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.
And when coyotes and/or wolves cross paths with man, it becomes a one-sided slaughter.
There is another way.
Coyotes and wolves do not have to be killed...
even if they wander into your neighborhood.
The device is called a humane canine capture trap.
It is a spring loaded snare with a latching trigger which is suppressed by the weight of the bait you set to lure the animal.
Once a coyote or a wolf catches the scent trail...
and regardless of how alert or wary the animal is in its approach...
as soon as the bait is taken...
the snare is activated and the wire loop springs around the animal's neck and tightens so the animal cannot get away.
It is a non lethal trapping assemblage.
The construction is of stainless steel which prevents rust and false firing.
With stainless steel there is less maintenance.
It is also manufactured with an adjustable tension trigger which allows the snare to be modified to the specific animal you wish to capture.
All canine, capture traps have been extensively tested and are endorsed by the Natural Wildlife Research Center in Denver, Colorado.
It is 100% canine specific and over 70% of canines captured show or exhibit no significant injury when graded against International Standards.
The humane canine capture trap can also be modified for humanely lethal applications.
The toils and troubles of our cartoon coyotes are fun to watch.
Maybe we even see a little of ourselves in him.
In the real world, the toils and troubles of actual coyotes are not as blithe.
As humanity continues to expand either by nature or by greed and consumption, our encounters with wild animals are going to rise exponentially.
And just as humans were put on this earth for a reason so were the coyotes and wolves.
It is like the Sun.
Sometimes she may burn much too hot.
Sometimes, she'll blind you in the road.
And as challenging as the Sun can be..
..
no one wants it to disappear.
If you can think this way about wild canine breeds and recognize how challenging they may be...
and still not want to see them to vanish...
then maybe there is a chance a solution can found to satisfy all parties.
The Humane Canine Capture Trap might help us to find an answer.
To both the human problem and the coyote problem.