Urban coyote attacks on rise, alarming residents

By JUDITH KOHLER, AP
6 hours ago

DENVER — A coyote ambling into a Chicago sandwich shop or taking up residence in New York's Central Park understandably creates a stir. But even here on the high plains of Colorado, where the animals are part of the landscape and figure prominently in Western lore, people are being taken aback by rising coyote encounters.

Thanks to suburban sprawl and a growth in numbers of both people and animals, a rash of coyote encounters has alarmed residents.

Wildlife officials are working to educate the public: Coyotes have always been here, they've adapted to urban landscapes and they prefer to avoid humans.

"Ninety-five percent of this problem is a human problem, and we really need to focus on that 95 percent to solve it," said Nicole Rosmarino, wildlife program director of the environmental group WildEarth Guardians.


Since December, four people in the Denver area have been nipped or bitten by coyotes. A fifth told police a coyote lunged at him.

State wildlife officers have killed seven coyotes. An eighth was killed by a sharpshooter hired by Greenwood Village, in Denver's southern suburbs.

"These are coyotes that were born and raised in the 'hood," said Liza Hunholz, an area manager with the Colorado Division of Wildlife.

Marc Bekoff, a professor emeritus of ecology at the University of Colorado, says there are more people and less habitat along Colorado's Front Range, bringing the animal and people populations into closer proximity and producing what he calls "an unprecedented scare response."

"The communities seem to be really feeding one another," said Bekoff. He has studied coyotes for 40 years and believes that in some cases dogs are mistaken for coyotes.

Coyotes once were found primarily on the Great Plains and in the Southwest, but have expanded their turf to most of North America. Populations of wolves, a fierce competitor, have shrunk, and swaths of forest have turned into coyote-friendly open spaces.

After generations of urban living, some coyotes navigate subdivisions as easily as the cactus and scrub oak of the high desert where their ancestors roamed. Experts won't even try to guess how many coyotes there are nationwide.

Coyote sightings have skyrocketed in Greenwood Village. Last year, police received 186 reports, including 15 clashes with pets. Already this year, there have been 142.

"People are afraid to let their pets out or their children to walk to school," said Greenwood Village City Manager Jim Sanderson.

Jacque Levitch, of south Denver, was bitten by one of three coyotes she said confronted her and her Labrador retriever, Taz, on Feb. 21. "I hit it with my right fist and right forearm," Levitch said.

Taz was all right. Levitch had to endure rabies shots. She said her neighbors now carry big sticks and golf clubs.

"If nothing is done, I can only see the problem escalating," Levitch said.

In New York City, a coyote pup was found in the Bronx last year, and in 2006 police captured a coyote in Central Park. In California's San Bernardino County, two toddlers were reported injured in separate coyote incidents last year.

One toddler was killed in California in the 1980s in the country's only known fatal coyote attack.

WildEarth Guardians' Rosmarino thinks in most cases it's people who need to change their behavior. She has organized volunteers in Greenwood Village and other cities to walk through parks to shoo coyotes and make them more wary of people.

Most coyotes do everything they can to avoid people, said Stan Gehrt (GURT), an assistant professor at Ohio State University's School of Environment and Natural Resources. That's true even in Chicago, where Gehrt has led a study since 2000. About 300 coyotes there have been radio-collared and tracked.

The coyote that walked into the Chicago sandwich shop in 2007 got a lot of attention. But Gehrt said few people are aware of how many have lived in Chicago for decades. One of his subjects has a hiding spot near the downtown post office and thousands of people pass within yards of it each day.

"Even though they live in urban areas and figure out how people work ... it doesn't mean they're necessarily becoming more aggressive toward us," Gehrt said.

They also haven't changed their diet. Gehrt expected to find urban coyotes eating a lot of garbage and pets. But their scat shows rodents are still the meal of choice, followed by deer, rabbits and birds.

Coyotes view pets such as cats and dogs as competitors, not food, Gehrt said. Most coyotes are submissive toward dogs, though some will stand their ground — especially during breeding season, when they may see dogs as rivals for mates. Mating season peaked in February, when some of the Denver-area incidents occurred.

Residents are warned to not feed coyotes, to keep dogs on short leashes, and to yell or throw rocks at coyotes so they associate humans with bad things. Bird seed may attract mice and voles, which then can draw hungry coyotes. Don't leave out pet food and garbage, and don't leave pets alone.

A coyote that bit a boy snowboarding on a golf course in Erie, 26 miles north of Denver, had been fed by golfers.

Reducing the number of coyotes doesn't work, Rosmarino said, because the animals breed more and have bigger litters when their population declines. The U.S. Agriculture Department's Wildlife Services killed more than 90,000 in 2007 to stem livestock attacks.

Relocation also doesn't work, Gehrt said. Coyotes moved from Chicago to the country headed back to the city.

"The coyotes are here, they've always been here and the only way to deal with them is to understand them and make them afraid of you," said Ned Ingham, a Greenwood Village retiree and one of Rosmarino's volunteers. "We live in an area with wildlife."

It IS a human problem.  Unless the coyotes have gotten together and decided to wage war on the human overlords, it's likely that human expansion into the coyote habitat is causing increased interaction between the two species.


Solution: encourage coyote hunting.

You know why?  Not enough hunting pressure.  Kill a few and drape the bodies over a fence.  They will then know who is boss.

Exactly, I have way more coyotes than neighbors and they keep their distance from me or suffer my wrath.

On the other hand, you could just thin the human population so that more conversion of rural areas into suburbs is not necessary.

Arcane6-1

Lefty_Woods: "The only way to deal with these indestructible supernatural robot zombie coyotes is through psychoanalysis!"

20" AR15 Colt HBAR (1/7 twist) driving a Hornady 55gr V-Max propelled by 24.5gr of H335 in a LC case with a Federal 209 primer = Dead as dirt Coyote(s).

Add a can to keep suzie soccer mom from having pee run down her leg when you start anchoring those 'yotes and all is right again in the world of suburban sprawl

idiots.  I don't know but all the yotes I have shot sure as hell seemed afraid.  IDK.



 

This.



That's how you take care of urban pests.



Of the two-legged AND four legged kind.

This!   and it's lots of fun too!  

The last one I draped over a fence stayed there for two years before something or someone ripped it down. They do get the message.

Down in Texas, the longest they go is about a week.  Something eventually finds them good enough to take.  Buzzards stop after the easy meat is gone.

Buzzards gotta eat too...

Well, it stands to reason that as we expand into coyote territory, that we will see more problems with them.

Just like when you drive into areas where deer herds run, you will see more car-deer collisions... The animals don't know they're not supposed to be there.

Not an enviro whacko or anything... Just sayin'.

They can be shot on site year 'round here...

Seem to be very skittish around humans....can't be because they draw gunfire...nah...

You are 100% correct, there's nothing wacko about it. I just though it was funny how the people quoted in the article seemed to think the coyotes were impervious to anything except, apparently, psychology. I can picture a bunch of hippies out there trying to "negotiate" with the coyotes.

As many as I kill a year, I'm suprised they haven't staged a hit on my house... Actually, I don't think they know where I live yet.

I usually send a message to inform the coyotes of my rifle-ammo selection and once they realize what they are up against, they usually just commit seppuku

Well, someone's gotta say it.. ARFCOM Coyote Hunt '09?

If people wouldn't go out looking all tasty.

I like the way you think.

Actually, it is the coyote that is moving into the lair of humans.  When you start seeing coyotes roaming the streets of downtown Blacksburg, Virginia you know that you have a problem.

Hey, I'm doing my part (from two weekends ago):

Me too.




The person is right about them being unstoppable though, I have killed over 200 in the past year, and there is no drop in numbers!

There is some debate about why there are obvious differences between eastern and western populations of coyotes.  The results of DNA testing always seems to be "pending" but it appears eastern populations of coyotes may have wolf DNA in them.  Eastern coyotes can become quite large (70lbs).

According to our state's Fish and Game there has never been a case of a coyote attack in New Hampshire.  I think they should be more honest in this and instead say "There hasn't YET been a case of a coyote attacking a human in the state of NH."

A month ago a coyote came to within 30 feet 6 inches of me.  It was well aware I was a human.  It came towards me, hunkered down, and then started to slink along towards me.  It was still advancing when I opened fire.  I measured the distance from my footprints in the snow to the first impact point using a Rolatape.  I wanted to be accurate in measurement as I have never had a coyote come that close to me.  

The AR15 makes a dandy tool for killing coyotes.  The animal was in poor condition.  It had what appeared to be mange on the hind quarters/belly area.  I frankly doubt it was rabid- but it was certainly hungry.  

Coyotes were first reported in New Hampshire in the 1940s.  They are an aggressive invasive- intelligent- species.  I will continue to put the hurt on them.

I contributed to the human element of the coyote problem yesterday by missing one.

I made up for it by stalking the one I missed for about an hour until he joined up with a couple of buddies and then whacking one's ass from about 30 yards while she was getting a drink.