偷報紙的郊狼 This coyote is stealing newspaper, and here is what the delivery man did.

www.mnn.com

Its not uncommon to hear about city residents running into conflicts with urban coyotes. Usually its because of run-ins with pets, or coyotes getting too close for comfort around people in parks or yards. But sometimes a conflict arises for more surprising reasons. In one San Francisco neighborhood, trouble popped up for the newspaper delivery man when his papers started going missing.

聽說城市居民陷入和郊外的郊狼的衝突並不是一件稀奇的事情。一般來說這些衝突的起因都是和寵物之間的衝突或者郊狼跑的離公園或者田地里的人們太近。不過有的時候衝突是因為一些更加令人震驚的理由而產生的。在一個舊金山的街區，一位報紙投遞員最近開始遇到一個問題，那就是他的報紙開始神秘消失了。

He started getting calls from upset clients that their paper wasnt being delivered, but he knew full well he had delivered one to their doorstep. Shortly after the calls began, he discovered something completely unexpected. One morning he watched as the neighborhood coyote played with a newspaper on a grassy hillside. He videoed her tossing the paper up in the air, sliding down the hillside on it, and running around with pages flapping from her mouth.It turns out she was repeatedly stealing papers off of certain porches shortly after he delivered them, just to play!

他最近開始接到沮喪的客戶打電話說他們的報紙並沒有被送達，但投遞員非常清楚他自己已經親手把每一份報紙都投遞到了客戶門口的台階上。 在接到投訴電話後不久，他發現一些完全沒有意料到的事情。一天早上他眼睜睜看著一個附近的郊狼在一個長滿青草的山丘上玩弄著報紙。他拍下了那隻郊狼把報紙甩到了空中，讓報紙沿著山丘滑了下去，嘴裡叼著在分鐘上下扇動的報紙跑來跑去。原來是這隻郊狼一直在日復一日地在投遞員投遞後不久從某些房子的門口偷竊報紙，只是為了玩耍！

Rather than get mad, the delivery mans solution was to throw out a paper just for her, launching it onto the grassy hillside she frequented before she had a chance to nip one from a front porch. She had her morning toy, and he stayed out of trouble with his clients. I met the delivery man by chance early one morning while watching the coyote, and I listened to his story. To prove its truth — and maintain the morning ritual — the delivery man threw a paper out on the grass. Sure enough, the coyote came running down the hill to play with it. This photograph of the paper-thieving coyote was taken with a remote camera shortly after watching the coyotes exuberant play session on that first morning.

然而報紙投遞員並沒有生氣，他想出了一個解決方案，那就是向那隻郊狼扔出一份報紙，在郊狼有空去門廊下偷一份報紙之前把報紙扔向郊狼平時經常玩耍的長滿草的山丘。郊狼有了她的玩具，投遞員也不會再陷入和煩惱的客戶的麻煩中。有一天早上我偶遇了這位投遞員，我一邊看著那隻郊狼，一邊聽他講述他的故事。既是為了證明這一點，也是為了繼續這個清晨的慣例——投遞員把一份報紙扔到了草坪上。確定無疑的是，那隻郊狼從山丘上跑了下來開始玩弄報紙這張偷報紙的郊狼的照片是在那天清晨攝影師第一次看到這隻郊狼生氣勃勃的玩耍過程後使用遙控攝像機拍攝的。

San Franciscos coyotes are only just now being studied, and a small population living in the Presidio have been radio-collared for monitoring. Many other cities also have new or ongoing studies of urban coyotes. As the wily canids become permanent residents of cities across the continent, learning more about them is a critical step in finding solutions to coexisting with them.For one newspaper man, at least, that coexistence comes at an affordable price: an extra copy of the daily.

現在研究人員正在研究舊金山區域內的郊狼，有少量住在Presidio的郊狼被帶上了無線項圈來進行活動監測。很多其他的城市也有新開設的和正在進行的關於郊狼的研究項目。隨著這些狡猾的犬科動物漸漸成為這塊大陸上的諸多城市裡的永久居民，知道更多關於它們的知識成為了尋找和它們和平共存的方法的關鍵一步。至少，對於某位報紙投遞員來說，這個共存關係的代價還算是在可以承受的範圍：每天多一份的報紙而已。