honorable mention
Callie Broaddus united statesPhoto © Callie Broaddus
title
One in a Million
But the story didn't end there. The day the article published, I started getting messages from photographers who had taken blue-eyed coyote images, not realizing the phenotype was out of the ordinary. Most of them were in Point Reyes as well. But the rest were scattered from Sacramento to Santa Cruz; a ring of blue within 100 miles of our supposed "one in a million." The public response was welcome interest and appreciation for a species that is vilified in America, with over 400,000 being killed each year. Further, it showed that there is always more to understand about even our most common wildlife, and through photography, we can move the conversation forward.
The significance of the localized blue-eyed coyote population is to be determined; perhaps the unique mutation occurred generations ago, and recessive genes are now beginning to overlap. Could this be evolution before our very eyes?
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entry description
This blue-eyed coyote was ambling along the roadside on a cloudy spring day in Point Reyes, California, when wildlife guide Daniel Dietrich spotted it from half a mile away. He wheeled the car around in time for me to lean out the window and snap this image, just as the coyote crossed a stream, stood on a rock, and looked back at us for an instant. Upon reviewing the image and noticing the peculiar eye color, I sent the photo to an editor at National Geographic, and was hired to write a story on the phenomenon. It is the first known published image of a blue-eyed coyote, and the coyote experts I contacted were baffled. The collective conclusion was that this coyote must have a rare unique genetic mutation, making it "one in a million"—or rarer.But the story didn't end there. The day the article published, I started getting messages from photographers who had taken blue-eyed coyote images, not realizing the phenotype was out of the ordinary. Most of them were in Point Reyes as well. But the rest were scattered from Sacramento to Santa Cruz; a ring of blue within 100 miles of our supposed "one in a million." The public response was welcome interest and appreciation for a species that is vilified in America, with over 400,000 being killed each year. Further, it showed that there is always more to understand about even our most common wildlife, and through photography, we can move the conversation forward.
The significance of the localized blue-eyed coyote population is to be determined; perhaps the unique mutation occurred generations ago, and recessive genes are now beginning to overlap. Could this be evolution before our very eyes?
back to gallery