~Latrans

Woo! First journal!

Hmm... You know, I hear a lot of fellow therians complain about humans. Humans this, humans that. Humans bitched about my ugly shirt, humans stole my lunch out of the fridge, humans gave me a parking ticket, humans built a house on some prey animal's grass and I'm living in it.

BLAH BLAH BLAH!

To be honest, I think humans are great! They make DELICIOUS food, they build fascinating things, and they have fantastic senses of humor. Ever try to share jokes with a cat? It ain't happening, partner.

My kind have always taken advantage of what they could to make life a little easier. We eat things that have already been killed, and when we DO hunt for fresh meat, it's stuff that's easy to catch. And human garbage? It doesn't get too much easier than that, so long as you don't get caught, and a lot of that stuff you won't find out in the brush.

Unfortunately, my human host isn't too fit to eat roadkill and garbage, but that's okay. Because unlike my brethren who have to hunt for a living, I have THUMBS. I can MAKE the food and eat it before it turns into garbage.

See, coyotes eventually figured out that humans are great to take advantage of, when it comes to a meal. I just do so a little more directly.

"But Latrans!" I might hear you say. "They kill wolves and deer and fluffy endangered critters! Aren't you mad about that?"

Hell no!

For one thing, good riddance to those wolves. No offense to you furries out there who like the little bastards, but they've been persecuting my kind for millenia. They pinned us into the southwestern states, killing any -- and I mean ANY -- who tried to enter the brush to get some relief from the desert. And the only reason we were allowed to live there is because they weren't too fond of living there themselves. But then humans came along and started giving them a dose of their own medicine. And FREEDOM! We were allowed to spread almost across the entire continent! This is a hayday for us, a golden age, and I'm not too fond of giving it back yet.

And no, the wolves aren't going endangered any time soon. Except maybe for those red wolves (who, by the way, are part coyote. The wolves did seem to enjoy debauching our women once in a while, but of course, the poor offspring were denied their coyote heritage and called wolves). But the grey wolves are living in droves up north. As far as I'm concerned, they can stay there.

As for the deer? So what? They're prey animals. They're SUPPOSED to be eaten by predators. They're not in any threat of leaving, either. There's more than enough for all of us, I say.

And the endangered animals... Yeah, they did have a bit of a hand on removing some species, but it was partially their own fault anyway, for being so delicate. And let's be frank -- humans are the ONLY animals who are trying to protect animals that aren't their own species. You think a wolf or a bobcat cares if elephants across the ocean are going extinct? Hell no.

"But Latrans!" I might hear again. "They kill coyotes, too! Doesn't that piss you off?"

Eh, not really. I mean, they leave me alone, and that's all that really matters to me. If the other coyotes are too stupid to be killed by them, then they don't deserve to spread their genes. I've seen humans hunt, and they don't pull any dirtier tricks than other predatory species do, so it's the coyote's own fault for getting suckered.

Besides, it's not like we're going extinct or anything.

So yeah, I embrace my human host, because it's just so handy! Adapt and evolve, that's what my kind believe in. Those that refuse to adapt are doomed. And living in the body of the most adaptable species on this planet...

Well, it doesn't get any better than that.