Starving coyote found shot in head gives birth to 5 pups

Birth isn't easy — especially when you're a blind, emaciated, nearly dead coyote with a bullet in your brain. 

That was Angel. 

After being shot in the head, between her eyes, Angel wandered around the Santa Ynez Valley in California for weeks, rescuers believe. When they found her at the bottom of an empty reservoir in Solvang in February, copiously bleeding, they did not expect she would survive. 

Rescuers immediately put the coyote on a gurney and headed to a nearby veterinary hospital, where they loaded her with vitamins and intravenous fluids.

SEE ALSO: 72-year-old woman and her dog survived 9 days in the Arizona wilderness

One month later, Angel gave birth to five healthy baby puppies.

"What this animal endured is beyond comprehension," Julia Di Sieno, executive director of the Animal Rescue Team in Solvang, told The Los Angeles Times Tuesday. "When she had puppies, I didn't know whether to cry in sadness or for joy."

Image: Animal Rescue Team/Facebook

Angel and her pups are currently in the hands of Di Sieno. The rescuer plans to care for the pups until they're healthy enough to be released back into the wild. 

Di Sieno hopes to keep Angel to serve as a surrogate mother for other coyote pups. She must first petition the Department of Fish and Wildlife to let her keep Angel, as possession of a coyote is currently illegal in the state of California.

Image: animal rescue team/facebook

"Never underestimate the will to survive," Di Sieno told The Times.