November 6, 2007.  Raider is missing.                   Dr. Eric Strauss, my colleague at Boston College, maintains that our new permit (hopefully a 10 year permit) will soon arrive.  Meanwhile, I have stayed busy during my free time of my high school teaching duties by tracking our existing 5 radio-collared coyotes that still roam around the town of Barnstable. One of my personal favorites is Raider, a 37-lb middle-aged (at least 6 years old) female that roams a large area centered in the Hyannis area, which is the most urban area on Cape Cod. She uses such diverse areas as the Kalmus Beach and Hy-line area, Hyannisport, west to Craigville and east Osterville, then north all around large Lake Wequaquet and to exit 6, and finally all the way to the BJ’s sandpits and downtown Hyannis neighborhoods.                   Although she had/has a large 12-15 square mile territory I almost always successfully located her as long as I drove to the locations mentioned above. However, during the middle of last week (as I was frantically closing on my first house purchase) I couldn’t find her. I made an effort to search all of her known locations and was not successful in locating her. I continue to check the core of her range assuming that she will be back within a day or two. Unfortunately, it does not look too good.                   There are some possibilities to what may have happened:                   1. Her collar died. Although the batteries have plenty of life remaining (almost 2 years from when we first captured her in June 2006) it is not rare for collars to malfunction, sometimes suddenly. Without a functioning collar I would have to visually see her in order to positively identify her, which is a difficult proposition for such a wide ranging creature.                   2. She was hit and killed by a car and her body was picked up and moved somewhere outside of her normal range where I can’t find her (i.e., pick up her signal). I would suspect that somebody would have reported this to me but you never know. I would also think that a 6+ year old female living in Hyannis would be an expert road crosser – but then again it only takes one mistake.                   3. She lost her territory to another coyote and left the area. This is a very interesting aspect of coyote biology that is poorly (at best) understood.  I have gathered evidence over the years that older females seem to either lose their breeding positions (possibly forcefully) or potentially voluntary leave it for another coyote (I doubt this is the case unless she is close to a daughter that is prime to breed a new male that is not the daughter’s father).  I am not so sure this happened because I would likely have located her somewhere as she left the area – however, to contradict that statement, coyotes can travel so far so fast that she could have easily eluded me as she left my study area and hence radio-reception range.                   4. She was shot by a hunter and her collar also taken away from the area. This is likely the most improbable of the rationales presented here because there are few legal places to hunt within her entire mostly (but not exclusively) urbanized home range. Plus, I would likely receive word from a person if they legally killed it.                   At any rate, it is very disappointing to lose radio-contact with this amazing wild dog. I will miss tracking her especially knowing that we caught her in the woods at Barnstable High School and located her in that area until last week.  I will continue to monitor the other 4 coyotes and hopefully collar some new charges this fall and winter after permits arrive, finally allowing us to radio-collar them.