Is it really “ignorant” to make an accurate observation? The overwhelming majority of British people probably favour tiger conservation, but just listen to all the fuss over proposals to reintroduce wolves and bears. The realities are very different for people who cohabit with wild tigers and people who live half a world away. There are countless examples of this. Just ask any Zimbabwean maize farmer whose crop has just been trampled by elephants. He/she will understand.

As the author of this post, I think I did an “ok” job of indicating that human-coyote conflicts are rare. Indeed, I specifically stated that only two human fatalities have been recorded in North America. What I hoped to convey (but didn’t specify) is that it won’t take a lot of incidents to change the debate about urban coyotes. If the fatality rate rose to just one every five years, it would still be extremely rare, but become unacceptably high to a lot of people.

As for urban coyotes changing attitudes towards fur, yes, it’s a stretch. The main point was that urban coyotes could change attitudes towards wildlife management, and that might, possibly, maybe make some people rethink their opposition towards fur.