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Coyote Investigation

I was driving home through Livingston campus late one evening when standing before me in the middle of the road was what I believed to be a wolf or a coyote. I stared the creature down before for several seconds before the headlights of another car scared it away. While many doubted what I had seen when I told the story the next day, Jessica was the only one who didn’t laugh. This began an exchange of interesting stories about the stranger side of Rutgers, and thus, Rutgers Rarities was born.

While there have been many confirmed reports of coyotes from friends, Piscataway Township workers, and facility maintenance workers at Rutgers, Jessica had never seen a coyote with her own eyes until recently. Her first sighting was near the Facilities Maintenance Building, as she saw a single coyote, small enough to possibly be a pup, running its normal hunting route. Witnesses from the Visual Arts Center and the Facilites Maintenance Building confirmed reports of individual coyotes running through paths around that area.

While all of the previous reports were of single coyotes, the most exciting discovery was made several days later by Jessica, her second sighting within a week. As we drove down Avenue E on Livingston (just past the RAC) on our way to Busch Campus, Jessica yelled that she had just seen them (the coyotes). Unlike the previous reports, she had witnessed an entire pack of at least 10 or 12 that she said were of different colors and sizes. Pulling the car around, we were lucky enough to see several before they ran back into the woods. One coyote in particular stared back at us from across the street, and another, much larger one, made his presence known. It appeared to be the Alpha male, and was the last to inspect us before following the rest of the pack into the woods. Some footage was captured and the coyotes can be seen in some of the stills. A drive back to home base had actually turned out to be an important investigation, and one that will be further explored. Let’s just say there’s a better than average chance that the next investigation of this nature will involve pork chops.

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