I'll Be Coyote, Wolf, Dingo and Doggone

If you are old enough to still be young at heart then chances are you have very fond memories of the Classic Warner Brothers Cartoon Series featuring a less than wily "Wiley Coyote" and his nimble nemesis "The Road Runner!" Insanity has been defined by popular culture as doing the same thing over and over again... and expecting different results. In this particular context, "Wiley Coyote," blinded by his always futile, always back firing, always misfiring, ACME devised obsession to best the "Road Runner" most definitely appears to be insane. In terms of a serious literary parallel one could even draw a comparison between Warner Brother's Wiley Coyote and Melville's Ahab whose obsession with the White Whale "Moby Dick," was just as destructive if not as amusing. Ahab eventually got the whale...but it was most certainly a pyrrhic victory as he lost everything including his own life. "Wiley Coyote" never got the "Road Runner" He never came close. Our fumbling cartoon coyote was never going to lose his life in the pursuit of the feathered sprinter. How many times...did the coyote run off the edge of the cliff and into thin air? How many times did he fall to the bottom of the canyon? Funny thing about his oft suspension in mid air...is that the coyote never actually fell to his recurring doom at the bottom of the canyon floor until he looked at himself in mid air and determined he was somewhere he was not supposed to be. Only then did he fall to the ground. Perhaps, the reason for the cartoon's enduring popularity is that it offers such a stark contrast to the relationship binding the coyote and the roadrunner in real life. In real life coyotes predate and scavenge in packs. Theirs is a deft almost calculated ballet of instinct and intelligence. There is nothing smart about a roadrunner. They can be fast as a turkey. And just as stupid. In the natural elements, the wild...there is not a roadrunner alive who can outsmart a ravenous band of coyotes. The natural domain of the coyote and the roadrunner once were chiseled into vast expanses of territory. These ranging animals could play out their survival of the fittest gambols with virtually no interaction with or interference from man. This has all changed. Some of the change was inevitable when humans began expanding beyond the banks of the Mississippi River. Then there were the insatiable appetites of man which manifested greedily and far above just simple human expansion. Animal habitats were destroyed indiscriminately and with no thought of the long term consequences. Animals, such as coyotes and wolves whose pre-human habitats and mating and feeding environments are rapidly disappearing now have nowhere to go...but into our neighborhood. The neighborhood that is now built on to bury the original ancestral ranging grounds. Today, it is not unusual to find a roaming pack of coyotes dredging the streets of Beverly Hills. They are now forced to roam at night, to sort through human garbage and debris. And instead of natural prey these animals are targeting your cats and dogs; our pets and sometimes even our children.