Predators

One of my neighbors, whom I've always considered to be a wee bit eccentric, has claimed to have seen coyotes in the neighborhood. As I was getting into my car tonight at sunset, I heard them for the first time, yipping and howling in the hills above the house. It sounded like there were quite a few of them.

Somehow coyotes seem like much wilder wildlife than the mule deer that come up on my front porch to eat the bushes. I think it's because they're predators, like the hawks that occasionally land on the back fence or rattlesnakes I've encountered in the shrubbery. Animals that kill to live bring out a more visceral reaction than those that nibble on plants.

It's interesting to me that man's two closest companion animals, cats and dogs, are both predators. Do we respect an animal that kills more than we would respect a herbivore?

BadStrangerCat hunting birds.