I believe it was a coyote or as Les pronounced it "cay-ot-tee". There must have been a second unit out doing background and aerial photography and they also spied the coyotes on the beach. This is very common in other shows, I never really noticed it before with Survivorman.

I didn't notice the inconcruence with the sun and shadows - I will have to rewatch to see what you mean. Midday or 12-1 pm the shadows should be at their shortest.

Les was rather proud of his new fire carrying method, even though it eventually did go out, it served him well for restarting his fire at his first stop. Perhaps he enjoyed it too much.
It was a certainly a lot less work than creating a fire bundle from scrap wood and grass.