He Was Likely On His Way To The Met

The coyote on the loose in Central Park has been caught:

A coyote’s romp in Central Park ended yesterday with a tranquilizer dart and a nap, but only after a messy breakfast (hold the feathers), a dip in a chilly pond and a sprint past a skating rink-turned-movie set.

There was also a final chase that had all the elements of a Road Runner cartoon, with the added spectacle of television news helicopters hovering overhead, trailing the coyote and the out-of-breath posse of police officers, park officials and reporters trailing it.

. . .

Where Hal came from remained a mystery. [Parks commissioner Adrian] Benepe said that he had probably been driven out of Westchester County. Older coyotes do that to young males at this time of the year, wildlife specialists said.

He speculated that Hal had made it down to the Bronx and trotted into Manhattan across a railroad bridge at Spuyten Duyvil — “the narrowest, safest crossing,” he said.

But Mr. Benepe said it was also possible that Hal had dog paddled his way through the water beneath the railroad bridge. From there, he said, Hal probably meandered down the West Side to 72nd Street, where Riverside Park ends. And then, Mr. Benepe said, he turned left.

That was news to people in the neighborhood. “I see a lot of things pass this way,” said Ralph Mascolo, a doorman at an apartment building on 72nd Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue, “but never a coyote.”

The coyote then interrupted a Robin Williams film shoot at Wollman Rink:

The search was called off Tuesday night. When it resumed early yesterday, a crew working on a movie called “August Rush” was busy at the Wollman Rink, just across a path from the Hallett sanctuary. Suzanne Kelly, from the film’s wardrobe crew, saw Hal “going after this lady’s dog.” A small dog, a Westie, she said.

Hal “looked hungry, I thought,” she said. “That’s what I was worried about.”

The posse chasing Hal cornered him by the Heckscher Ballfields, but he got away again. Hal retreated to the sanctuary, where a pile of feathers suggested that he had made a meal of a bird, probably a pigeon, Mr. Benepe said. After a quick swim across the sanctuary’s duck pond, he sprinted past the rink, where an actress in a wig was doing figure eights.

After catching the coyote, the plan is to return him to a more suitable environment:

Mr. Benepe said the plan was for a wildlife rehabilitator to take Hal out of the city and, after some rest and relaxation, release him in a more coyote-friendly habitat.

That’s “a more coyote-friendly habitat” as in “Fairfield County, Connecticut suburbs” where they are used to such sightings . . . suckas!