Letters from Aldwin

A study out of Seattle genotyped 842 coyote scats, from the city and two wild corners of the state, tracing each back to the animal who left it. 261 coyotes in all.

The arithmetic: Seattle packs 9.3 times as many coyotes per square kilometer as the wildlands do. Not a figure of speech. 0.38 inside the city, 0.041 outside.

The wild is the emptier place.

We made the city easy. Nobody hunts them; the big predators live elsewhere; the table is always set: rats, fruit, garbage, the small things under the hedges. A city, the authors write, is ideal coyote habitat.

You have likely never seen one. They do best in the blocks we leave loose, and they keep out of the way.

The part I keep turning over: within Seattle, the more densely people live, the fewer coyotes. Not the pavement, not the tree cover, not the pollution, not the money. Just us, packed close, and they step back.

The wild is not out past the last exit. It is a few blocks over, going about its evening, living off what we leave behind. If you are awake at a strange hour and the street is quiet, you are not alone in it. Something near is choosing, every night, to keep living beside us.