Hunger Drives Coyotes to the Front Porch
A harsh winter in Benton County leaves wildlife starving and emboldened, leading to strange encounters in White Bluffs.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The queer capers that the coyotes are cutting on the east side of the Columbia have caused Matt Weihl to wonder whether they have suddenly become tame, are in the first stages of hydrophobia, or just have an attack of old-fashioned hunger. One crawled under Mrs. J. F. Wilson’s front porch one day last week and it took two people to drive it away. An evening or two later, Matt found one in his chicken house. Besides giving him one glance, the animal paid no attention to him, but kept steadily on at his job of trying to catch a chicken. It was only after he had been struck a sharp blow on the head that he showed any fight, but was soon dispatched. Mr. Weihl has taken it up with the county health officer, but the absence of any rabbits, due probably to the severe cold and snow last winter, inclines him to the belief that the coyotes are starving.
“One crawled under Mrs. J. F. Wilson’s front porch one day last week and it took two people to drive it away.”
Ecological imbalances caused by severe weather often force wildlife into human settlements, a recurring phenomenon in the high desert of the Tri-Cities. While today's residents might call animal control, the 1916 solution—a shovel and a blunt object—highlights the frontier reality of early White Bluffs.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.