Coyotes in our Midst

December 9, 2006 5:36 AM

There are a lot of coyotes in our nieghborhood this year, and they're less shy than in the past.

In the past I've had coyotes follow me and my dog when we're on our evening dog walk, but the coyotes seemed to be young and fairly small. This year there are coyotes all over the place, sometimes even during the early dusk, and they aren't shy about tailing my (50 lb) dog and I when we go for our evening walk.
Should I be wary of this behavior? Is there a safe way to shoo them off? I'd like to hear your coyote stories, too, mefites.

posted by maryh to pets & animals (21 comments total)

IANA Coyote expert, but a couple of thoughts.

- They are pack animals. If it is only 1 or 2 following you, probably not too much to worry about. If there are more, they could be more likely to attack. Still seems unlikely, though.

- If you dog is a female and not neutered, this might cause more attraction than otherwise.

- If you really want to scare them off, try using something with a short, sharp sound. (snap'n'pop, firecracker) or maybe a bright light.

- you could carry a walking stick in case you think you mght need defense.
posted by allelopath at 6:00 AM on December 9, 2006

No answer other than to recommend Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer. There is a coyote angle in the book, which seems to indicate that a lot of the fears about coyotes are overblown.
posted by terrapin at 6:10 AM on December 9, 2006

With all due respect to terrapin and Barbara Kingsolver, while I have no doubt that fears of coyotes are overblown, I would not base any actions on a work of fiction.
posted by allelopath at 6:18 AM on December 9, 2006

The chances of the coyotes attacking you are admittedly almost zero. However, once they become comfortable around humans, they may become aggressive too. This usually only happens when people feed them, though.

Coyotes usually only attack other animals, and it's usually livestock (sheep, other passive animals). However there are a few reports of them attacking dogs. They've only attacked a couple hundred people in the entire history of the United States, and most of them have been small children.

As long as they aren't rabid, you can just yell at them and they will most likely scatter. If you are looking to be coyote-free forever... The only way to get rid of coyotes is to get rid of them. Those sound-emitters, mothballs, etc., won't do a thing. Luckily, there's no such thing as coyote season; you can kill one whenever you want to!

If you are opposed to killing, maybe get a wildlife trapper to come to your neighborhood and remove the animals. Otherwise, you can try to organize your neighborhood in to doing some coyote-proofing:

1: Get coyote-proof garbage containers
2: Keep pets inside (they're easy prey)
3: Keep pet FOOD inside

Etc.

This is all based on my family's / friends' numerous dealings with Pennsylvania coyotes. The variety that live in the middle of a city may be much more aggressive and used to people, so as always, YMMV.
posted by synaesthetichaze at 6:19 AM on December 9, 2006

Here's a decent link [pdf: google cache] on how to coyote-proof your neighborhood, from the Nevada Dept of Agriculture... it may be more applicable to your situation than my info, since these are urban coyotes:
posted by synaesthetichaze at 6:25 AM on December 9, 2006

This happened to me for a while. I got stalked every time I went out to walk the dog. It is unnerving, to be sure. In my case, the coyote would back off if I threw rocks, but not if I yelled, and it never backed off very far. Eventually I decided to ignore it, and walk with a stick. After a few weeks it stopped showing up.
posted by Nothing at 7:28 AM on December 9, 2006

um, i'd be worried. coyotes tend to be pretty timid ... and it sounds like yours are getting past that phase. if you can, contact yoour municipality or county animal control office, and tell them what you observe. the big stick idea is good, and you are probably safe, but your dog isn't. also, just like synaeth said--keep outside food sources away from them.
posted by lester's sock puppet at 7:32 AM on December 9, 2006

Here in Maine they call 'em coy-dogs. A farm near my old home had a couple of cows killed by coyotes about a month ago. As stated earlier, unless it's a pack of them, you don't have to worry about getting ambushed. But were I you, and you were living in an area that was permissive about gun ownership (i.e., not the middle of a city), I'd invest in a varmint rifle. Remington used to make a wonderful pistol-designed model (the XP-100) that even came with a magazine (instead of the single-shot bolt-action models). They stopped manufacturing them, so they command a bit of a premium in terms of price. You can get a Remington 700 .22 for peanuts, though.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 7:35 AM on December 9, 2006

Just for clarification, the magazined Remington was the XP-100R.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 7:36 AM on December 9, 2006

In addition to everything else that's been said (keeping pets inside or watching them closely, keeping pet food inside, securing garbage, carrying some type of weapon) I'd also be calling my city's animal control department. Early and often.

Looking for food is a wild animal's full-time job. I hate to sound alarmist, but it sounds like these are losing their fear of humans and dogs.
posted by Work to Live at 7:40 AM on December 9, 2006

if you don't want to leave any permanent holes in the poor things, try picking up an airsoft pistol. they fire 6mm plastic BBs that hurt just enough to make them go, "wtf was that? let's get outta here!"

you can pick one up for cheaper than cheap (like, under $15 cheap) in the sporting goods section of walmart or an outdoorsperson's store. something in the 200-250 fps range will do the trick, or up to 300 if you really really don't want them to be anywhere near you. I mean, do you really want to have to get close enough to whack'm with a stick?
posted by mcsweetie at 7:50 AM on December 9, 2006

The coyotes I bump into run like hell when they see me...of course, that might be because I'm walking with 3 dogs. There was one lady who claimed several coyotes attacked her, but it was never proven: 1. That it happened 2. They were indeed coyotes.
posted by lobstah at 7:58 AM on December 9, 2006

Another trick might be a powerful water gun...All canines hate getting squirted. When I lived outside Austin, I would carry a sports water bottle, which could send a steam about 30 ft. It worked like a charm on an Akita who thought my Austrailian Cattle Dog was deserving of some abuse.
posted by lobstah at 8:05 AM on December 9, 2006

Thirding the suggestion to call your local animal control department, not necessarily to get rid of the coyotes, but to ask someone more knowledgeable whether to be concerned, and alert them to the situation. Coyotes don't really attack humans, but packs will attack pets. They send out one coyote to try and lure the pet back to the group, then the pack attacks it. Make sure your dog is never outside alone. That said, it could just be that this coyote was following you because it's hungry, and some foolish person in your neighborhood has fed it, so its starting to associate humans with food.
posted by Joh at 9:49 AM on December 9, 2006

I grew up in Sierra Madre, where coyotes are thick on the ground. They were always annoying our dogs and making our cats very nervous. But it was only the bears and mountain lions that made people nervous.

Coyotes will not hurt you.
Officials with the California Department of Fish and Game estimate that roughly one person gets bitten by a coyote per year in California. The last human to be killed by a coyote was a child in the Los Angeles area around 1980.

Call your friends at the Eaton Canyon Nature Center and ask them. They know all about coyotes.
posted by Methylviolet at 11:00 AM on December 9, 2006

This is a fairly urban area and there's been a lot of development here recently that may have attracted more coy-dogs (I love that term, Civil_Disobedient!) I appreciate the advice from everyone, but I'm still curious about the 'stalking' behavior. My dog is neutered, and larger than any coyote I've ever seen. He doesn't seem to care, but our walks are generating a lot of interest from the local coyote population. Are coyotes just curious about other canines? Or are they seeing him as potential prey? Either way, I'm going to invest in a water gun (thanks, lobstah.)
posted by maryh at 11:14 AM on December 9, 2006

I know it's a cliche, but coyotes are smart, and always, always hungry, unless they're laying on the ground with a belly distended with food.

In Northern New Mexico they'll climb the trees to eat apricots. They'll eat cactus fruit, even though the tiny barbs coat your tongue and burn like fire. They'll eat your cat, collar and all.

Our chickens started disappearing from the coop, twenty feet from where I slept. I finally figured out that a coyote had dug a hole under the fence into the run, and would nose up the wood door, grab and kill a chicken without waking our paranoid rooster (Custer), then sneak back out--and here's the killer--fillling the hole and flattening it. That's right, the coyote was carefully covering its tracks.

This is all just to say you can't think of them as anything like a dog. It's unlikely that you'd ever be attacked, but it's possible. It's more likely that your dog gets attacked.

I've also had good results with a bicycle water bottle. If you really want to drive them off, put a touch of ammonia in the water.

And if they get close enough to squirt, use it everytime. Be agressive. Teach them that you are not to be trifled with.

"Coyote is always out there waiting, and Coyote is always hungry."
--Navajo proverb
posted by nicholai88 at 11:34 AM on December 9, 2006

There are some good resources from Vancouver, where urban coyotes are also a problem: link (see left sidebar on that page as well).

And, for the cute picture of Taz alone, another link.

Interestingly, dogs were domesticated from wolves, almost certainly by a two way process of people killing off the most aggressive individuals, leaving shyer, more compliant individuals behind, who then hung around at a comfortable distance forever. Some of the coyote control measures advocated above might actually make the problem worse by selecting for stealthy urban coyotes.
posted by Rumple at 11:38 AM on December 9, 2006

Not wishing to rub anyone's nose in anything, but coyotes will indeed eat a very wide range of things, and your well-fed dog's process of digestion is not altogether complete, so if you are the sort of dog owner who really does not like picking up after your dog, as long as that coyote is following you, no one is likely to ever know that about you, and that is why it is following you.
posted by jamjam at 8:55 AM on December 10, 2006

Firecrackers! Light one and toss it over your shoulder. Your dog won't like it much, but you won't see those coyotes anymore.
posted by kc0dxh at 6:39 AM on December 11, 2006

I think the water gun is a great idea. You might also consider loading it with a weak ammonia solution, to enhance its offensive qualities.

A small nitpick regarding the "Coyotes will not hurt you" link: The fact that millions more people are bitten by dogs than by coyotes does not mean that dogs are more dangerous. Millions more people die from eating too much fat than from cyanide poisoning, but that does not mean that cyanide is safer to eat than fatty food.
posted by owhydididoit at 3:47 PM on December 12, 2006