A casting call for the made-in-Yolo, full-length feature film “They Shoot Coyotes, Don’t They?” will be held all day Thursday at the Wildhorse Country Club in northeast Davis.

Based on the novel of the same name, this historically accurate film recounts the story of a small, modern-day university town in Northern California terrorized by that enduring symbol of the Old West, the wily coyote.

Although accurate numbers are hard to pin down, marauding packs of these mangy evildoers are believed to be responsible for the disappearance of 48 domestic cats, 33 backyard bunnies, 11 greenbelt joggers and three infants in strollers in the first six months of 2012. Unconfirmed reports claim coyotes tore apart 14 backpacks hanging on hooks outside classrooms at North Davis Elementary School, apparently in search of graham crackers and Cheetos.

Students at nearby Birch Lane Elementary were shocked in early June to be greeted by a dozen or so coyotes waiting in the lunch line on “barbecued chicken day,” giving new meaning to the term “Crunch Lunch.”

One grainy early-morning video making the rounds on YouTube allegedly shows four young coyote pups stealing freshly delivered milk bottles from a front porch on Grande Avenue in extreme North Davis.

And, in an interesting twist, Davis police investigators have become convinced that “fear of coyotes” and not alcohol consumption is what fueled Picnic Day riots in town the last two years, hence the need to call in officers from the California Department of Fish and Game.

No doubt, coyotes are the reason the last three police chiefs in Davis have all decided to live in other communities where coyotes are not a problem.

Speaking of police, one UC Davis officer interviewed by Cruz Reynoso after last November’s pepper-spray incident on the campus quad explained that as he approached the 11 arm-locked students with his loaded canister, suddenly all he could see was a “pack of snarling coyotes,” clear evidence of what UC Davis vet school researchers have identified as PCSD (Post Coyote Stress Disorder).

Coyotes also are blamed for the stunning decision by the Amgen Bicycle Tour of California to take bicycle-crazy Davis off the official tour route, perhaps permanently.

“The safety of our cyclists is our No. 1 priority,” said one grim-faced Amgen official, speaking from a press conference in Dixon after coyotes made him afraid to come to Davis. “We can’t have a pack of coyotes overtaking a pack of cyclists.”

Additionally, coyotes appear to be the likely culprits in the destruction of campaign lawn signs during the City Council election last June, favoring the flavor of Dan Wolk signs 2-to-1 over Lucas Frerichs, presumably because they couldn’t pronounce Frerichs’ last name.

“We even had reports of coyotes stalking the polling places and scaring away voters, mostly Republicans, on Election Day,” noted Yolo County Clerk Freddie Oakley, leading Sue Greenwald to demand a do-over.

Even more serious, hydrologists with the California Department of Water Resources say that coyote “droppings” are almost certainly the cause of high salinity in Davis well water.

Fortunately for all of us, like so many true stories from the Wild West, this one has a hero who rides to the rescue just as residents are considering the unthinkable and moving to Woodland.

In this case, the hero of the moment comes in the person of Official USDA Trapper Rusty Gunn, who exercises “lethal removal” of these four-legged vermin by putting bullets through the brains of mama coyote and her four young milk-stealing pups.

These shocking and untimely deaths have caused the Head Coyote in town, Bobby Coyote — the owner of a string of wildly popular Dos Coyotes restaurants — to declare a “Day of Mourning” in solidarity with the deceased coyotes.

“We are Dos Coyotes,” Coyote notes, “Not Dos Dead Coyotes. This is a real shame.”

A shame indeed. And a scar on the heart and soul of a community that treasures all of God’s creatures, be they great or small or somewhere in between.

— Reach Bob Dunning at [email protected]

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