A Lee County man comes face-to-face with a coyote and takes pictures of it.
The man tells 4 In Your Corner he saw the coyote near the entrance to the Ding Darling Park early Saturday morning.
"It's just one of those things where the adrenaline started. I actually had to pull the car over and stare of a moment before it hit home," Robert Steagall, who saw the coyote, said.
Staring him down about 40 feet across the Sanibel-Captiva road was the coyote.
"Just standing there staring, it wasn't doing anything," Steagall said.
The coyote was on the bike path at Ding Darling Park. While he wasn't worried about his safety, he was worried about people on the bike path.
"There's kids going up and down there and parents, so I stayed in the area about 45 minutes...and went up and down the road warning cyclists there was a coyote in the vicinity," Steagall said.
According to Florida Fish and Wildlife, coyotes have attacked small household pets, but attacks on humans are rate.
Like most animals you may see in the wild, making yourself bigger than the coyote and making noise will scare it off.
Steagall says when he goes into the wild he brings more than just his camera.
"After my panther encounter, I carry pepper spray to at least even out the odds if something happens," Steagall said.
FWC says if a coyote loses its fear of people or is acting aggressively, call FWC immediately.
The coyote spotted in this area was not demonstrating those behaviors.
