she heard outside of her home on Nov. 4 were “unnerving.”
Ruben told Bethesda Today on Monday that she had not previously encountered coyotes but had seen social media posts from her Kensington neighbors about various sightings. One neighbor even reported being followed by the creature while walking their dog, she said.
“You could hear them in the house pretty loudly,” Ruben said. “I opened the window and I recorded them, because they almost sounded like a dog fight. They were also doing some howling as well.”
A calm evening for a Northeast Portland family was interrupted by a coyote attacking a young child.
The incident occurred last Thursday, when around 6:15pm, a coyote entered the backyard of an Alameda neighborhood home and started to engage with children who lived there. It grabbed a nine-year-old by the foot, but the child was able to get away because of the socks they were wearing.
Luckily, the children’s father was on the front porch and heard everything, prompting him to dash to the back of the house and scare the coyote off. The nine-year-old was taken to a local hospital, where they were treated for minor injuries.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife says to never approach a coyote and instead engage in scare tactics, just as the dad did. There has been an investigation underway.
SAN FRANCISCO — Signs have been posted at Crissy Field on San Francisco’s northern waterfront warning people, especially pet owners, of coyotes in the area after the Golden Gate National Recreation Area received reports of several attacks on off-leash dogs.
Signs ask dog owners to make sure their pets are leashed. Despite the warnings, many here let their dogs roam free.
Gilles Dezeustre says he comes to the beach with his dogs Nona and Nigel three to four times a week. He’s heard about the coyote attacks and says he himself had a close encounter.
“One night I was waking this little guy off leash at night at Golden Gate Park. It’s a really bad idea. You just cannot do that anymore,” Dezeustre said.
He spotted a coyote nearby tracking his dog for several yards.
“I knew my dog was in immediate danger,” he said.
He immediately called his dog to come to him and scared the coyote away. His two small dogs are prime targets for the predators.
“They are sort of a snack for a coyote,” he said. “So I would have to be careful. Just be a little more careful.”
The Golden Gate National Recreation Area’s wildlife biologists believe one or more coyotes in the area have become used to off-leash dogs and are becoming more aggressive toward them.
The dog Lady has done her part to shoo coyotes away. Her owner didn’t want to be on camera but said Lady is the official coyote patrol dog at Crissy Field.
“She’ll smell them and she’ll start to go ‘Woof! Woof! Woof!’” Mike said. “She goes off but she won’t leave or move until I say ‘go.’”
The GGNRA is warning dog owners to be extra careful during early morning and at night to keep their pets safe. Dezeustre has noticed more coyotes than ever before at the park and he says vigilance is the key to coexisting with the animals.
“I don’t think it’s a bad thing,” he said. “I think it’s just us having to learn to live with them and just being more aware of the danger because they are dangerous.”
Comedian Brittany Furlan snatched her dog from the jaws of a coyote that ran into her Woodland Hills backyard, according to an Instagram video posted Tuesday.
Furlan, wife of Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee, posted Ring camera video that shows a coyote running into her yard at around 1 p.m., attacking her two dogs and grabbing her dachshund, Neena, from beside the pool.
Furlan begins screaming and chases the coyote out of camera view, eventually bringing the dog back into frame. When Lee runs outside, Furlan pulls Neena inside, screaming, “A coyote grabbed Neena!”
“Thank God she’s a little bit fat because he couldn’t make it over the wall with her,” Furlan wrote in her post. In the video description, Furlan said she climbed up the wall and grabbed the dog out of the coyote’s mouth.
“Please be very careful with your dogs,” Furlan wrote on the post. “I’ve lived here for four years and I’ve never seen one coyote and then today this happened. They are desperate.”
One coyote made it into a Simi Valley home through a dog door in May, targeting the family’s Chihuahua.
If approached or attacked by a coyote, resources from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife advise you to wave your arms, make noise and walk toward the coyote until it retreats, and avoid leaving animals or food in the backyard overnight in residential areas.
Residents of Mar Vista are certain that they are being watched.
And Jennifer Bedolla knows who it is: the pack of coyotes that she often catches lounging in her yard and who leave the carcasses of neighborhood pets around her home.
In previous years, the occasional coyote would pass through the area at dusk. But this year is different as the pack grows bolder, with coyotes trailing after people as they walk their dogs and lunging at pets and children.
“They’ve become more and more aggressive,” Bedolla said. “They’re just not afraid of humans. They’re just right on your back, running into you and not running away.”
The official response from the city of Los Angeles is that residents can clear brush from around their homes, bang pots and pans to scare away coyotes and overall coexist with the wild animals, according to an information campaign directed at the neighborhood.
Frustrated residents in the community just west of Culver City think L.A. officials do not appreciate their situation.
The usual methods don’t work for them, they say. Animal experts advise anyone who comes across a coyote to wave their arms, shout and make themselves appear as big as possible, but these coyotes are not skittish around their human neighbors.
Every day, among the hillsides the coyote yips and cries grow into a wild cacophony.
Bedolla said a coyote lunged at her 11-year-old son while he played soccer in his backyard as several other coyotes watched. She often carries her 9-year-old Maltese-poodle mix, Zola, when they go out for their weekly walk, because the coyotes seem to have claimed the neighborhood as their territory.
A number of pet dogs and cats have gone missing.
“I’ve cleaned so many neighborhood pets from my yard,” she said. “Just piles of fur and carcasses.”
Jennifer Bedolla stands on a top tier patio in her backyard, which has been inundated with very brazen coyotes in Mar Vista. Bedolla spotted 16 coyotes in her backyard recently.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
As hunters, coyotes are opportunists, experts say, their diet consisting of vermin, birds and, in suburban areas, human trash. They’re attracted to the scent of food on a person’s clothing and over the years have learned to live in close proximity to people.
For some residents, it’s a little too close for comfort.
But figuring out how they might get some relief — and who might help them — isn’t that easy.
One resident turned to the L.A. County agricultural commissioner’s Weights and Measures Bureau for help after a frightening encounter.
At around 11 p.m. on March 29, a person walking their dog in Mar Vista encountered a group of coyotes, said Chief Deputy Maximiliano Regis of the bureau.
“The coyote sort of stopped, looked at [the person] and then made some sort of screaming or yelp sounds,” Regis said.
The dog barked back, and the resident ran away, convinced they were about to be attacked. The person called Weights and Measures to investigate, and in early April an inspector found a mother coyote and four to five pups living in a nearby den.
The mother coyote was likely taking her pups out to hunt, Regis said. But the den is in Los Angeles city limits, and it’s up to the city to determine what to do next, according to Regis.
Los Angeles Animal Services coordinates with various agencies on wildlife within the city limits, including the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The city says the state agency manages the coyote population, but a spokesperson for Fish and Wildlife said the agency does not manage coyotes but provides information to local jurisdictions and the public on coyotes.
Coyotes at Jennifer Bedolla’s home in Mar Vista. One expert says the coyotes’ behavior is linked to pupping season.
(Jennifer Bedolla)
“Wildlife officers will respond to attacks,” the Fish and Wildlife spokesperson said, “but it is up to local agencies to deal with coyotes in their communities.”
L.A. Animal Services did not respond to follow-up questions about the city’s response to the coyote population. But in a statement, the agency said it hosted an online community meeting with the office of City Councilmember Traci Park as well as Fish and Wildlife to educate residents about “deterrents and property maintenance.”
The agency also hosts its own monthly information sessions about “how to safely coexist with wildlife, as well as ways for people to keep their pets safe,” according to a statement from L.A. Animal Services.
In Mar Vista, there’s a feeling that that type of safety is out of reach.
Resident Jeanelle Arias said a coyote snapped at her 14-year-old dog, Blaine, a toy breed, in their backyard. The coyote scampered away after Arias’ other dog, 7-year-old Bart, barked and gave chase. But the coyote didn’t run away, according to Arias. It hopped on top of a planter to watch what would happen next.
“If it wasn’t for Bart, Blaine would have been attacked,” Arias said. “There have been so many pets that have disappeared.”
On June 4, a coyote trailed closely behind a man as he walked his dog around the neighborhood, according to footage captured on a Ring camera video.
Neighbors said the man eventually spotted the coyote and yelled to scare away his stalker.
Shelley Beringhele has lived in Mar Vista for the last 10 years, but her family has been in the neighborhood since her grandfather Val Ramos built his home in 1963.
Coyotes were never a concern for the community, Beringhele said, but now shadow humans and pets.
“I find it disturbing how bold the coyotes have become and how little the city is willing to do about the situation,” Beringhele said.
But Rebecca Dmytryk, co-owner with Humane Wildlife Control, sounded a hopeful note. She said the coyotes’ behavior is tied to pupping season. Coyotes want to convey to other canines in the neighborhood that they have pups and are territorial.
“They want to make sure that dogs understand, ‘Do not come over here, because our pups are close by,’” Dmytryk said.
Despite the animal carcasses, Dmytryk doesn’t believe that coyotes are hunting neighborhood dogs but looking at them as intruders.
The coyote pupping season stretches for a few months, from when coyotes give birth to when the pups become juveniles and leave their parents. The coyote activity should die down by autumn, Dmytryk said.
Mar Vista is not unique, Dmytryk said. Other parts of Southern California are also enduring the pupping season, including sections of South Central Los Angeles and Woodland Hills, where she recently responded to one call to get coyotes out of a crawl space under a home.
Dmytryk said she’d been contacted by one concerned Mar Vista resident and her business uses humane means of hazing coyotes. She provided the resident with information about how they can protect their home, similar to the advice provided by the city. Her methods include humane traps.
California does not allow coyote traps within 150 yards of a residence without written consent, but that has not stopped some cities. Torrance contracted a trapper in an effort to manage its coyote population, which includes killing coyotes. The result was a state investigation over possible violation of the trapping law.
Although Dmytryk advocates for humane measures, she does agree that the city of Los Angeles should take a more proactive approach to tracking coyotes and investigate why they’re active in one area. Residents in Mar Vista agree, although some say they’re unsure what that would involve. They just know that they are fed up.
Mar Vista resident Shari Dunn, on a recent night, picked up a neighbor who had just encountered a coyote as she was walking her husky puppy. The neighbor screamed and became distraught over the encounter.
“I drove her home, and she was bawling,” Dunn said. “The woman had just gotten home from work and was walking her dog. I guess you can’t do that anymore.”
A coyote walks along the grassy shoulder of South Ocean Blvd. near Sloan’s Curve on October 12, 2020 in Palm Beach, Florida.
Greg Lovett
Imagn Content Services, LLC
Fort Worth
Coyotes are a common sight on Texas ranch land and urban spaces. But can you kill one?
Coyote sightings around the Metroplex is a common occurrence. Just watch any neighborhood social media channel. One of the wild canines even caused an Arlington park to shut down after it attacked several children earlier this year. Last spring, a coyote was found lounging in a Fort Worth backyard seemingly enjoying a sun-filled siesta.
But the wild dogs are known to attack other animals, such as cats and small livestock. So, what exactly does Texas law have to say about extracting retribution for a dead pet?
Is it legal to kill coyotes in Texas if they killed your pet?
Yes, state law allows for the killing of coyotes if they take out a pet or livestock.
Texas Health and Safety Code section 822.013 states that a coyote attacking or that has recently attacked other animals may be killed by:
Any person witnessing the attack.
The attacked animal’s owner or a person acting on behalf of the owner if the owner or person has knowledge of the attack.
A person is not required to procure a hunting license to kill a coyote under this specific circumstance in Texas.
Is it legal to hunt coyotes in Texas?
Yes, coyotes can be hunted in Texas with a license.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department classifies coyotes as nongame species, which require a hunting license to be hunted. There are no closed seasons or bag limits for nongame species.
However, there are other situations where a hunting license is not required to hunt coyotes.
A hunting license isn’t required to hunt depredating or plundering coyotes on private property, as long as the hunter has landowner authorization, according to TPWD.
Essentially, if you want to hunt coyotes that are not actively destroying private property, a hunting license is required. But if you’re hunting coyotes that are destroying private property and you have landowner approval, a hunting license is not required.
Why are coyotes spotted around urban areas?
As people continue to expand housing and other human development into what once was wildlife habitats, the TPWD says there’s increasing potential for coyote encounters.
Here are a few precautions the TPWD recommends Texans take to manage coyotes:
Do not feed coyotes: Keep all pet food and water inside, along with garbage securely stored.
Keep compost bins covered: Never leave animal bones or fat in outdoor composting bins, as it could attract coyotes.
Keep pets inside: Keep a close eye on pets outside or place them in a secure kennel.
Be vigilant at night: Walk pets on a leash and accompany them outside at night
Use noise to scare coyotes: Air horns or other loud noise devices can deter coyotes from approaching your property.
Related stories from Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Brayden Garcia is a service journalism reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He graduated from the University of Texas at Arlington in 2020, where he worked at the student newspaper, The Shorthorn. He previously covered education at The Dallas Morning News.
The Maryland-National Capital Park Police have released body camera footage from officers killing a rabid coyote that they said attacked people who were out walking last Thursday.
This page contains a video which is being blocked by your ad blocker. In order to view the video you must disable your ad blocker.
Police kill rabid coyote after two attacks in Montgomery County, Maryland
The video shows several officers with handguns and rifles drawn looking for the animal on a trail near Dustin Road in Burtonsville, Maryland.
As officers are looking over the Patuxent River, they heard the screeching of the coyote.
“Is that it?” one officer was heard saying.
Another said, “It’s right there.”
The officers scrambled to get a clear shot of the animal and then one shot can be heard ringing out.
The officers ended up firing two shots to kill the coyote. The coyote’s body was taken in for testing and it was found that it had been infected with rabies, which makes the animals much more aggressive.
Authorities said they were searching for the coyote following two separate attacks, which took place hours apart near the Patuxent River.
The first attack happened just before 10 a.m. Thursday, while a woman was walking her dog on Patuxent Drive.
Later that day at 4:45 p.m., a woman fought off the coyote and stabbed it with a knife on Bell Road in Burtonsville.
They found and killed the animal just over 3 hours later.
Police are reminding residents to stay away from any coyotes they might spot and to instead call 911 or animal services at 240-773-5925.
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
A coyote was shot and killed after police say it attacked two women Thursday during separate attacks in Montgomery County, Maryland.
A coyote was shot and killed after police say it attacked two women Thursday during separate attacks in Montgomery County, Maryland.
Police, animal services and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources were all searching for the coyote following the two separate attacks which took place hours apart, according to the police department.
Montgomery County police said the first attack happened just before 10 a.m. while a woman was walking her dog in the 1400 block of Patuxent Drive — near Watershed drive in Ashton.
She was taken to the hospital and is expected to be OK.
The second attack took place around 3:45 p.m. in the 3600 block of Bell Road in Burtonsville. Police said that woman fought the coyote off and stabbed the animal.
Around 7 p.m., police said the coyote was found along a trail on Dustin Road. The animal was shot and killed. It will be tested for rabies.
Police are reminding residents to stay away from any coyotes they might spot and to instead call 911 or animal services at 240-773-5925.
WTOP’s Jessica Kronzer contributed to this report.
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
A verdict seems to have been reached in the case of “Coyote vs. Acme,” the Warner Bros. Discovery courtroom comedy based on the popular Looney Tunes character.
The movie will likely never come out, lead actor Will Forte said in a statement on social media Thursday.
Originally slated for a theatrical release last July, the film was reportedly shelved in November last year, according to Deadline.
Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas alleged last year that the hiatus was part of a wider pattern of shelving films for tax breaks.
“The [Warner Bros. Discovery] tactic of scrapping fully made films for tax breaks is predatory and anti-competitive,” Castro wrote on social media in November.
Following fan and industry outrage over the film’s unceremonious fate, Netflix, Amazon and Paramount screened the film and “submitted handsome offers,” none of which were accepted, The Wrap reported earlier this month.
“When I first heard that our movie was getting ‘deleted,’ I hadn’t seen it yet,” Forte wrote, addressing the film’s cast and crew. “So I was thinking what everyone else must have been thinking: this thing must be a hunk of junk. But then I saw it. And it’s incredible.”
The SNL alum referenced the movie’s high score among test audiences, and he lamented the studio’s decision to bring the project to a premature end.
Will Forte attends the premiere “MacGruber” in Los Angeles, California, in December 2021.
Leon Bennett / Getty Images
“The people who paid for this movie can obviously do whatever they want with it,” Forte wrote, adding, “It doesn’t mean I have to like it … Or agree with it.”
“Please know that all the years and years of hard work, dedication and love that you put into this movie shows in every frame,” he concluded.
Based on a satirical 1990 New Yorker article by Ian Frazier, the film stars Forte and John Cena alongside the animated Wile E. Coyote, who is suing the Acme Corporation over oft-backfiring products with which Coyote attempted to capture the Road Runner in the classic Looney Tunes cartoons.
“Mr. Coyote states that on occasions too numerous to list in this document he has suffered mishaps with explosives purchased of Defendant,” reads the humor piece, written in the style of a court docket.
“As the Justice Department and @FTC revise their antitrust guidelines they should review this conduct,” Castro wrote in his November social media post. “As someone remarked, it’s like burning down a building for the insurance money.”
With the possible exceptions of trauma surgeons, firefighters, and garbage collectors, nearly everyone has at one point or another been plagued by the ambient sense that their job is pointless. This is true even within professions that we’d consider essential: If you know any nurses or teachers, you’ve heard about the hopelessness and boredom that snake their way through hospitals and schools. When you abstract work further and further, away from producing shoes and chairs and toward producing “shareholder value,” you are forced to confront one fundamental question, again and again: What the fuck are we doing here?
Last week, it became clear that Warner Bros. Discovery (a conglomerate formed when AT&T spun off Warner Media, itself the by-product of a 1990 merger between Time Inc. and Warner Communications that was designed to stave off a hostile takeover by Gulf+Western, which is now Paramount) planned to permanently shelve Coyote Vs. Acme, a live action–animation hybrid film that was completed sometime in 2022. Based on a New Yorker piece by Ian Frazier (published a month after the Time-Warner merger) that imagined Wile E. Coyote suing the Acme Co. over “defects in manufacture or improper cautionary labelling” of the various items he purchased to help capture the Road Runner, the film stars Will Forte and John Cena, is directed by Dave Green, and is written by Samy Burch, whose May December script is up for Best Original Screenplay at next month’s Oscars.
It is now overwhelmingly likely that no member of the public will ever be able to see Coyote Vs. Acme. In fact, The Wrap reports that after outcry from filmmakers and onlookers over initial reports about plans to shelf the film, which was budgeted around $70 million, Warner allowed it to be screened for interested parties. But Warner did not inform Netflix, Amazon, or Paramount—all of which are said to have made “handsome” offers—ahead of time that there would be no budging from its initial asking price, which was somewhere between $75 million and $80 million.
There is precedent for Warner, under CEO and president David Zaslav, canceling a filmed and nearly finished feature film. In 2022, the conglomerate shelved Batgirl and something called Scoob! Holiday Haunt, each of which was slated to go directly to the company’s paid streaming service, then known as HBO Max. (You imagine a team of men in suits: “Sir, the exclamation point actually goes in the middle.”) But while Coyote Vs. Acme is not the first property to be left flattened, as if by a falling anvil on the side of a highway, it’s the first one whose very premise is a tidy metaphor for the way the industry has become an impassable web of complementary and competing corporate interests that wraps itself around cultural objects until they are completely mummified. Put another way, Coyote Vs. Acme—if we’re to take the Frazier piece as its basis—is a movie that is about the very dynamic that killed it: capital’s use of the law not as an arena for fair adjudication but as a blunt instrument.
Created for Warner Bros. at the tail end of the 1940s by Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese, Wile E. Coyote has spent the past 75 years in perpetual chase of the Road Runner, a similarly silent desert dweller. Across what, in Frazier’s piece, Coyote’s attorney calls “Arizona and contiguous states,” the predator deploys an endless array of Acme-supplied gadgets and contraptions to catch his prey—always to no avail. While Bugs Bunny is the unquestioned star of Looney Tunes, Coyote is a constant victim of the cartoon physics the franchise made famous: He scurries off cliffs but falls into the chasm below when he looks down and sees that the ground is gone; he’s frozen, statue-like, by the quick-drying cement Road Runner speeds through like a hydroplaning car; he collides “with a roadside billboard so violently as to leave a hole in the shape of his full silhouette.”
What Frazier’s piece captures so shrewdly is the way legalese can make the ordinary sound absurd and the absurd sound downright justifiable:
Unsuspecting, the prey stopped near Mr. Coyote, well within range of the springs at full extension. Mr. Coyote gauged the distance with care and proceeded to pull the lanyard release. … At this point, Defendant’s product should have thrust Mr. Coyote forward and away from the boulder. Instead, for reasons yet unknown, the Acme Spring-Powered Shoes thrust the boulder away from Mr. Coyote. As the intended prey looked on unharmed, Mr. Coyote hung suspended in air. Then the twin springs recoiled, bringing Mr. Coyote to a violent feet-first collision with the boulder, the full weight of his head and forequarters falling upon his lower extremities.
The lawsuit, like the cartoon itself, endears Wile E. Coyote to us: We want him to catch the Road Runner; we don’t want him to suffer a “fracture of the left ear at the stem, causing the ear to dangle in the aftershock with a creaking noise.” But underlying the catalog of injuries to body and reputation that Coyote’s lawyer offers is the claim that it is a predator’s inalienable right to pursue its prey. So where Acme is a clot of half-obscured “directors, officers, shareholders, successors, and assigns,” the plaintiff is himself hoping to normalize his crimes; the case is a Russian nesting doll of predation. It calls to mind the arch-American myths of the careless coffee drinkers suing restaurants for handing them hot drinks.
The entertainment industry, like all others, replicates this logic on a larger scale. Most analysts figure Warner will score at least a $30 million tax break for shelving Coyote Vs. Acme rather than releasing it. This is, on its face, immoral and anticompetitive whether you find morality and business competition to be one and the same or directly opposed: How can it be better to flush $70 million down the drain than to try to recoup at least some of it?
And still, in the immediate sense, it’s almost certainly good business; the balance sheets will be cleaner this year. But it closes off any possibility that the film would be a hit—or adapted into a hit spinoff, or heavily merchandised, or simply good enough that it makes Warner more attractive to filmmakers who could bring it hits in the future. It’s shortsighted by the most craven measures and simply gross by any others. Yet tax law—and precisely nothing else—incentivizes the conglomerate to do something that, in a sane world or in a more competitive industry landscape, would alienate it to writers, directors, and stars.
Speaking of American myths, it doesn’t take too many contortions to see Wile E. Coyote as our Sisyphus: alone in the unpopulated West, starving but eager to abstract his animal instincts with consumer goods and cheap schemes. Coyote Vs. Acme is not some bizarre, divisive, or difficult passion project. It’s an all-ages comedy about the most recognizable characters a studio has ever created that has a hook (Who Framed Roger Rabbit meets Erin Brockovich or whatever) that could compel adults. But we have somehow arrived at a place where the production history of a Looney Tunes movie starring a former wrestler is now emblematic of art’s struggle against corporate greed.
In about 10 days, people—junior analysts, “institutional investors,” the wealthy and semiretired, senior analysts—will huddle around those arachnid conference call speakers or pace through airport gates on Airpods and listen to Warner Bros. Discovery’s fourth-quarter earnings call. It’s possible that the Coyote Vs. Acme debacle will be addressed simply due to the uproar it caused, but just as likely that the company will barrel ahead with what was likely the plan all along: to let it slip silently into the ether, a massive tax benefit “earned” by lighting years and tens of millions of dollars on fire. Zaslav will be rightly praised while those so inclined will sleep well knowing they can cash out whenever they please.
This is an extreme example, to be sure, yet still clarifies the precarity and seeming impermanence of art in the streaming era. To the extent that those streaming platforms have become the de facto media libraries for so many, individuals have ceded to rights holders and corporations control over their collections of movies and music, which can be shrunk or radically altered on the first of any given month. For decades, things have fallen out of print and become obscure, and axing something before its release, as Warner seems ready to do with Coyote Vs. Acme, is reminiscent of the way studios could control what was available in decades past. But today, Warner and its competitors are free to play this out over and over—able to yank things out of circulation at will. In the past, they never could have reached into your home and scooped up your DVD copy of The Spy Who Shagged Me.
I should correct something from earlier, when I said that Coyote never catches the Road Runner. This isn’t true—not exactly. In “Soup or Sonic,” a nine-minute segment in a 1980 special called, unfortunately, Bugs Bunny’s Bustin’ Out All Over, Coyote tries and fails to capture the bird using a pole vault that starts spinning like a propeller; a faulty rocket; a Frisbee fitted with a firecracker; a piece of “Acme Giant Flypaper” that captures, well, a giant fly; and a case of exploding tennis balls.
But in the short’s final two minutes, Coyote chases Road Runner through a series of pipes that turn each animal smaller as they pass from one end to the other. Discovering this, they pivot; running back the direction they came brings the Road Runner back to normal size, but leaves Coyote tiny. Nevertheless, he finally catches up. Wrapping his arms—just barely—around the Road Runner’s now giant ankle, Coyote licks his lips and pulls from his nonexistent pockets a bib, knife, and fork. But there’s nothing he can do: The thing he’s pursued forever is too immense, too threatening for him to bite, to cut, to finally eat. “OKAY, WISE GUYS, YOU ALWAYS WANTED ME TO CATCH HIM,” reads one sign Coyote holds up for the audience. The other: “NOW WHAT DO I DO?”
Paul Thompson is the senior editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone, New York magazine, and GQ.
A seventh grader becomes a published author and uses her book to give back. A dog helps save another pooch being attacked by a coyote. A singer who lost his voice thanks the vocal therapist who helped him regain it and changed his life for good.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
A 2-year-old girl in Southern California discovered an adult coyote on the prowl in her suburban backyard, much to the dismay of her parents. KCAL’s Lisa Kim reports from Noroc, Calif.
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
