Are 'Shrooms To Blame For Coyote 'Attacks' In NorCal?

One expert has an idea about strange coyote behavior on highways in Marin County: They’re all high on mushrooms.

Lisa Bloch, director of marketing and communications for the Marin Humane Society, told Pacific Sun that the coyotes could be eating hallucinogenic mushrooms that grow in the area.

Whether the coyotes are tripping or not, one thing is clear: They’ve been increasingly aggressive in the area.

At least two coyotes have been staring down drivers in Bolinas, a small town in Marin County, forcing people to slow down or stop completely to avoid hitting them. If the driver does stop, the coyote will walk up to the car, sniff it and run away.

“We are trying to figure this out,” Bloch told the Sun.

If the coyotes are, indeed, getting high, it would make for quite the trip.

“The cars would therefore be some sort of coyote vision, a dark vision of human interlopers, who must be stopped before the rents get any higher in West Marin,” the Sun’s Tom Gogola wrote.

Another idea Bloch had was rabies, she told the Sun, which can cause sluggish behavior in animals. But if they had rabies, they would be dead already, so it’s not likely the case.

The other theory is much more boring but more realistic: People have been feeding the coyotes, and they need to stop.

“One possibility is that the coyote has been fed, and this is a real problem for us in Marin,” Bloch told the Sun. “It’s possible that someone was feeding him and thinking that it’s cool, and magical and mystical to have a coyote eating out of his hand.”

• Read the full Pacific Sun report here.