Suburban dances with coyotes
I don't like to reveal that I live in Newton because it is so terminally unhip. It could be worse; I might live in some white-bread hell like Wayland, or Glen Ridge, N.J. But surely I would be more at home rubbing suede-patched elbows with the superannuated PEN crowd in Cambridge, fretting how no one publishes serious fiction anymore.
Maybe not.
There is a small section of Newton called Waban. If Newton is like the Cote d'Azur, Waban resembles the Principality of Monaco: a tiny enclave of unimaginable wealth. Waban borders on precious "open space" -- you know, the kind of land rich people are always anxious to preserve, especially when it abuts their own homes. And guess who's moved in? Coyotes!
Wait, it gets worse. Michael Striar, who might be politely described as a long-shot candidate for mayor, has decided to add coyote-cide to his campaign platform. "If elected mayor next November," he wrote in a letter to the Newton Tab, "I can declare with confidence . . . that Newton will hunt down and kill the coyotes."
Wait, it gets worse. Striar, who lives just 1.4 miles from my house, told me that coyotes "are all over Newton now. They come right up and down my own street." It is only a matter of time before my neighbors and I form a Community Coyote Watch.
Wait, it gets worse. It's perfectly legal to kill coyotes from now until Feb. 28, except that Newton has an ordinance prohibiting the discharge of firearms on city streets. Second Amendment, schmecond amendment! This is the blazing, cobalt-hot core of the blue states, where voting for George Bush was a Class 2 misdemeanor. Not that I had the gumption to find out.
So now coyotes join second-hand smoke, perfumes, tap water, baby walkers, leaf blowers, and peanut butter sandwiches as Threats You Didn't Know Existed Until Someone in the Suburbs Freaked Out About Them. Earlier this year, Hull declared a state of emergency when a coyote was spotted near an elementary school. What happened? Uh, nothing. Incredibly, the children have remained safe from coyote attack. "Coyotes are shy and elusive animals," says Tom O'Shea, assistant director of wildlife at the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. "They don't pose a public safety threat."
Gentle suburbanites -- those of you who haven't canceled your subscriptions after reading this far in the column, that is -- here are a few facts about the coyote menace. There has been a significant coyote population in eastern Massachusetts for at least 20 years. There is a misperception that "we" are moving into "their" territory, as exurban Boston sprawls beyond Route 495. Quite the opposite: coyotes, opportunistic scavengers that they are, are shifting their ranges into densely populated suburbs. Why? Because that is where the food is. This means your trash, the restaurant dumpster, or, yes, your cuddly little cat or yappy little dog.
The obvious analogy is to black bears, which have been paying more visits to the suburbs of late. If you feed a bear or a coyote, you are asking for trouble. The one verified recent coyote attack in eastern Massachusetts, according to Boston College researcher Jonathan Way, took place in Sandwich, in 1998. "That coyote was being fed by people," Way says. "You have a much better chance of being hit by lightning, or murdered by another human being, than being attacked by a coyote."
Counterintuitively, Way says that the best coyote repellent is . . . a coyote: "The easiest thing is to get used to the ones around you, and that will keep the others away." His next major research project, it happens, will take place in Newton. I asked him if the students of Boston College, who live less than a mile from Michael Striar's coyote-infested street, should be very afraid.
"That would be our actual dream, if we could get a coyote and catch it on campus," says Way, who probably won't be working at the BC admissions office any time soon. "We're trying to teach people that it's completely natural to see coyotes in the landscape, whether they're in a schoolyard in Hull or on the campus of Boston College."
Eek! Yet another reason for me never to leave my house. . .
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com
