ON THE TOWN:When animals are avoided

Many years ago, I was driving on a mountain road, when a coyote appeared in front of my car.

He came from the brush on the side of the road determined, apparently, to take his own life. Perhaps he had just heard that the Cubs were not going to make the playoffs.

I swerved to avoid him and stepped hard on the brake pedal. I succeeded in sparing his life, but came rather close to losing mine, for my car had spun around and was dangerously close to the edge of the road and the side of the mountain.

The coyote walked away with a “What’s your problem, pal?” look.

Not long after the near-collision with the coyote I had an opportunity to ask a California Highway Patrol officer what to do in those situations.

“Don’t brake or try to avoid the animal,” he said. He went on to tell me that braking and swerving is the normal reaction to animal encounters, but in doing so, many times people risk their own lives by crossing over into oncoming traffic or smashing into objects.

I thought of this advice as I read the plight of Rupert, the black swan who got run over by a Harbor Patrol boat that was rushing to the scene of a crime or accident.

The Sheriff’s deputy who was piloting the boat did not know at the time that he was rushing to a crime scene, but he had to make an assumption that it may have been. There are a number of good reasons for going 25 to 30 mph when responding to such a call. Two of the most important are a greater chance of capturing the perpetrator or saving the life of a second or third victim.

The criticism of this Sheriff’s deputy or the Harbor Patrol’s response policy is shocking, and it has very little to do with the fact that most readers of this newspaper are more concerned about Rupert’s fate than that of Barbara Anne Mullenix.

Remember her? Mullenix, the dead woman found in the water, was someone’s daughter and someone’s mother. At one point in her life, someone loved her enough to marry her and raise a family.

I am sorry that Rupert had to die on the way to the call, but to ask the Harbor Patrol to change its response policy as a result is absurd.

Incidents like this have to be taken in context. In the same way that after every plane crash, the airlines trot out their “accidents per air mile” statistics to show us all how safe it is to fly, we need to look at the overall accident history of the Harbor Patrol.

In the 21 years I have been living in the area, I believe that Rupert is the first black swan to be struck by a speeding Harbor Patrol boat. That’s an exceptional record, one that should tell us not to change anything at all.

It was an accident, folks, and if you have ever swerved to avoid an animal and wound up with a dented car, injured person or even just a rapid heartbeat, you know that the alternative to avoiding Rupert, provided it was possible, could easily have been worse than his death.

So here is a “thank you” to the Harbor Patrol for its quick response in an emergency situation. I hope that if something happens to me in the harbor, they respond just as quickly.