Change in Perspective

NOT A COYOTE

I live in far Northern Illinois.  I think someone said my town is four miles from the cheese wall.  I have lived in this house a little more than twelve years.  We live on the edge of a dedicated bird sanctuary that is owned by the State and our Village.  (Not gospel, just my interpretation of what someone said.)  It has a lake at either end and a huge  multi hundred acre forest preserve at the North end.  We have coyotes that live in the field behind us.  We have blue heron, lots of hawks, last year a few sightings of Sandhill Cranes, and several reports of cougar which no one believed until he was shot dead on the North side within the actual Chicago city limits.  DNA tests proved he was the same one that was traveling through here.  His hair and blood were found in a barn just North of my village.  I have seen wolves twice.  Different ones.  Alone.  Different colors.  I see coyote all year long, every year.  I know what a coyote looks like.  Each time I saw the wolf, he stood and looked at me, (us, I was with someone else both times.)  These occasions were about six years apart, so it is obvious this is not part of a pack.  A wolf was caught on a trail camera in Union Illinois, West of me, and a wolf was hit by a car and killed just west of Antioch (next town over) on the Illinois side of the border.  He was an Eastern Grey Timber Wolf.  They are not Grey.  He was wild, not an escaped pet which was determined by the contents of his stomach and the condition of his coat.  Anyway that's my story and I'm sticking to it.  Lots of people look at me like, okay, lady with rocks in your head.

I was just watching a vid on my iPhone which was of wolves chasing an elk pack out West.  It was thirty nine minutes long and I was watching, trying to watch, trying to listen to David Letterman at the same time, so I wasn't paying close attention, but when the wolf was joined by two pack mates and drew closer to the elk, I used to think, oh poor elk.  Run, run faster, baby.  But this time I was thinking yeah, you almost got him, there you guys got him. Dinner!  Yay.  If it is a little baby zebra or springbok in Africa being chased by a lion or a leopard or something, I still think, run, baby, run.  But now I am rooting for the wolves.  And when the ranchers in Wyoming ask that they be allowed to shoot a few more cuz they are taking too big a bite out of the live stock, I think, Oh, shucks. Not, certainly, leave the poor wolves alone.  But, shucks, here we go again.  Just when they are getting a nice foot hold.

Let me be the first to tell you, if I see a griz out in my meadow, I will probably place a few calls.  But I just think it is strange that I have had this sea change of loyalties or maybe just attitude  in my dotage.  Although maybe that is why.  I am getting dotty.

Today's CTA:  who are you rooting for?  Wolf or Elk?