Morgan County Sheriff

Today, I received a call from a citizen who asked for help with an animal control problem.  Apparently, her dogs had chased a coyote into a 6 foot window well and it couldn’t get out.  She told me that she had placed a ladder in the well in hopes that it would find its way out and had to leave for work.  When she arrived at work, she placed a call to our office asking for help getting the critter out of her window well.

When I arrived at the house which happens to be 17 miles south of Fort Morgan, I immediately saw what window well she was talking about because of the ladder protruding out of it.

I walked up and looked in the well, and Mr. Coyote was still down there.  He was playing the “I’m not here” game and was huddled up in the corner.  I knew he was alive because I could see him breathing and he was moving to try and re-position himself.

Anyway, I placed a call to my co-worker on duty, Deputy Vince Iovinella.  When he arrived, our plan was going to be to place a dog pole on the coyote and slide him up the ladder.  For those of you who don’t know, the purpose for dog poles is to keep unpredictable animals at a distance to protect the handler from bite injury.

So, a short photo essay of our effort:

Here is a shot of the window well with the ladder protruding out:

Here is Mr. Coyote in the bottom of the window well pretending that no one can see him hiding there:

I remove the ladder and he still pretends that he does not exist.  He was breathing so I knew he was alive:

Here is where we slid Mr. Coyote up the ladder on the catch pole.   Once the coyote was at the top of the ladder, I loosened the catch pole.  Mr. Coyote decided he was going to shoot back down into the well:

We did get him up out of the well on the second attempt.  Here’s a quick picture before we let him go.

Job well done, Deputy Iovinella!

Our concerns that he may be sick or injured were put to rest as we let him go: