SECOND confirmed coyote sighting on Long Island

Coyote sighting in Bridgehampton, LI
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It's a technical detail, but the eastern coyote has been documented on Long Island before. Several times in Queens since 2000. (And yes, Queens and Brooklyn are both geographically part of LI, even though city residents, including myself, are surprised by that fact).  But back to coyotes. The Bridgehampton coyote is a big deal. It is the first time that a coyote has been seen on Suffolk County. This intrepid traveler made it all the way out to the southern fork of LI. Probably the same way most commuters do. . . .by train, following the tracks from its natal home (speculation, of course).  We hope that the arrival of this first eastern coyote is met with curiosity and excitement and not fear. There are plenty of statistics that illustrate that coyotes pose no real risk to human health and safety in most situations (heck, we take minors out in the woods in search of them), but I won't belabor this point. I think we should all be a little enamored by the coyote simply by it being here, in NYC and its burbs, at all. The coyote is a symbol of the American west, representing wilderness and the wide open plains. And yet, in the Northeast, where we have done a good job at wiping out wolves and cougars, and paved over forests and filled wetlands, coyotes are deciding to move in despite what we've done with the place. So, for a conservation biologist looking for a success story, I look no farther than the coyote. 


News 12 Video:
http://longisland.news12.com/news/department-of-environmental-conservation-long-island-s-first-coyote-spotted-in-water-mill-1.5611099

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