Last week, a man who lives along Cape Coral’s Britannia Lake in Florida witnessed something that immediately sent him rushing into the water.
“[He] was out back with his dog when he heard a splash,” Cape Coral Fire Department’s Andrea Schuch told The Dodo.
“He thought it was someone’s dog who had fallen in.”
The Good Samaritan responded frantically, yelling that a dog had fallen into the lake and even jumping in to try to save him. While the man tried catching up with the animal, who was swimming quickly across the lake, a group of neighbors went out to see what was going on.
“His yelling and the commotion he caused garnered the attention of other neighbors,” Schuch said. “One of them called 9-1-1, and firefighters were dispatched to the scene.”
Cape Coral’s firefighters arrived at Briannia Lake just moments later. But with the animal continuously swimming back and forth across the lake, their mission to save him became more complicated than expected.
“The firefighters would drive to one side of the lake to help him, but when they got there, he would swim back to the other side,” Schuch said. “So, the firefighters would have to drive around again.”
Thankfully, a resident named Denae Judd, who’d been observing the commotion, had a possible solution. She had a kayak at her house and offered to help the firefighters corner the animal.
“She paddled the lake to try to corral the [animal],” Schuch said. “This was a huge help because she was the only one who saw that the [animal] had gotten into a small gap between the seawall and a dock.”
Unbeknownst to the firefighters, the exhausted, waterlogged animal had crawled underneath a local dock for shelter. As soon as Judd pointed out his hiding spot, the rescuers swarmed the dock and began gently pulling the animal out from the gap until he was back in the water. Then, a firefighter wearing gloves grabbed him once and for all.
After a long, nerve-wracking rescue, the firefighters finally had the dog secure in their arms. But they quickly realized that the animal they’d saved wasn’t a dog at all.
“While firefighters were working to get him out, they began to suspect that it was a coyote and not a dog,” Schuch said. “Once he was out of the gap, they could clearly see it was a young coyote.”
The firefighters were stunned. This wasn’t the first time they’d rescued an animal from the lake, but they’d never encountered a coyote in the water before.
“Everyone was quite surprised to find out it was a coyote,” Schuch said. “With over 400 miles of canal, dogs fall into the water pretty regularly. It has never ended up being a coyote before, though!”
You can see footage from the rescue here:
The rescuers were tired, but they could tell that the coyote was even more spent from swimming across the lake multiple times. Due to his condition, they decided to call a local rehabber instead of releasing him back into the wild.
“Since it is a wild animal, there was discussion of simply letting it go,” Schuch said. “However, he looked thin and was clearly exhausted … he laid without moving once he was out of the water.”
Soon, staff members from a local vet hospital arrived and coordinated with a local rehab center, Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife (CROW), to get him the care he needed. CROW’s staff took the coyote pup in later that day and began treating his ailments.
“CROW said yesterday that he is estimated to be 12 weeks old and is emaciated,” Schuch said. “He is undergoing assessments while under critical care.”
The coyote pup remains at CROW while he undergoes treatment, and the folks there are hopeful that he will recover soon. They look forward to seeing him return to his natural habitat soon.
Until then, they will continue caring for the resilient pup and reminding him just how strong he is.
