If you grew up in the Southwest, you probably had an occasional run-in with a coyote or two.  Mostly reclusive animals, afraid of humans and not known for the larger pack structures of other canidae, coyotes are resilient and creative creatures.  They are opportunistic hunters – in the wild, they will go after rabbits, mice and whatever smaller animal crosses their path; in more inhabited areas a coyote views cats and small dogs as acceptable substitutes to the prey that has been driven out by people.

Sadly, because the coyotes’ habitat is a popular place for humans to live, contact between the two species isn’t a pleasant experience . . . especially when the contact comes in the form of a car bumper.  Sometimes, however, a car bumper meets with a coyote and everyone involved gets lucky.  This was the case for Daniel and Tevyn East and the coyote they hit when it crossed the road in front of them.

The siblings were traveling on Interstate-80 near the Nevada-Utah border going about 75-miles an hour when a coyote ran in front of their car.  The sound of the impact convinced the two that there was no chance the coyote had survived and there was no point in stopping in the dead of night to inspect the probably horrific damage.  ‘Right off the bat, we knew it was bad,’ Daniel explained. ‘We thought the story was over.’

They continued on, covering over 600 miles total and stopping for gas twice, before arriving in North San Juan, where they finally decided to see how bad the front end of their car was.  At first glance, it looked like the damage to the car was minimal but the carnage was pretty gory — there was fur sticking out of the grill.

Tevyn said, “[Daniel] saw fur and the body inside the grill.  I was trying to keep some distance. Our assumption was it was part of the coyote – it didn’t register it was the whole animal.”  Her brother got a broom to get the coyote remnants out of the car’s grill, but when he poked the broom into the fur it flinched.  ”It was a huge surprise.  He got a little freaked out,” Tevyn described.

‘We knew it was bad’: Tevyn East, who was in the car when it hit the coyote, bends down to take a look at the fur poking through the fender.

This was the sight that greeted Daniel when he went to inspect the front end of his car, the body of the coyote poking out through the radiator.

The coyote, very much alive, stuck his head out as the front end of the car was taken apart to get the animal out.

A catch pole is looped around the coyote’s neck to keep it from further injuring itself or anyone else as the car is completely dismantled.

The coyote was placed into a crate after it was freed.  It had only minor scrapes and cuts.  In the image above you can see that its paws are a bit roughed up and that appeared to be the worst of the damage he sustained.

As a side note to this story, the woman who sent this to us also said that wildlife rehab folks she works with had to deal with a story very much like this one a few years back — are coyotes the animal equivalent of a Timex??

Thanks go to Bonnie and her daughter Christine for giving us the heads up on this remarkable story!!