Worrying Wildlife Development

Well, the wild animals to watch out for have undergone a slight, seasonal changing-of-the-guard. Moose are still wandering around, but the bears have apparently formed a WWF tag-team like alliance with coyotes. (Bears are now hibernating. I don't know where the coyotes were all summer, other than not on the headlines. Possibly at the beach.) I direct interested readers to this story http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/wildlife/story/626826.html written by ADN writer James Halpin.
I will wait while you read. ... Back now? Good.
Worrying part #1 "Rambunctious coyotes growing increasingly bold at the Hilltop Ski Area, including one that snatched a pair of ski googgles from a fallen boy, have prompted the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to go after them this week with rubber slugs and cracker shells." Think about this for a minute. This is not scary in the sense you might expect. The coyote did not go after the fallen kid, which is where Wildlife Attack stories normally wind up. The coyote stole the kid's ski goggles. Why? What the hell does a coyote want with ski goggles? Is he building a coyote robot up there? Was he driven to this life of crime by a tragic unemployability and/or lack of pockets? Is he fetching supplies for a coyote-training evil genius that lives secluded in an Arctic fastness? Does the wind make the coyote's eyes water, particularly when he straps on his jet-skis to chase after a roadrunner? The more I think about this, the more it freaks me out.
( Side note to my Mom and other kind-hearted persons - they are not going to kill or hurt the animals, just try to scare them away from humans.)
Worrying part #2, a bit further on in the story:

"After sightings that began about a week and a half ago, ski patrol director Jessie Oliver, a three-year veteran at the area, saw a coyote Monday chewing on some fencing as a roughly 12-year-old boy fell on his way down, dropping his ski goggles.
"The coyote walked within 2 feet of him and he turned around and saw it and was like, 'Oh no,' " Oliver said. The boy started crawling away and, while his back was turned, the coyote crept up from behind, snatched his goggles and skirted off. Oliver, who was maybe 100 feet away when the drama unfolded, decided to pursue the thief into the Spencer Loop cross-country trail.
"It kept setting them down, so I would go to go pick them up, and then it would rush back and grab them and take them farther," she said. "It seemed to be more playing around."
The coyote, dubbed "Friendly" by employees, finally took off into the woods, goggles still in his jaws, she said.

The coyote was actually luring her into the woods. Again, why? What'd you say girl? Timmy fell into a well? Let's go save him!

Seriously, though. What does the coyote want with a ski patrol director? Is he really a ski instructor who angered a local witch, and he needs her to kiss him to turn him back again? All I can say is if he tries to lure you into a glowing portal, just say no.