Where the wild things REALLY are

All the visitors clad in fluorescent orange and camouflage crowding downtown to ogle pricy paintings of wildlife this week should just come to West Ashley and see nature up close and personal.
You can just about name it, when it comes to animals, and West Ashley’s probably got it.
Last month, residents in Geddes Hall neighborhood off Wappoo Road reported spotting a coyote in their marshfront backyards at dusk.
One neighbor said there was no roadrunner, no arid rock formations, and no box marked ACME. Just a female and her cub trapped by rising water, scurrying between fences, trying to find a way out.
That neighbor was about to let out his family’s 20-year-old cat, but had second thoughts. He then banged the back screen door to alert the coyotes he was there and they’d been spotted.
And then they were gone; except for their paw prints left in the mud. Checking with neighbors before they let out house-pets, he found one that had seen what they thought was a smallish stray dog.
So, again. A coyote in West Ashley?
Last year, some say they saw a coyote on the West Ashley Greenway, perhaps using it as clear-cut while hunting at dusk. That can’t be right, can it?
“Oh, yeah; every part of the state has coyotes,” said a state Department of Natural Resources staffer in Columbia. “They’ve multiplied and overrun some places; we’ve been getting lots of complaints” from across the state.
Closer to home, Erin Weeks, the communications officer for the DNR office on Fort Johnson Road said the slippery, secretive coyote is uniquely able to live side-by-side with humans, who rarely know they’re there.
Coyotes, according to the DNR, can weigh anywhere from 35-60 pounds when mature, and can affect local game and deer. They generally live between 7-14 years, and are considered “opportunistic” feeders, preying mostly on rabbits, rodents, carrion, and occasionally domestic sheep, poultry, sheep, goats, calves, and … wait for it … “occasionally domestic pets.”
Coyotes tend to breed in February and March, and given short gestation times, there could more and more by early summer.
West Ashley, Weeks said, has just about every other critter, too – and a few many would never suspect. She rattled off a list that included raccoons, squirrels, bobcats, opossums, deer, otters, birds of prey, and the like that are commonplace.
Not as common but far less welcome are the wild pigs that have torn up manicured yards in several neighborhoods off Bees Ferry.
One homeowner last year went to bed with her lawn intact, and the next morning, pigs had rooted up much of her formerly pristine backyard. Thousands of dollars, some of it from her home insurance policy, went back into her yard – as well as a new, taller, steel metal fence.
“Armadillos? Yes, absolutely we have them in South Carolina,” said Weeks. “You’re not as likely to see them alive as dead on the side of the highway, all the way up to the Virginia state line.”
Another mammal Weeks said locals might be surprised to find out that have taken up residence in West Ashley is the mink, as in the makings of jackets for the rich.
A relative of the ferret and otter, Weeks said minks congregate mostly on barrier islands, where they love hunting eggs. “This makes for a problem with protecting sea turtle nests and the nests of seashore birds.”
Proximity to wildlife is one of the drawing cards for the Lowcountry, and West Ashley is no different, said Weeks. “But that can add up to some conflict.”
If a West Ashleyian comes across a coyote, call DNR, and before you try hunting or trapping them, know there are laws and policies discussed on the state agency’s website.
And unless you’re a roadrunner, you’re probably safe.