Coyote Seeks Refuge
In Federal Building

SEATTLE — Everyone who’s ever dealt with them knows that coyotes are clever and adaptable. Who’d have thought, however, that they were smart enough to seek federal protection?

Wildlife Ecology Digest reports that a coyote chased by crows scampered through downtown Seattle streets earlier this month and ducked into a busy federal building to escape. It ran into an open elevator and the door closed, trapping the panicked animal.

"Fortunately there was no one in the elevator," said spokesman Ken Spitzer with the General Services Administration, which supervises the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building.

"I've been in this business 26 years, and this is the first time I've run across anything like this," Spitzer said.

A witness said the coyote, with diving crows in hot pursuit, apparently triggered an automatic door as it passed the building, took advantage of the opening, then sought further refuge in the first elevator with an open door.

Animal-control officers removed the beast unharmed after about two and a half hours, but it made its opinion of federal hospitality known by leaving behind a mess for building maintenance crews to clean up.