Wakes from anesthesia - collared	Back to his senses, he bolts	Escape along the wheat field....

Sandy is a 45 lb mature male coyote. He was captured at Decastro Farm on Middle Road, Portsmouth on Jan 15 2013 and fitted with the second prototype wireless tracking collar designed by NBCS scientists. Using the ATT wireless network, the collar text-messages the location of the coyote to our database 24 hours/day.

Sandy spends a lot of time near the Pennfield School on Sandy Point Avenue, Portsmouth (hence the winning name suggested by Sheila and Charley Collins).

Since collaring he has not returned to the area west of East Main Road where he was originally captured at Decastro Farm. He does not appear to frequent the Carriage Lane area where coyotes are frequently seen by residents and is probably not from that pack.

Check out the maps below to see his location data. Texting coyotes like Sandy will help us locate significant food attractions in residential areas and alert us to clean them up. We hope that information we get from these study animals will help us live more safely with urban wildlife.

The example "GPS Point Location Map" above shows typical movement data we have obtained for Sandy. His collar was programmed to record a new position every 5 minutes

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The "Hotspot Map" above, with contours around the gps location points, is being used by Mitchell and her team to examine places that the tagged coyote repeatedly visits or spends time. This map show activity hotspots (closely spaced contour rings) from 18-22 Jan 2013 - during the dark. These are the hours that coyotes forage most actively. We use maps like this (which can be seen on an iphone) to navigate to the areas and - if lucky - discover why the coyote was there. We frequently find remnants of food items, tracks, or other evidence that points to the reason for the hotspot.