It Gives One Paws

Charismatic megafauna. That's what ecologists call those wild creatures at the top of their food chains. (As biologist Lewis Thomas notes in The Lives of a Cell – highly recommended, by the way – life is a game of 'now I eat you'.) And it's a continual wonder that these turkeys and coyotes and bobcats and horned owls and deer and falcons and buzzards exist here, such large animals, so close and yet so seldom seen. And still more I wonder that they find enough to eat and thrive; and about so much else that must perish to nourish them.

Wild turkey:

Bobcat:

Bobcat spray:

Coyote: