It’s not every day you’re driving home late at night in the second largest city in America and encounter a pack of coyotes running down the middle of Beverly Boulevard. Turns out the National Park Service is tracking urban coyotes in LA and the one I captured on video must be “C-144”. She has a GPS collar to track her whereabouts and according to the Topanga Messenger spends most of her time raising 5 pups in my neighborhood.
“The first of two coyotes captured for the new project is known as C-144 because she is the 144th coyote tracked since the National Park Service began studying coyotes in Southern California. A female estimated to be two or three years old, she spends most of her time in the Westlake neighborhood, a densely populated area just west of downtown with very little natural habitat. She is currently raising at least five pups. C-144 is believed to have one of the most urban home ranges of any coyote ever studied and has already surprised biologists by crossing the 101 Freeway several times, near where it intersects with the 110 Freeway. Decades of coyote, bobcat and mountain lion research in the Santa Monica Mountains have demonstrated that the 101 Freeway is a near-impenetrable barrier further to the west. It’s unclear whether C-144 is crossing directly over the freeway or is finding alternative methods like bridges or underpasses.”