$$ Woman Is Forced To Call Police After Wild Creature Wanders Into Her Bedroom
Just imagine being curled up in your 500-thread-count sheets, sound asleep in your familiar bed, only to awaken to the sound of animals screeching. It happened to Oklahoma resident Bonnie Moriarty. She woke up in shock, her heart beating faster than ever. Never did Bonnie think the night would lead to her wielding a golf club as a makeshift weapon, but she had little choice but to fight for her life.
Emergency in Bixby
“My husband was out of town, so my poor kids are upstairs and I’m screaming," Bonnie Moriarty explained, remembering that disaster of a night in September 2018. There was no way to see an emergency such as hers coming, not in quiet Bixby, Oklahoma.
Awoken in Shock
Initially, Bonnie didn't feel as though her and her children were in any danger. She was ripped from her soothing REM sleep around 4:00 AM by the sound of her cat screeching. Bonnie rolled her eyes, simply thinking this behavior just comes with the territory.
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Consumed by Panic
See, Bonnie also has a dog, a miniature schnauzer to be exact, so she figured the two animals got in a little spat. But panic started to consume her once she heard the animals stampeding down the hall.
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Mystery Mammal
Bonnie's hissing cat stormed into her bedroom at lightening speed. Rather than Bonnie's dog following shortly behind, an enormous mammal came shuffling into the room. Bonnie's face turned pale white.
Three's a Crowd
A furry, four-legged beast came blundering in, appearing to be some kind of canine, one that looked much more daunting than her fluffy pooch. It must've come from the section of woodland behind the backyard, and it was now standing mere feet from Bonnie and her cat.
Holy Crud
She stared at the animal for a second before realizing the frightening truth. "'Holy crud, I've got a coyote stuck in my bedroom,'" Moriarty remembered thinking in the moment. That's right, a coyote chased her cat around the house and into her bedroom!
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Not Uncommon
Though it seems wild, as of 2020, Bixby residents have been losing pets and small livestock in recent years, all due to a sudden increase in coyotes in the surrounding area. Lock up those doggy doors, folks. That's what the neighbors will tell you.
Neighborhood Coyotes
Jeremy Hall, who has lived in Bixby for seven years, explained to reporters that people witness these neighborhood coyotes on almost a daily basis. "They either come right though here, or they will come right in front of the nursing home on this highway," he said.
Growing in Recent Years
"They have grown as a pack," Jeremy Hall stated. "It started off, I believe as just one or two. I think they have grown over the years, had a few litters." Well, Bonnie refused to lose her beloved pets. She snatched up a nearby golf club.
Doggo to the Rescue
Before she could react, the situation got even more complicated. Bonnie was prepared to defend herself and her kitty, but before she knew it, her miniature schnauzer ran into the room, bravely barking at the coyote, defending his family.
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Cowering in Fear
The coyote, confused and afraid, cowered in the corner and remained still. Naturally, coyotes are timid animals, so when the untamed canine ran into a room with an unfamiliar human, who grabbed a golf club for self-defense, it was beyond scared.
The Hazing Process
Typically, if a coyote lingers around a human, said person should begin “hazing” the animal. Hazing is a defense mechanism that involves any action that makes a person appear as big and sound as loud as physically possible. Granted, Bonnie was far from a wild animal expert.
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Wave, Clap, Yell
Wave or flail your arms around, clap your hands, scream at the top of your lungs, but never run or turn your back to a coyote. Bonnie may not have known to do this, but grabbing a golf club didn't hurt her situation. The coyote already felt confused and threatened just the same.
Locked Inside
By this point, Bonnie's kids were awake, trying to remain calm for their mom, who courageously shuffled to the bedroom door, locking the unpredictable wild animal in the room. Her heart was racing, and it was time to call for help.
911, What's Your Emergency?
With shaky fingers and a golf club in hand, Bonnie called the Bixby Police Department. It wasn't long before three officers arrived at the scene, ready to capture the muddled canine.
Catcher Pole
"They came with — I'm sure there's a term for it — a stick with a little loop (on the end)," Bonnie told reporters. "So I had three policemen in my bedroom trying to get the coyote out."
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A Successful Capture
Prepared with an animal catcher pole, the Bixby police officers cornered the petrified coyote, two of them managing to get the the loops around its neck. They safely dragged the canine out of the house and released it into its woodland home. Able to breathe again, Bonnie made herself a promise.
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Lock Your Doors
Though Bonnie feels safe in her community, she likely learned to tightly close and lock her back door nightly, as she believes the curious canine followed her indoor/outdoor cat inside through the back door.
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Lesson Learned
"He... lunged at the door and the door opened," she said. Well, lesson learned! Bonnie from then on made sure the only animals taking up space in her house were her beloved cat and dog... as well as her mangey kids!
Canine Variations
And while Bonnie Moriarty was able to detect what variation of canine her intruder was, not everyone is quite so lucky. In fact, just before Bonnie's terrifying encounter, another family found themselves face to face with a wild canine. Only this time they were on his turf.
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The Whole O'Reilly Clan
Although the O'Reillys called New Hampshire their home, they spent far more time outside the house. Ian and Alison passed on their passion for the great outdoors to their kids before they could even walk, but the parents never expected to place their children in danger.
Warning Call
See, around the O'Reilly's home in Exeter, police were trying to track down an animal culprit harassing locals. One 62-year-old woman and her frightened dogs had to flee when a predator chased them out of the woods.
Wild Predator
Another resident got a much better look at the beast. He was just driving down the road when a wild coyote attempted to attack him through his car! The glass and steel protected him, though it didn't make sense why the animal was so aggressive.
Not Concerned
Alison and Ian heard these reports but didn't worry about them too much. After all, New Hampshire was a big place full of wildlife. They wouldn't let a couple scares ruin their plans for a wintry hike in 2020.
Hitting The Trail
The five O'Reillys were retracing a trek they'd completed just a few weeks prior. It took just about two and a half hours, the perfect amount of time to stretch their legs without tiring the kids out. What could go wrong?
Stranger Stalking
The second journey began much like the first. Everyone took in the picturesque views and shared jokes and stories. They were having such a fun time that nobody noticed a stranger was stalking them.
Surprise Attack
Against all odds, the coyote found them in the New England wilderness. The O'Reillys didn't see the feral canine at first, until it announced its presence in the most horrifying way imaginable.
Pouncing
It pounced on their preschool-aged son! Alison yanked him out from under the creature, not yet realizing the threat they were facing. Instead, the couple was "thinking it was a dog off leash who just bumped into [their] son."
Protecting His Family
Then the truth clicked in Ian's mind: this was no dog. This was a bloodthirsty predator, and they were the prey. Not knowing what else to do, the dad stepped between the coyote and his family. He was terrified of what would happen next.
Fighting Back
Ian's top priority was getting his wife and kids to safety. He yelled at them to run as fast as they could. Turning back toward the coyote, Ian lifted his heavy hiking boot and kicked its ribs with all his might.
Bloody Battle
That only made the rabid canine even angrier. It knocked Ian to the ground, toppling him just as easily as it did his young child, and bit at his chest. Fangs tore right through the hiker's winter jacket and punctured his skin.
Growing Anger
Ian managed to spot his family vanishing in the distance, and he shouted for them to keep moving. At that moment, his terror gave way to anger. What business did this animal have for attacking his family? Ian was going to teach it a lesson.
A Fatal Squeeze
A talented endurance athlete, Ian clamped his hands around the canine's snout and squeezed its body between its legs. That completely shut off any airflow in the predator's windpipe. "That coyote was very much interested in living, but so were we," he later reflected.
Game Over
Ian didn't let the coyote go, as it could easily sprint off and go after his kids. Exhausted, he kept up the pressure until the animal stopped breathing. He realized he'd killed the beast out of pure instinct, "like it was almost like a logical next step"
Rushed To The Hospital
Of course, Ian was much worse for the wear. Every muscle in his body shook with fatigue, and he was bleeding all over from claw and bite marks. The father limped back to his family, and Alison whisked him off to the hospital.
Trauma Expert
The O'Reillys have been surprisingly well-adjusted since the harrowing attack. Alison's work as a PTSD trauma expert helped them all, though their youngest had trouble sleeping in his own bed afterwards. And this wasn't the O'Reilly's only brush with danger.
A Scream
As much as they traveled, the O'Reilly family had their first brush with the uglier side of nature in their own backyard. Ian was startled when he heard his son utter a cry of delight — followed by a scream.
Rabid Raccoon
It turned out a raccoon — and a rabid one at that — was living under their porch. The vicious creature bit the O'Reilly boy on his knee. As Alison pulled him away from the raccoon, a scab on her hand was exposed to his wound.
Getting Vaccinated
Both mother and son needed rabies vaccinations afterward but made immediate recoveries. In a sense, Ian counted himself lucky. As unfortunate as the raccoon attack was, the family is hopefully predator-free for the foreseeable future. But Ian is still traumatized.
Still Braving The Outdoors
The rustle of a bush still makes Ian's heart beat faster, but he doesn't let that fear keep him from his outdoor adventures. He can at least take comfort in knowing he defended his family. However, a debate regarding natural predators is splitting wildlife enthusiasts all over the country.
If you were hiking through a remote part of California a few years ago, you might have been warned about grizzly bears. But the chances of coming face to face with any other potentially dangerous animals, especially wolves, wasn't very likely...
In fact, coming across an actual wolf sounds fairly far fetched to a regular tourist or hiker. In the early 1920s, though, this was a different story. Back then, wolves prowled California’s remote forests and farms alike, which posed a dangerous problem.
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Because of this, farmers and wolves were constantly at odds. Farmers often hunted wolves in hopes of avoiding a barnyard massacre. They couldn’t have known then the damage they were inflicting, and not just on the wolves.
In 1924, the very last gray wolf was killed. For the next 90 years, California didn’t have any wolves in an area that could support up to 500 of them. Unbeknownst to farmers, the species' absence shifted the balance of the ecosystems they used to inhabit.
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“Wolves keep [elk and deer] in check, which helps vegetation not get overeaten. That vegetation provides nesting habitat for migrating birds and building material for beavers, which create ponds for frogs and fish,” said biologist Amaroq Weiss. And this domino effect was not only noticed by biologists.
See, if something good came out of the mass wolf killings in the ‘20s, it’s that the negative effects alerted researchers nationwide to the dwindling population of gray wolves. So in 1975, the gray wolf received federal endangered species protections...but there weren’t any wolves left to protect.
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That is, until 2011, when one lone gray wolf wandered into Siskiyou County from Oregon. Biologists were stunned by this sudden re-emergence. Without a pack to lead or to protect him, this endangered wolf had traveled into an entirely new state — and immediately became an icon.
Though biologists designated him OR-7, activists named him “Journey” in honor of his daring cross-state trek. A GPS collar tracked and recorded his personal hike...as well as his encounters with other animals.
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According to his GPS collar, Journey found a mate — likely another migrated wolf — and added five pups to the state’s gray wolf population. He then migrated back to Oregon and fathered more pups. It seemed like those were the last wild wolf pups California would ever see.
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It was believed that, as of 2015, the population of wild gray wolves in California was an alarmingly small seven. Since two of the seven wolves were wearing GPS collars, biologists thought that enough of the state’s wolves were being tracked...
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So imagine biologists’ shock when, in 2019, two adult wolves were seen caring for three young pups in California. Biologists had no idea these wolves were even there, let alone that they were having pups. Even more unexpected was the way biologists discovered the pack.
The pack was seen hunting and resting on a trail camera in a remote part of Lassen County. The three pups snacked on grass and howled at each other before passing through. Though it only lasts a minute, this footage created a huge stir in the environmental community.
“Having wolves return to California is one of the most significant environmental developments in conservation in this state,” Weiss asserted. This sounds like triumphant news for conservationists and activists everywhere, but some people are far from happy about the wolves’ return.
Farmers and hunters have always tried to subdue the wolf population in California in order to protect their valuable sheep and cattle, and this didn’t change when California’s Fish and Game Commission granted gray wolves special protection under the state’s Endangered Species Act in 2014.
Now that the population seems to be slowly ratcheting upwards, farmers are once again in fear of their livestock being hunted. When California’s Farm Bureau Federation took the matter to court, the fate of the wolves was put into jeopardy.
Farmers weren’t the only group threatening California’s wolf population, either. The federal government, too, pushed to remove gray wolves from the endangered species list, meaning they would no longer benefit from federal protection. Everything, it seemed, would all come down to the lawsuit.
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In the end, the consensus among the scientific community and the court was clear: no matter what happened at a federal level, California’s gray wolves would be protected under state law. In a perfect world, this would keep the gray wolves safe from hunters…
“If they’re coming from the Oregon side of the border or from Nevada, once they set a paw down in California they are protected,” Weiss said. But these idealistic words would not become a reality anytime soon.
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Late last year, a California-born wolf pack mysteriously vanished in remote Siskiyou County. Since biologists weren’t able to collar any pack members, they may never know what happened to the pack. What’s more, they’re not the only mystery to plague California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife.
They’re also investigating the death of a young wolf that was mysteriously killed in Modoc County. It was handled as a criminal investigation, and the police warned the public that killing a wolf is a potential crime punishable with imprisonment.
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These tragic events only make the recent pack sighting on the trail camera all the more inspiring. Despite the resistance from the farming community, biologists remain hopeful that the wolves will one day lead many wild packs across California and beyond.
Anyone doubting the importance of wolves need look no further than Yellowstone National Park. In the '80s and early '90s, the beautiful scenery was completely ravaged. And it was all thanks to the wolves — or lack thereof.
See, as mentioned, before 1926, Yellowstone National Park was full of wolves. They thrived there, but within the first few decades of the 1900s, government predator control programs wiped them out entirely. This was a problem.
No one saw another wolf until 1977 — about 50 years later — but, even then, it was a lone wolf or two merely wandering through. Oddly, it was the lack of these wolves that led to the park's decline.
With no predators to fear, the deer population absolutely exploded. They could eat and overgraze all they wanted without worrying about wolves. Soon, the forests and meadows were barren, but the deer and their ilk kept at it.
As the deer kept grazing, taking all the resources for themselves, the other animals suffered. Creatures that dined on fauna stood no chance in the food race against deer. Animals that ate those animals saw their food supply dwindle.
And the rapid loss of vegetation didn't just leave the forests bare. Without vegetation keeping soil in place, the rivers that ran through Yellowstone began eroding, which prompted the loss of many animal species who relied on healthy waters to survive.
Yellowstone was struggling, and park employees needed to find a solution. It really all boiled down to the high numbers of deer, they knew, so, in 1995, they hatched a plan.
The deer needed predators, plain and simple, and workers figured this would be the perfect time to reintroduce wolves back into Yellowstone. Packs of gray wolves were released into the park, and hopeful employees prayed it was the answer.
Now, the deer were suddenly thrust back into the predator versus prey world, and even though there were far fewer wolves than deer, the wolves were fearsome hunters. They welcomed the challenge.
Day and night, the battle ensued, and the wolves were the victors nearly every time. This relationship between the wolves and deer is known as "top-down control."
Top-down control is when predators who sit atop the food chain assist with the regulation of the animals who are beneath them. That's exactly what happened when the wolves were reintroduced. With deer numbers dwindling, the vegetation flourished.
Aspen and willow trees that hadn't seen a successful life for decades finally grew back tenfold, and it seemed they were healthier than ever. But, the trees were just the very beginning of the massive change.
The waterways running through the parks began changing, and the regenerated vegetation growing on the riverbeds brought with it a whole new array of life not seen in such a long time.
For the first time in forever, beavers returned to the water. They began constructing their intricate dams, which contributed to a habitat that attracted a variety of reptiles, otters, and muskrats.
Because of the increased vegetation, mice and rabbits thrived, which, in turn, gave the red fox an amazing feasting opportunity. Red fox numbers grew, and still, there was even more happening.
The number of bears also increased. The deer had scoured bushes and ate the same berries the bears enjoyed, but with the berries now finally plentiful again, the bears could eat without a problem.
Through it all, the wolves gained a feathery friend! Ravens are known to follow behind wolves and pick at the remains of whatever they hunt and kill. The four-legged assassins were hard at work, and those ravens were always close behind.
The new lush vegetation not only benefited all of the animals, but it helped drastically slow down, and sometimes completely stop, the erosion of riverbeds. The changes were nothing short of miraculous.
Incredibly, the wolves, although nowhere near as abundant in numbers as the deer they hunted, managed to not only change the ecosystem but the physical geography of Yellowstone National Park. It was a feat that had every park employee — and wolf — howling with joyous pride.
What's most shocking about this development was how few wolves it took to really change Yellowstone for the better. Still, this reflects a human truth: it only takes a handful of people to make a huge difference.
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