Walmart shoppers spotted a coyote at a Cape Coral Walmart this week.
Shoppers caught on camera the coyote walking by a patch of grass near the parking lot on Del Prado Boulevard. It is next to the Four Mile Cove Ecological Preserve , the second-largest preserved green space in Cape Coral.
Knowing this coyote was close to the Walmart spooked some shoppers.
"Nervous, I've never seen one in my life. I would even be scared," Mauricio Vergara Vazquez said.
While shoppers stocked up on groceries, shoppers say the coyote chose the parking lot as a lunch spot, munching on a duck.
"Coyotes seem to be one of the more adaptable species we have in the United States. And they are able to take advantage of different habitats. And they seem to be doing particularly well in urban environments and a number of urban locations," Said Florida Gulf Coast University Professor Charles "Billy" Gunnels, Ph.D.
Gunnels is an expert in animal behavior and urban ecology.
"They actually live longer and are more successful in the urban areas than they are in rural areas," he said.
Gunnels said the time of the photographs is what makes this story so surprising.
"It's actually maybe the most surprising because when they are in urban areas, they tend to avoid people. And they're pretty savvy and they're pretty cautious around humans and seeing that coyote in the middle of a parking lot does strike me as strange. That's unusual in the middle of the day," Gunnels said.
If you spot a coyote nearby, Gunnels said it's best to keep your distance.