Cody the Coati of Murfreesboro, Tennessee's Animal City

Something that has always fascinated me are animal stories.
Animals have been players in some of the biggest moments of human history.
And sometimes?
They play a part in some of the smaller moments...
Like a lttle coati named Cody in Tennessee.
Around 2009, Cody wound up at a pet store in Murfreesboro, Tennessee called Animal City.
Cody was yet another victim of the illegal animal trade. Animal City received him after coming from the Mississippi from an exotic animal breeder (whether legal or illegal I do not know...but I'm absolutely against the breeding of coatimundi for this purpose).
For 11 years Cody was something of a local celebrity with people coming to the pet store specifically to see the little coati.
Described as a lightning-fast pickpocket, Cody's life at Animal City came to a quiet end during a dental surgery he was undergoing.
I have not reached out to understand why Cody passed during his surgery but as someone with several years of animal experience, anesthesia can become risky with older exotics.
I think it's fantastic that a local paper picked up on the story of Cody and posted it for others to read.
His small part in the story of a big world is important to document.
To let anyone who might read this or the original article about Cody know he was here.
After all, as an animal trainer I respect once told me... "They're just little people in different costumes."


Read more about little Cody and just a small sampling of his 11 years worth of antics at Animal City here.

Coatis Trapped in U-Haul Rescued

It's June in Cambridge, Massachusetts and someone is hearing noises coming from the inside of a U-Haul.
Upon closer examination?
They could hear birds sqwaking and chirping, but also something else.
Not long after making the call about the U-Haul, members of the environmental division of the local police as well as the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (MSPCA) arrived on the scene to force open the trailer.
What they found was typical of these types of heartbreaking animal rescue stories, particulary exotic animal rescues...
Locked inside the U-Haul were several birds, rats, chinchillas...
And four brown-nosed coatimundi.
All of the animal were housed in dirty cages.
The MSPCA put up all the other animals for hopeful adoption while the group tries to find an animal sanctuary or zoo that can take in the coatis.

I'll be calling the MSPCA to find out the situation with the coatis and update this story as soon as I can.

Link to the original story here.
Here's a video of one of the rescued coati.

The Collected Coatimundi - Is this really necessary?

 
  For some time now, I've had an acute fascination with a little known critter that ranges from the southern tip of South America all the way north into Texas and New Mexico here in the states. Often referred to as "South America's Raccoon", information on this creatures' natural lifestyle, behaviours, intelligence, language and history is seriously lacking!
With severe claws and four self-sharpening, inch-long canines that could rip human flesh open like wet tissue-paper, rotating anklebones, monkey-like tree gymnastics, a nose that can smell food buried at least twelve inches in the ground, an intelligence that verges on uncanny, an ability to adapt to almost any environment and an attitude that would cause a creature four times its size to just walk the hell away once its teeth are bared, you'd think I decided to blog about a species of chupacabra. Truth is, it might very well be.
In this blog, I'm going to take a closer look at what I consider one of the most interesting little animals I've ever had the pleasure of interacting with.
"You interacted with this thing?"
Yes on several occasions...and I'm still alive to tell the tale. That's the point of this blog, to tell the many tales of a little creature called a coatimundi (coati, nasua narica, nasua nasua).
Just what the hell is a, ay it with me...Koo-watt-tee or Koo-watt-tee-munn-dee or Koo-watt-tee-moon-dee?
Throughout my look into the scant research available on coatimundis (I'm not sure if that's the correct pluralization. Please correct me if it's not), I've come across some amazing stories, first-hand experiences both good and bad and even the ugly. I've been fortunate enough to find very interesting people who're studying the little crazies in the jungles of South America and have even had battles on Ebay for coati-themed artwork from other coati admirers. During all of this random mentioning of the coati throughout the last several years, I finally asked myself why I just didn't start a blog concerning all the information available about the animal. There're videos, audio, science papers and all sorts of ephemera out there. Looking for it is an entirely different thing altogether.
For those that know of the coati, I hope you enjoy some of the things I'll be sharing with you during this blog. Some of it you may already know while some of it may be brand new and, hopefully, exciting reading. For those of you that didn't know of the coatimundi until now? Boy, are you in for some interesting reading.
What I truly hope this blog will do is become not just another scientific, dry place to learn about the coati, but a light, breezy, informative and enlightening read about what I consider one of the planet's most interesting little denizens.
Until next time,
Take care,
Tijuana Taxi