A coyote that was on a morning run in Battery Park City was just captured by the NYPD Emergency Service Unit. Take a look at these videos—and you may laugh at a patrol cruiser with lights on chasing the animal:



Coyote in Battery Park Cityby Gothamist



Battery Park Coyote: Up Close And Personalby Gothamist

It's unclear if this is the coyote that has been spotted on the Upper West Side near Riverside Park the past few days (based on our totally inexpert analysis, the BPC coyote's tail seems lighter than UWS coyote). We spoke to coyote expert Mark Weckel about coyotes emerging in Manhattan:

When a coyote is between green spaces, what is its reaction? How is it feeling when it's surrounded by cars and buildings? This is a good question. Urban coyotes tend to avoid this at all costs. They want to spend their time in wooded areas, away from us. With that said, some urban coyotes may occupy fragmented woodlots, in which case they have to cross more densely developed areas. If this was part of its territory, if this was a different situation, they would probably learn to do that at night, when there was nobody out.

When we're seeing these coyote sightings, especially in Manhattan, it's a coyote unfamiliar with the landscape, probably looking to set up a new territory. If you think about it, up into the 120s, there's a considerable amount of green space that it could hold tight. Like on the West Side. Correct. But it doesn't take very long to realize that there's nothing further south. We're perhaps seeing a coyote making a mistake. I think that's important for the public to realize—the Bronx, while not as urban as Manhattan, is an exceptionally urban area, and we go months without hearing about anyone seeing coyotes. And they're found all throughout the Bronx.

Poor coyote made a mistake! Weckel also adds that coyotes are not dangerous, "As you can see from all the videos, they run from all the authorities and the public, in almost all cases. The secret to the coyote's survival is truly, somewhat counter-intuitively, being able to live beside us and avoid us at all costs. We're talking about an animal that's persecuted throughout most of its range."

Update: Here's the critter:

[Ed: The coyote was actually taken to Animal Care and Control.]

And here's the NYPD's account of the Coyote Capture: