COYOTES ARE TOUGH!!!

A friend of mine called in and killed this coyote last month up in Alberta. When he walked up to the coyote it had a snare around it's muzzle. From the looks of things it had been there a long time. I can only imagine the pain that coyote must have endured. However, the coyote had a huge body, great fur, and one would never know that it had suffered except for the deformation on the muzzle. Anyway we decided it would be an interesting skull to clean up. Have a look at what this big old boy survived. I actually felt bad for the thing. That would be horrible to deal with a snare around it's muzzle like that!

Coyotes left side.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...pse88ed4db.jpg

Top view.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...psde5a5dcf.jpg

Coyotes right side. Note that even some of the rear upper teeth are busted.
http://i254.photobucket.com/albums/h...ps9bdbabd1.jpg

I don't get it. It looks like the upper AND lower jaw is damaged, correct? How did he eat? I'm with you ... I don't care how much I might dislike a critter, it hurts me to see 'em suffer .. especially something long-term like this obviously was.

Oh ... excellent work on that skull btw.

I can't figure out how he ate anything either.

So how tight was the muzzle? It has obviously been there a WHILE!
That's really interesting to look at.
Oh and awesome work by the way.

Skyz, those bugs of yours are truly "something else"!
I do not know if they "did it all" or just persackly what the process is......but doggone man...that is some fantastic cleaning work on that skull.

Dang! those things are tough that is for sure.

Niner the beetles do all the cleaning work.

Critters figure out a way more often than we think. I cleaned a bass once, prolly only about a 14 incher, that had a 4 inch rectangular shaped rock in his stomach. All I could figure was he hit at a crawdad or something and scooped the rock up with it and swallowed it. He was fat and sassy too, although not quite as sassy after I removed his filets. I've also released fish with hooks in their throat and caught them later and they were doing fine. Nowadays I don't hardly even try to get a hook out of a gut hooked fish. I just donate that hook and hope for the best.

BKB