I can't actually remember the last one on my ranch I saw.... I'd guess 3 or 4 years ago? I see their sign all the time... like scat... and two years ago came across a buried, (camo'd), kill, a deer. They are numerous right now on my ranch and in the area... killing a lot of livestock, young calves. I'll have to find it but I have photo, somewhere, of 4 lions together at a watering trough near our water well.
Coyotes are numerous, very numerous. Coyotes are even here, at my home. We hear them often at night. They set every dog within miles barking all night. Some years ago I told a couple of coyote stories on this board... won't repeat them but just briefly... in the mid 60's a coyote and my german Shepard, (Bonanza), made friends. For an entire spring and summer they'd frolic together in my front yard. My Dad and I used to sit up all night watching them. When I've mentioned that to local game wardens, people who work with wildlife, they think I'm nuts, and say it had to be a dog. It wasn't, it was a coyote. The other story was me and guy who used to work for us came across some coyote pups once who were abandoned, their mother most likely died somehow. We took them in and raised them. They never became anything like 'domestic' but yes, I could pet them. Eventually I released mine... he would return every so often... still allowing me to approach him, sometimes pet him but not always. I forget how long this kept up... but quite long, over a year. Then one winter he never returned.
I have a pretty thick hedge I leave wild in my front yard... I like the critters it attracts. Skunks, snakes, lots of wild cats. Every so often a Badger but that's extremely rare. Lots of opossums. And perhaps until about 25 or 30 years ago a fox or two. I haven't seen a fox around here, my home, since then.... I know there still are a few on the Mendota Wildlife Refuge, about 2.5 miles from my home as the crow flies... but I never see them. They're also on my ranch... but I see lions more often than I see any fox.
BTW... my ranch lies in the mountains to the SSW of me, only about 28 miles as the crow flies but a 1.5 hour drive.
