The clever coyote had gotten into trouble: she had stuck her head in a construction tube made of heavy plastic, and the tube had tightened around her neck. She couldn’t get out by herself.

“I’m guessing what happened was she was hunting in a construction area, chased a rodent and got caught,” Matt Anderson, director of the Wildlife Fund’s Center for the Animals, told The Dodo.

Luckily, the coyote was captured on a camera trap on a woman’s property in Rancho Bernardo, California, in April, and the woman, who is a huge animal lover, knew exactly what to do. She contacted the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) and asked for someone to rescue the coyote.

But officers examining the footage were hesitant to do anything at the time. It was the start of coyote breeding season, and if the coyote had pups nearby, the pups would starve if the mother was taken. So they waited.

A month later, the woman spotted the coyote again. This time, it was in much worse shape: it still had the construction pipe around its neck, it had lost a significant amount of weight, and its neck was clearly injured.

The woman contacted CDFW a second time, and they, in turn, contacted the Animal Fund’s Wildlife Center and requested the group’s assistance. Rescuers immediately went to the woman’s property and set traps to safely catch the injured coyote.

It took several weeks for rescuers to catch the coyote, but as soon as they did, they took her to the rescue center and removed the construction pipe from around her neck.

The construction pipe after being removed from the coyote | HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE UNITED STATES

“He was not in good shape at all,” Anderson said. “He was in a great state of shock, very docile, no activity at all and not eating on the first night.”

On the second night, the coyote showed great improvement: she ate everything that was offered to her and even began to move.

“She’s recovering remarkably well given her condition,” Anderson said. “She’s eating and drinking well, and I think we’re on the road to recovery.”

The coyote will need to spend several more weeks at the rescue center to allow her wounds to heal. If all goes well, she can be released back into the wild as soon as possible, Anderson said.

“Without this intervention… and without the residents in that area, she would not have survived, and it would have been a slow and painful death, for sure,” Anderson said. “I think we rescued her just in time.”