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 Before moving on up to the most expensive of New York City's five
boroughs, coyotes have shown up in recent weeks in the Bronx and
Queens as well as suburban New Jersey, and wildlife experts says the
predators are becoming increasingly comfortable in cities, which
offer more opportunities for prey.
After the pre-dawn sighting on Wednesday of a coyote on Manhattan's
West Side, the New York City Police Department scoured Riverside
Park with helicopters and ground units for several hours.
By mid-afternoon, the search had been called off and the wily beast
remained at large.
"He's in the wind," said Detective Martin Speechley, a police
department spokesman.
This month alone, another coyote was captured in Manhattan's Chelsea
neighborhood and there were two coyote attacks reported in suburban
Bergen County, New Jersey, including on a man walking his dog.
 The influx of coyotes into urban areas such as New York, Chicago and
Los Angeles is a sign of their ability to adapt to environments
where they are drawn to abundance of food including mice, squirrels,
rabbits and, sometimes, pet cats, said Roland Kays, a zoologist at
North Carolina State University who studies wildlife in urban areas.
"They are finding the urban areas that have little scraps of habitat
that they can making a living in," Kays said.
If Manhattan's newest interloper is caught and found to be healthy,
city park rangers and animal control officers will release the
coyote "into a wilderness area in a Bronx park," said Tara Kiernan,
spokesperson for the New York City Department of Parks and
Recreation.
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It didn't take long for New Yorkers to turn to social media with
jokes about the coyote, including comparing the elusive critter to
Dr. Richard Kimble, star of the Fugitive television series, who
escaped after being wrongly convicted of his wife's murder and then
sought a one-armed man who was the real killer.
"So, the little guy snuck away? And can we call him Dr. Richard
Kimball after The Fugitive?" @westsiderag asked the police
department's 24th Precinct on Twitter.
"The coyote actually told us that he did not kill his wife. Whatever
that meant," @NYPD24Pct tweeted back.
"You need to look for the coyote with the prosthetic paw!" responded
@westsiderag.
(Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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