Not only is the Mattapan neighborhood of Boston such a crime zone locals call it “Murderpan”, they have Coyotes!
The Mattapan coyote didn’t just have 15 minutes of fame. It had a full hour. And oh, what an hour it was.
It was about 11:30 a.m. yesterday when a worker at the Mildred Avenue Middle School spotted the beast on a set of train tracks near the building. By noon, the animal had two animal-control officers chasing him through yards, two more on the way, TV news choppers hovering above Blue Hill Avenue tracking the pursuit and a phalanx of breathless reporters and photojournalists who snapped pictures of the captured creature being led into a van about 12:30 p.m. as if he were a criminal suspect captured after a frantic highway chase.
And don’t give me bullshit of a coyote not being a threat, as we’ve had attacks in Boston in the past, and if it was no threat, why did they need to deploy all those officers?
BTW back in Maine I was chilling out on my family’s porch enjoying a summer afternoon, when a cop car pulled up in front of my neighbor’s house, pulled out a shotgun and fired into their hill. He had seen a small raccoon wandering in the shrubs, and took him out with a well-aimed shot into a good solid backstop.
He bagged the critter, tagged it, and went on his way, giving me a waive. Every year a few pets and sometimes a few people get bit by a rabid animal, so a nocturnal creature wandering in broad daylight is a public heath risk, and was shot on sight. No SWAT team, no fiasco, just a dead critter in an evidence bag.
I have no issue with this!
But see, the control freaks don’t want to have rabid animals killed. They sympathize with the foaming critters, having the same condition themselves.