The (infamous?) Central Park coyote “was finally captured at about 10 this morning near Belvedere Castle, after an officer with the New York City Police Department’s Emergency Service Unit shot it in the rear with a tranquilizer dart.”
[Image: A perhaps deliberately Soderberghian montage by Paul Kreft].
The coyote was “dubbed ‘Hal’ by some police officers and reporters because it was first spotted near the Hallett Nature Sanctuary” – but everyone knows it was really named after the rogue computer in 2001…
The coyote is now being “rehabilitated” elsewhere, after surviving its first appearance in the animal-media storm. But it will be back… leading me to wonder: as the cities of the world purge themselves further and further of nonhuman species, will even a passing bird be treated as a public spectacle?
(For a somewhat contrary view of beasts in the big city, of course, see Simian urbanism).
The Overlap, Part II
And what of the whale that breached the Thames Barrier a few months back and graced London with its presence for a day…? Someone needs to make a short film from the perspective of these poor guys.