LILBURN — The most famous animal at Yellow River Wildlife Sanctuary is a black coyote named Carmine. His diet includes venison and beef liver. He sleeps in a den inside a fenced enclosure with his friend Wilee, another coyote. Sometimes, when an ambulance passes nearby with a siren blaring, they howl so loudly that they sound like a whole pack.
Carmine became famous about five years ago, back when he was a wild coyote, because he liked to play with dogs.
This habit nearly got him killed.
And it probably saved his life.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
It’s hard to say why Carmine liked to play with dogs. People have guesses. Did someone feed him when he was young? Was he lonely because other coyotes drove him away? Chris Mowry, biology professor at Berry College and co-founder of the Atlanta Coyote Project, favors a third guess: Carmine was born that way. Some canines are naturally lovable.
Late in 2019, Carmine was roaming around eastern Cobb County, looking for friendly dogs. Kris Hoffman, a longtime pet sitter in the area, got a call from a neighbor. The neighbor’s Siberian Husky seemed to have a new friend. The neighbor thought this new friend was Hoffman’s dog. It was not.
Hoffman knew a thing or two about coyotes. For instance, they love persimmons. She had persimmon trees in her yard, and coyotes liked to jump her fence and eat the fruit. They left sticky pawprints on the fence. Also, “they have a certain look,” she said. The Husky’s friend had a black coat, which is unusual but not impossible for a coyote. It had skinny legs and a particular trot. Yes, Hoffman was sure. This friendly creature was a coyote.
On her walks around Vinings Heights, Hoffman kept seeing the coyote. She had a client’s golden retriever and her own dog Abby, a Belgian Tervuren who resembled a wolf. The coyote approached and played with the dogs. They all seemed to get along.
Something about the black coyote reminded Hoffman of a sitcom character from long ago. Laverne’s boyfriend from Laverne & Shirley. Carmine Ragusa had dark hair. Hoffman named the coyote Carmine.
The sightings continued. Carmine roamed along the Chattahoochee River, looking for new friends. Carmine went in through someone’s dog door and slept on someone’s porch. Carmine frolicked with a Great Pyrenees on top of a covered swimming pool. Carmine met an Akita named Bandit. And when Bandit was away from home, Carmine was seen on video playing with Bandit’s toys and lying down on Bandit’s bed.
Carmine was about one year old then. He eventually found a mate, Hoffman said. She saw them together and took pictures. Hoffman named the other coyote Lucy. “She was sweet, and she was little,” Hoffman said. Carmine and Lucy hung out in the woods by the Olde Ivy townhomes. They stood near the railroad tracks and howled at the trains.
Someone complained about Carmine after an encounter with a Dachshund. A woman said Carmine had attacked the Dachshund. Hoffman didn’t see it that way.
“That Dachshund came out raising hell, like Dachshunds do,” she said. Lucy was in the woods nearby, she said, and Carmine was just protecting her.
Not everyone was willing to give a coyote the benefit of the doubt. There are a few thousand coyotes around metro Atlanta, Mowry said, and they are often misunderstood. Some people believe they’re a threat to outdoor cats, but they generally prefer smaller prey such as rats or squirrels. As Carmine’s fame increased, so did the danger. Hunters joined the conversation on social media and boasted of killing coyotes.
Carmine’s adventures seemed unsustainable. He could be hit by a car or shot by a hunter. If he were caught by the wrong trapper, he could be euthanized as a potential carrier of rabies. And so his advocates — who included Mowry of the Coyote Project, wildlife-removal expert Brandon Sanders, and Lara Shaw of Angels Among Us Pet Rescue — agreed on a plan.
They would catch Carmine before someone killed him. And with special permission from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, they would bring him to a new home at the privately run Yellow River Wildlife Sanctuary in Gwinnett County.
The mission was clear. Time was short. Lara Shaw gathered her tools.
Liquid smoke. Trail cameras. A 72-inch Tru Catch trap, large enough for a mountain lion or an alligator.
She’d been catching lost dogs since 2011, and she had learned from previous mistakes. You had to use the right bait, and you had to keep it in place or your canine fugitive might run off with it. Shaw cooked a rib-eye steak, well-done, tough enough to keep its integrity under attack from sharp teeth. She poked holes in the meat, ran fishing line through it, secured it to the floor of the trap. She left the baited trap near the place where Carmine had played with the Great Pyrenees. And she waited.
Carmine could not resist the rib-eye steak. Shortly after midnight on Feb. 17, 2020, he found himself incarcerated in Lara Shaw’s Tru Catch trap. On a video she took, he was trying to bite the metal door.
“I know you are not happy,” she said gently. “I know.”
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
It’s tempting to ask whether Carmine is happy in captivity. There is no perfect answer for this. He is certainly well-fed. Abbey Patton, lead zookeeper at Yellow River, gives him treats and brushes his coat. His enclosure is about the size of an average backyard, and he shares it with Wilee, who loves and provokes him like a sister. She is spayed; he is neutered. They are companions.
As for Lucy, Carmine’s lost love, she provides a glimpse into another possible fate.
Not long after Carmine was captured, Kris Hoffman saw Lucy again. She was hanging around Polo Lane, looking thin. Mange, a painful skin disease caused by parasitic mites, was running rampant. Hoffman was sure Lucy had mange, and that she was near death. What if Carmine had stayed with her in the wild?
“He would be dead,” Hoffman said.
Others agree: Something or someone would have gotten him by now.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
One morning in July at Yellow River Wildlife Sanctuary, Carmine trotted around the yard. He paced back and forth along the fence line, feet almost soundless on the clay. Outside the fence, a peacock strutted by. Carmine seemed not to notice. His thin summer coat was tinged with red. He climbed two flights of stairs to a high perch above his domain.
It was possible to look at him and feel two ways at once. Gratitude for those who had worked so hard to save him. Sadness about his place inside the fence. What was wild did not always remain wild.
Long ago, wolves traded freedom for safety and comfort. They became dogs, and their descendants lived in Cobb County, and there was something about them that Carmine could not resist. An inexplicable pull. A desire that altered his destiny.
Carmine stretched out on his platform in the filtered sunlight and went on living his quiet life.
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC
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