Predators I Have Known

by Alan Dean Foster

  While coyotes most assuredly will take small pets that accidentally cross their path, like any predator, they prefer their natural prey. Often depicted in film and cartoons as stringy and emaciated, in reality, most coyotes are relatively robust animals. Around my hometown, some have bulked up to positively lupine proportions. Between the locally exploding ground squirrel and rabbit populations, they no longer even have to hunt. They just stand in the middle of the road and let addled hyperactive rabbits run into them.

  I once drove the last few yards leading up to our gate only to come upon an enormous coyote standing squarely athwart the dirt road. Unable to drive around it, I slowed and came to a complete stop. It turned, regally, to gaze at me, utterly unmoved either by my direct human stare or the vehicle I was driving. This confrontation continued for some time; the coyote in no hurry to move, I thoroughly enjoying the moment—and not only because relating this anecdote gives me the rare opportunity to use the word athwart.

  Eventually tiring of the encounter, I honked the horn. The coyote didn’t move. Leaning out the window, I yelled at the creature. It blinked and looked toward the nearby creek. I let loose with a series of rising yips that I hoped might convey in approximated coyote language both my indignation and impatience. It looked back at me as if to say that one of us was an idiot, and it wasn’t the one who was commuting on four legs.

  Finally, after I had shut up and when the coyote was at last good and ready, it loped off into the brush. There it paused to watch me as I drove on past. Clearly, it was deep in coyote thought. Sometimes I wish I knew what it had been thinking. Other times, I’m glad I do not. I have a suspicion I would not have come off well.

  Anyone who doubts the fabled intelligence of coyotes has never seen them work a dog. A pack will send one of their number out to irritate, play with, engage, do everything but seduce the subject of the group’s interest. The appropriately star-struck dog will then chase, accompany, attempt to mate with, or for whatever reason of its own follow the solitary coyote away from the doghouse and into the bush. Whereupon the pack will reveal its true intent in luring the domesticated pooch away from the safety of its human domicile, said objective being to invite the clueless animal to dinner, with dog to be the main course.

  But when visitors to Arizona and the American Southwest think of dangerous local carnivores, the rattlesnake is the creature far more likely to spring to mind than the coyote. Once again, we have to recognize the fact that as humans we are more visually than intellectually oriented. While the coyote’s stealth, ability to hunt in packs, natural cunning, size, and penchant for picking off household pets make it the far more dangerous predator, its resemblance to human’s best friend, its warm-bloodedness, and the fact that its natural ferocity has been disarmed by decades of appearances as a hapless cartoon character mean that the poor rattler is the one that consistently suffers from a bad press.

  Whereas a hungry coyote is a threat to anything it is capable of carrying off, even a starving rattlesnake would rather slither away than bite. Despite their far greater numbers, the few serious encounters that take place each year between humans and rattlers can invariably be attributed to accident or stupidity (human stupidity, the snake invariably grading out higher on the intelligence scale when the particulars of such encounters are closely examined).

  All rattlers are poisonous, the most dangerous being the green, or Mojave, rattlesnake. You would think this widely known fact would be sufficient, at least in Arizona, to discourage humans from initiating contact with them. Yet visitors to the desert and mountains, who by their very existence set new standards for redefining the word fool, persist in trying to pick them up by their tails, deliberately annoy them by throwing objects at them to make them rattle, or in dim-witted displays of misplaced machismo taunt them while at the same time seeing how close they can dance without being bitten. Try any of that with your average five-year-old and you’re likely to get bit, too.

  Though we live in prime rattlesnake territory, over the decades, we have had very few encounters with them. Despite what you tend to see in film and on television, rattlesnakes actually prefer not to bite. It takes food and energy and time to manufacture venom—venom that is more efficaciously employed in catching food. If you should happen to come across a rattler, slowly back away from it, turn around, and leave the area as quickly as you can. Both you and the snake will be happy that you did. Almost all rattlesnake bites are accidents resulting from hikers not seeing the snake. Step on any animal, however inadvertently, and it is guaranteed to bite.

  Of course, when you come home one day with an armful of groceries and there’s a rattler as big around as your arm lying on the flagstone directly in front of your front door, you are confronted with a conundrum that cannot be so easily avoided. It’s a situation your typical urban dweller never has to face.

  As it happened, I didn’t have to face it, either.

  My wife was returning home with a couple of male friends of ours. Before she could intervene or even be made aware of the snake’s presence, they had killed it with rocks. Deciding that they would have a good giggle at her expense, as she returned to the front door to let them in, they confronted her with the dead snake, waving it up and down while uttering what they presumed to be scary noises.

  My wife hails from west-central Texas. If you grow up in the country in west-central Texas, every time you step out your front door, you are as likely to encounter a rattlesnake as you are a neighbor. Raised with this likelihood in mind, children in that part of the world grow up knowing how to deal with every possible serpentine scenario. Contemplating the recently demised reptile, JoAnn evaluated it for a moment before saying, “Give it to me.”

  Exchanging a suddenly uncertain glance, our friends complied. My wife studied the dead snake briefly before gripping it firmly at the front end. Using both hands, she then proceeded to skin it, starting at the head and working progressively downward. Both friends suddenly found themselves on the opposite side of their intended gross-out prank.

  Unfortunately, JoAnn did not have time to cure the skin properly. It would have made a nice hatband, if not a belt. I was out of town and didn’t have a chance to see it. I relate this tale as a caution to any would-be burglars. I live with a woman who is part Cherokee, part Comanche, skins rattlesnakes with her bare hands, and carries a titanium switchblade.

  The weaker sex, indeed.

  * * *

  As I mentioned earlier, we all have our specific, individual fears. JoAnn has no trouble dealing with a dead rattlesnake, and because of her upbringing she was sternly taught, and quite rightly so, to beware of live ones. She does not much care for sharks, although the likelihood of encountering a great white in the lakes bordering Prescott is pretty slim. She is also, like most folks, something of an arachnophobe. Myself, I hold the same kind of soft spot for spiders that I do for all the underdog species that frequently appear in the garish headlines of our tabloid media.

  Which is a roundabout way of segueing to the day JoAnn came home to find me making friends with a tarantula.

  Of all Arizona’s native predators, none has a more undeserved reputation for posing a danger to humans than the poor slandered representatives of the family Theraphosidae. Certainly tarantulas will bite if sufficiently provoked (so will an irritated five-year-old). But by and large, they are among the most serene of spiders. They cannot help how they look, nor the fact that other, smaller relatives like the black widow and the brown recluse really are dangerous. Remember what I said before: It’s always the smaller things that get you.

  It was one of those early summer chamber-of-commerce days in Prescott. In the mountains of central Arizona, assorted migratory species such as hummingbirds, deer, and tourists were on the march. So, too, was the tarantula that ambled toward me as I was standing outside our front door gazing down at the creek that flows past our house. As representatives of its kind go, it was not particularly large. Nothing like the Goliath spiders of the Amazon, whos
e bodies are bigger than a man’s spread hand and whose outstretched legs would fit comfortably over the top of a basketball. This fuzzy eight-legged visitor could have nestled comfortably in my open palm. In the bright sunlight, I could see its twin fangs plainly, glistening as if whittled from black ivory.

  I realize that this image is by itself enough to acutely unsettle the arachnophobes among you. Please be at your ease. I am not about to be bitten and run screaming, and neither are you. Think, if you must envision something spidery, of Charlotte’s Web.

  The road to our property either dead-ends against our driveway or becomes our driveway, depending on how much sightseeing someone careening along it happens to be doing. As the road merges into our driveway, dirt gives way to gravel. The house itself sits on a level terrace between two sharply sloping hillsides. The downslope below the house gives way to some landscaped Arizona cypress, vinca ground cover, outcroppings of pale yellow and tan granitic rock, and below that, the creek. My study is in a room located above a detached garage.

  The tarantula was in the process of migrating, or so I guessed taking into consideration the temperature, humidity, and time of year. (Unlike Wile E. Coyote might have done, it was not holding up a neatly lettered little sign reading I AM MIGRATING.) Having probably made its way upward from somewhere near the creek and then navigated through the ground-level jungle of dark-green vinca, the tarantula emerged daintily out into the sunlight and commenced a straightforward traverse of the gravel driveway.

  The afternoon was warm and cloudless. I was returning to the house from the study when I saw it. I paused for a couple of moments to monitor its progress, noting the flawless combination of grace and agility with which it was making its sure-footed way across the wide, dry, rocky expanse. On impulse, out of curiosity, and having nothing else to do for the immediate moment, I sat down deliberately in its path.

  While I had spent a good deal of time around its kind previously, both in zoos and in the jungle, I had never before been so bold as to attempt to make physical contact. I figured the right moment had come. After all, the tarantula was on my property. Could I do less than extend a sociable greeting?

  Encountering my fully extended left leg slightly above the knee, it paused. One hairy black leg, then a second, commenced to inspect this sudden obstacle. Would it go around? It would not. Maintaining the same measured pace, it proceeded to climb up my leg and over the top. Through the fabric of the jeans I was wearing, I could clearly feel its weight and its movements. Living as most of us do in temperate or cold climates, the insects and arachnids we happen upon are usually modest in size. We tend not to think of them as having much in the way of mass or weight. My visitor had both.

  As the tarantula rappeled down the inside of my thigh, crossed a narrow strip of gravel, and started up my right leg, my wife drove up and parked nearby. Wishing to know what I was doing sitting out in the sun in the middle of the driveway, she exited the car and came around the front. Well, partway around the front. She halted as soon as she saw the multilegged dark shape that was in the process of traversing my right leg. Her tone was very deliberate.

  “What . . . are . . . you . . . doing?”

  I gestured at my new acquaintance. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “No,” my wife snapped. “It’s not. Are you crazy? What if it bites you?”

  “It won’t bite me.” I was very sure of myself.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because it’s already been over one leg, and it didn’t bite me.” I beckoned. “Come have a look.”

  JoAnn started forward—in the direction of the front door. “Do whatever you want with it, but I don’t want that thing anywhere near the house.”

  “Relax.” I smiled reassuringly. “It’s just crossing the driveway.” I gestured to my right. “In a couple of minutes, it’ll be up in the spruce bushes on the other side and you’ll never see it again.”

  “Good!” The front door closed behind my wife.

  I was tempted to find a way to prolong the dalliance, but I had no desire to unnecessarily tire my mellow caller or inhibit its migration. And besides, it was hot sitting in the sun. As soon as the tarantula had finished its transect of the author, I rose. Perhaps my shadow startled it. In any event, it picked up its pace noticeably. I watched until it did indeed disappear into the rocks and bushes that formed a wall on the far side of the driveway, whereupon I returned to my study and my work and thought no more of it.

  The following afternoon, not long after lunch, the phone on my desk rang. The voice on the other end was immediately recognizable as well as uncharacteristically agitated.

  “Get down here. Right now.”

  JoAnn’s words alarmed me. “Why? What’s wrong?”

  Her tone turned taut. “Your friend is in the house.”

  “My . . . ?” It took a moment before realization dawned. “That’s impossible. With the air-conditioning on, everything’s closed up, and it’s too big to get under the screen doors.”

  “Maybe it used the handle. It’s big enough for that.” My wife’s words were joking but her tone was not. “Get down here this minute and get that tarantula out of my house.”

  “It won’t hurt you.” My guarantee fell on deaf ears. Or rather, on no ears. JoAnn had hung up.

  The tarantula was in the kitchen, feeling its way methodically along the base of the cabinets, probing for suitable openings. Unlike other youthful visitors to our home, I knew it was looking for a cricket, not a cookie. “The tarantula in the kitchen,” I murmured to my wife. “Nice title for a story.”

  “How about ‘dead tarantula in the kitchen’?” JoAnn glared at me. “It’s your friend. You get it out. Or I’m getting a shoe.” Her nervous gaze returned to the spider, which was attempting to find a way into the space beneath the sink. “Make that a boot. A big boot.”

  “Calm down. I’ll get it out.”

  All it took was a large jar and a piece of cardboard. Eye to eyes, I studied the tarantula up close as its front legs pawed at the inside of the glass.

  “Naughty, naughty,” I told it. “You need to learn to knock.” I looked over at JoAnn. “Look at it this way: You didn’t find the tarantula in bed.”

  My wife stared back at me. “If I ever find that thing in bed with me, there are gonna be two dead bodies to throw out.”

  I placed our intruder in the car and took it far, far away. To the shore of Willow Lake, where I released it into a field of dense grass doubtless gravid with grasshoppers and other suitable chitonous prey. I watched until the tarantula had disappeared from view and hoped it would find an accommodating abandoned burrow in which to spend the night. In the course of our brief encounters, it had neither nipped me nor flung a defensive cloudlet of its kind’s urticating hairs. I still thought it was beautiful. My wife thought it was the stuff of nightmares.

  Occasionally, in season (yes, there is a tarantula season), I see others of its species crossing the dirt road that leads to our property, and I wonder if my tarantula has returned. Do spiders have homing instincts? What was it looking for that drove it to somehow make its way into our house? If I looked hard enough at the right time of year, would I find waiting for me at the door leading to my study a little black-and-red valentine spun out of silk and the husks of dead insects?

  When my wife tells friends that I’m a little strange, there are times when even I am compelled to concede the point.

  * * *

  Of all the carnivores that inhabit our fertile world perhaps none elicits such universal admiration as the bird of prey. Its actions are graceful, its profile noble, its devotion to mate and family admirable. So appealing are these birds in appearance and action that we often tend to forget that they are killers as ruthless and determined as any laughing hyena or spitting cobra. Perhaps part of this willful emotional disconnect is that they kill silently. A kestrel standing atop a dead vole with its talons embedded deep in the dead rodent’s body may emit a high-pitched squeal or two, but its t
erse declamation of triumph is a long way from the lion’s repetitive roars or the grizzly’s incessant snarl.

  Of course, snakes also kill in silence, but like the spider and the army ant, they lack the innate visual appeal of their lethal feathered counterparts. Birds of prey make frequent appearances on the currency, heraldic shields, and national symbology of numerous nations. They are the supermodels of the predator world. How often do you see a snake heroically portrayed thus, let alone a spider or carnivorous beetle? A snake does make an appearance on the flag of Mexico—as it is being snatched up by an eagle.

  We cannot help ourselves, I suppose. What appears strikingly attractive to the human eye might look otherwise to an alien, who would perhaps favor the silhouette of the lamprey to that of the falcon. Beauty is in the eye of the beholding species. I sometimes wonder what the birds of prey think of our appearance.

  I’ve always dreamed of seeing a harpy eagle. Discounting vultures such as the condor, the harpy and the Philippine eagle are the world’s two largest birds of prey. Much larger, though, was the Harpagornis moorei, or Haast’s eagle. Living in New Zealand and preying on the large flightless moas, it is estimated the last Harpagornis died out as recently as A.D. 1400. With a body weight of roughly thirty pounds and a ten-foot wingspan, it was big enough to bring down and prey on young humans. By way of comparison, a full-grown female bald eagle’s weight maxes out at fourteen pounds with a wingspan of maybe six and a half feet.

  I know that I am not going to see a live Haast’s eagle any more than I’m likely to see a moa—though the rediscovery and resurrection of the turkey-size, flightless New Zealand bird called the takahe offers a last, lingering hope that a remnant population of small moas might yet somehow survive in the cloud-shrouded wilderness of Aotearoa’s South Island. Slim though it is, I have a much better chance of one day encountering a harpy or a Philippine eagle than one of the flightless New Zealand giants, which sadly are no moa.