An Elegy for The Coyotes of Alexandria, Being Trapped
They were here, three of them, on Seminary Hill, the largest one dark, the two others (one of which I caught on trail cam) posessing of grey/foxish-red tails. They were pretty, wild things. They had value. Apart from their ecosytem service as top carnivores gobbling up city rats, there was a more self-serving economy. The economy of us. We could have started an Insta for them (and gotten tons of likes). We could have used them as a naming opportunity to the right environmentalist donor. It would have been far more unique than having their name carved on a building. I think we let fear trump careful, systemic thinking about these coyotes. We missed an opportunity.
I’m taking a MOOC class on Ecosystem Services that features Pavan Sukhdev, one of the the fathers of environmental economics, as a lecturer on valuation. What does this have to do with the coyotes? I am wondering how I could have valued them so I could have made a solid case against their being “removed.” Alexandria’s own Natural Resources Manager Ron Simmons just retired early “in frustration.” What would have convinced the neighborhood and the city to let Our Coytoes be? An appeal to courage? Aesthetics? Should I have made Mary Oliver poetry of their tails? Talked about future pricing or Creation Care — the stated environmental ethics of the Episcopal Church because of our proximity to the Virginia Theological Seminary? Or should I have cited the VCCC, the Vermont Coyote Coexistence Coalition, to prove that some communities have made a success of resource-sharing?
In the storehouse of Nature, what price a coyote?
I can give you a price. My price. It cost me $5 (because I retail-therapied and bought a cappuccino at Swings Coffee on Monroe) + an unknown, undefinable amount. Let’s call that X. In my basic, beginner, ecosystem services math the equation is each loss of C (coyote) = $5 (overpriced coffee of sadness) + X (an unknown, undefinable amount of their worth. I can tell you right now its not zero).
