Shooting Coyotes

Photo of canines wins contest

Dallas photographer Sean Fitzgerald owes a debt of gratitude to a pack of coyotes living near the Trinity River.

His photograph of the canines during last winter’s snowstorm took top honors in the Trinity River photo contest as announced this morning by Mayor Tom Leppert and Councilman Dave Nuemann.

Fitzgerald stalked the winning shot over 25 hours spread among three days in less than hospitable conditions. It is the Trinity after all.

"One lucky day, along a kind of creek bed up against the Trinity, I managed to kind of get them to kind of come to me,” Fitzgerald said. “They stayed there, started howling, and I managed to get some really good pictures."

Kind of cool.

He might have expedited the luring process had he taken some slices of baloney down there, but hey, hindsight’s always perfect.

Fitzgerald said he found a teeming ecosystem down by the river, which seemed to surprise the urban-dweller.

"For me, I live in Deep Ellum, and for years I've driven down south to take pictures, you know, south of San Antonio and all of that area — it's great for wildlife. Now that I've finally decided that I want to photograph my backyard, and so I've been spending time in there and lo and behold it's an incredible place from small insects all the way up to larger mammals, including coyotes. I'm finding there's a whole story, an ecosystem, wild, Trinity River story that's sort of waiting to be told. So that's what I'm going to try to start telling."

Smile, Mother Nature.

See more winning photos on Dallas City Hall's Facebook page.

Bruce Felps owns and operates East Dallas Times, an online community news outlet serving the White Rock Lake area. He would not stand in the snow for 25 hours no matter how many days the time was spread out.
 

Copyright FREEL - NBC Local Media
Contact Us