“No regrets, Coyote. We just come from such different sets of circumstance. I’m up all night in the studios and you’re up early on your ranch,” – Joni Mitchell

I spotted him as he walked slowly toward me down a snow-covered road, the rusty and tawny colors of his coat glowing warmly in the afternoon sun.

He briefly lifted his nose to sniff the wind coming from my direction before he jumped over a snowbank in front of him, plunging his front feet into the soft, fresh snow around a stand of balsam firs.

He disappeared almost immediately into the woods.

I closed my eyes to replay the scene.

So beautiful and graceful an animal this coyote was, caught only in a fleeting glance.

In resignation, I opened my eyes.

Nothing left to see now but tracks in the snow.

I’m sure a swirl of the creature’s passage was still twisting in the atmosphere above the scene, but it was undetectable to me.

This is often the character of encounters with the wild — fleeting and fascinating.

The wind scuffed up the snow at my feet where canine tracks were still clearly identifiable — larger than those of a fox, much smaller than a wolf.

I thought about how only a moment or two earlier these impressions in the snow were filled with the life of a living creature.

I wished I could have been able to place the palm of my hand over the tracks and somehow have the animal’s past travels revealed to me.

I hadn’t seen a coyote in a while, and I wanted more time to observe the animal and communicate silently with him through extended gazes and a softening of my being.

I kicked my feet at the snow with the tip of my boot, sending the snow flying forward in at least a half-dozen directions.

Sadly, I understood that as a human being, I was part of this wild animal’s learned experience — an experience that has now taught him instinctively to fear and flee from a species that claims dominion over nature and the entirety of the earth.

If I was a wild animal, I’d run too.

I pushed a few short, tight whistles into the ice-cold air. The wind carried the sound with it in between the trees and back to who knows how far.

I hoped that maybe the coyote, being a canine, might possess a similar curiosity and response to a human whistle like that of a domesticated dog, which would come closer to see who or what was making that sound.

The coyote apparently possessed no such sense of curiosity, or if he did, he didn’t demonstrate it by coming out of the woods to investigate my presence.

I then just waited silently for several minutes to see if he might jump back out onto the road to continue his afternoon walk where the traveling was easier.

Again, nothing happened, and I restarted my own afternoon adventure.

As I went, I thought about coyote and human interactions.

The name coyote originates with the Aztecs.

Indigenous people have often used the coyote through widely varying tales in the mythology of numerous tribes, particularly in the western part of the country.

Though some of the physical attributes of coyotes, like pointed ears and yellow eyes, are described in these tales, human attributes are often also lent to the coyote.

According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, in some stories, the coyote is a culture hero who is a creator and teacher who helps humankind. In others, he is an antihero who demonstrates the dangers of negative behaviors.

He is also depicted as a trickster who through his actions demonstrates cultural and ethical norms. The coyote is also said to be a spirit guide who acts as a messenger to the creator and provides important lessons.

In wider society, coyotes are often described as “cunning” or “tricky.”

An online search produces additional adjectives carrying negative connotations, including ravenous, malevolent, ornery and shrill.

A recent scientific study from Western Washington University titled “Urban Human-Coyote Conflicts: Assessing Friendliness as an Indicator of Coexistence,” evaluated media coverage from 2000 to 2022 in Los Angeles, Seattle and Boston.

The researchers concluded that “coyotes live in most major cities across North and Central America. As their habitat shrinks, human-coyote interactions increase, spurring debate about how to respond.

“Residents often fear coyotes and want extermination, but scientists argue they are a permanent fixture that play a vital ecosystem role and that eradicating them does not work and has negative impacts.

“Instead, ecologists argue that residents need to change their behavior to coexist with coyotes. Whether the public supports coexistence plans, stems from public perceptions of coyotes, which are influenced by affective feelings, personal beliefs and experiences, and the media.

“Consequently, understanding how the media discusses these issues, whether they frame coyotes as friend or foe, and whether they cover coexistence is essential.”

Results of the study determined that “the media uses friendly language to discuss coexistence and unfriendly language to justify eradication. Cities vary in the degree to which their coverage aligns with the scientific consensus; this likely reflects historical, cultural and political views of coyotes.

“In Los Angeles, where coyote conflict is long-running and political, the coverage is the most unfriendly and is significantly more likely to include discussion of eradication; in Seattle and Boston, where coyotes have more recently become an issue, the coverage is far more likely to focus on coexistence.

“We argue that if governments want increased support for coexistence, there must be efforts to both account for media coverage in management plans and to educate the media on scientific consensus and the ecological implications of lethal management.”

In Michigan, coyote attitudes vary widely depending on some of the same factors indicated elsewhere related to experience, folklore or teachings.

People are people.

Since 1949, the cartoon character Wile E. Coyote has been unsuccessfully chasing the roadrunner across desert scenes of the American southwest.

The Coyote character was based on “Roughing It” by Mark Twain, who described a coyote as “a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton” that is “a living, breathing allegory of Want.”

Lewis and Clark found coyotes in their travels west, first seeing saw what they called a “prarie woolf” or “burrowing dogs.”

They first saw one in Iowa. The animal barked at them as they passed. The explorers wanted to shoot one for scientific interest, but didn’t get a shot off.

About a month later, one of the Corps of Discovery expedition’s hunters brought in a “small wolf with a large, bushey tail,” a day before Clark shot one himself “about the size of a gray fox, bushey trail, head and ear like a wolf.”

This was a new species to the white explorers and settlers in the early 1800’s. Coyotes have come to be synonymous with open and wild country.

They would scientifically be named canis latrans or “barking dogs.”

I think animals like coyotes are very curious creatures in the sense that they are living all around us but are secretive and more often heard than seen.

Though familiar in some sense, they remain unfamiliar to many people and are perhaps misunderstood.

I have a few reminiscences of coyotes over the past several years.

In one, I have seen where coyotes — which I’ve often seen trotting down the county road at night — have buried goose eggs at the base of trees in our yard.

In another, I was flying into Tucson a few years ago and was surprised to see a coyote standing on the dirt shoulder of the runway as our plane taxied in at the airport.

Most of the time, I see coyotes dashing across the road in front of me or loping through a field off in the distance.

One thing was clear to me in my brief coyote encounter this week, long gone are the days when this coyote would just sit, bark and watch as a human passes by.

But then again, I’m no Lewis or Clark.

I don’t think I have the best grasp on what a coyote is or represents to me personally, despite years of knowing about them and seeing them.

Maybe in that way, coyotes are as described in some Indigenous lore as tricksters or antiheroes.

I’d prefer them to be those creators or teachers who help humankind. We need all the assistance we can get.

More than likely, in my case, they embody the spirit guide mythology, acting as a messenger to the creator and provider of important lessons — lessons that I have yet to grasp or discern.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Outdoors North is a weekly column produced by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources on a wide range of topics important to those who enjoy and appreciate Michigan’s world-class natural resources of the Upper Peninsula.