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Confronting a coyote — 44 Comments

1. Coyotes are really, mostly, quite harmless. Attacks on humans are vanishingly rare. I know there have been some, but the truth is stray dogs are more dangerous by several orders of magnitude. Coyotes abound in the Midwest. I mean, they’re everywhere, even in urban and suburban areas. Until fairly recently I lived in a (collar) suburb of Chicago (La Grange Park), near the Des Plaines River/Salt Creek waterways, and coyotes frequently emerged from the wooded areas and strolled around our neighborhood. In Chicago there’s a clan of coyotes that lives in Lincoln Park and in the group of big cemeteries just north and west of the park, and they’ve been there for decades. The city keeps track of them and encourages their presence because they prey upon rats and other such pests. Now I live in Northwestern Indiana, in a semi-rural environment, large forest and a huge cultivated field just a block from my house, and we see coyotes frequently. We have a border collie (used to have two) and I never worry about it, the coyotes leave the dogs alone and anyway my BCs can handle coyotes, maybe even try to mate with them. It’s been known to happen. Sometimes we hear them singing at night. Coyotes don’t like to hassle for their food. They prefer to prey on rodents and other small critters that are easy take-downs. Although a few times when I’ve been herding sheep with my BCs I’ve spotted coyotes in the treeline staring intently at us, maybe licking their chops at the idea of a nice mutton dinner. I like coyotes. They are spirit animals.

2. P.S. When encountering a coyote or pack of coyotes, there’s no need to yell or wave your arms or make yourself “big.” They are really quite shy, if curious animals. Of course, if you have a little dog with you . . . well that could be problematic. But even then they are loath to confront the human who is with the dog.

   Of course, you never run from any higher-order predator, i.e. carnivores and omnivores with big sharp teeth. Never, ever. Running triggers their predatory drive. And, anyway, you’re not going to outrun a predator. You’re better served by standing your ground and maybe, maybe, backing away very very slowly.

   I learned all this during my 20-year sojourn in Colorado.

3. I had a coyote in my yard recently. It was during the day and the critter was a youngster. I went out and politely ask it to leave which it did.

4. When I was in high school, my family inherited a Coydog. I was in charge of feeding it. It died, 6 months later.

5. There are coyotes in rural and even urban neighborhoods here in central NC. Also bears (black).

6. IrishOtter, incredible! I did part of growing up in Brookfield! How neat that you were conceivably almost right next door at some point.

   My closest encounter with a coyote so far was one time in the Albany Pine Bush preserve, when I happened to be standing in a clearing in the woods listening to the birds; suddenly there was a bit of crashing around in the brush to one side, and a young deer popped out sprinting across the path in a hurry. In a second, the reason for the rush, the coyote in pursuit, appeared. They both passed maybe twenty yards in front of me, heading for the railroad track. Since it was a decent-size clearing, I had been standing perfectly still for some time, and their attention was obviously elsewhere, I got a good look at that slice of life. (Never found out who won the race, though.)

   To your point, the Pine Bush is not exactly isolated wilderness, so yes, coyotes do make their way into various niches.

7. I had two coyotes come into my garage, tempted by the smell of some barbeque ribs in the trash can, there were three others just outside the open door. We see them frequently and hear them most evenings.

   Six years ago when my German Shorthaired Pointer was still somewhat youthful, he chased down a coyote and picked it up giving it one heck of a shaking before the critter managed to get away. Probably a forty-five pound coyote, couldn’t outrun a Shorthair in his prime, they are amazingly fast hunting dogs with a strong prey instinct.

   The only time I was concerned was on an early morning walk with our other dog, just as it was becoming light, and we ran into an alpha male coyote standing a few yards off the lane. He looked like a German Shepard at first until I realized he was just the biggest, most assertive coyote I ever encountered. He scruffed the ground to show he was boss, my dog was on leash at the time and I restrained him from getting involved.

8. Let me piggyback on IrishOtter’s comment and add that in the rest of the world outside the US, wild dogs cause over 90% of human rabies cases.

   Something to be thankful for, that this is not true in the US courtesy of rabies vaccination requirements for dogs & cats.

9. Here in Eastern WA they are abundant and small dogs and cats are preyed upon. Cats kept indoors live longer lives.

10. We have very occasionally Coyotes, but I can hear them sometimes at night. Foxes are around too. We have had a Bear around sometimes, goes into the Corn Fields, and a neighbor claims to have a video on his wildlife cam of a Cougar. I live in the Foothills 50 miles north of Denver, off a small stream.
    Other wildlife – Deer, Elk, Sunk, and nesting Hawks.

11. I would be careful with coyotes. Many years ago, I was horseback riding on my father’s cattle ranch, home from college, and my dog took off after a coyote. I knew it was trouble, and chased them. By the time I caught up, the dog was on his way back with two coyotes on his tail. They broke off as I approached on horseback.

    A second experience happened in a large urban park, where a different dog and I were walking. I threw a stick for him, and as I turned to walk away, I sensed something and turned about to see a couple of coyotes coming out of a gulley after the dog. They followed us for quite a distance.

    My most recent experience was in my neighbourhood in the mountains where I currently live. My (yet a different) dog and I were walking where we had seen a coyote a few days earlier, and I had him on leash as the hair was up on the back of his shoulders and he was very alert. As we turned a corner on the trail between townhouses and a golf course, I realized that one was behind me on the trail on which I was on and another was off to my right in open aspen trees, both about 20-30m away. They were evidently hunting, and neither moved when I stopped and yelled at them. Fortunately, the path was rocky and they retreated after I threw a fastball at the one behind me.

    But coyotes are aggressive and capable of taking down deer when working in teams. Only on the ranch — where shooting them was common practice — did I know them to be afraid of humans.

12. Read recently that the eastern coyote is not entirely coyote, but a mix including various dogs people didn’t want. Not likely to include yorkies and chihuahuas.
    So perhaps bigger and less prudent than the real thing.

13. We have coyotes AND wolves on our place. I have not felt intimated by either one. BUT, I do watch them until they are out of site. However, those big (150pound) mountain lions–well now, that is a different story. They sneak up on me when working in the garden. They just sit there and watch my every move–waiting, waiting.

    P.S. We also have had brown bears, AND a GRIZZLY! You can understand why I park my SUV close to that part of the property where I am working. 🙂 🙂

14. I was walking on the path in a small forest preserve near a suburban area, when a coyote barked at me aggressively from a little ways off the path. Then another one also barked and I noticed them following me beside the path. I took out my knife and walked on, heart pounding, till they stopped following me. I later surmised that they had a den in the area.

    A deaf-mute with whom I used to work, told me (he wrote it down) that he was attacked by coyotes in Colorado. From news reports where I live in the Midwest, the coyotes sometimes grab, or try to grab, small dogs.

15. I’ve seen foxes on my street, and one bedded down in the snow in my yard some years ago (suburb of Denver). We usually get some deer wandering around in the winter.
    Coyotes hang out along the small river that runs through a nearby condo division which borders on a park.

    This isn’t a coyote but it could have been.
    https://notthebee.com/article/watch-this-fox-steal-the-trail-cameras-a-woman-set-up-to-spy-on-wildlife-in-the-arizona-desert

16. One species that coyotes don’t compete well against are wolves. When wolves were reintroduced into the lower 48, the ranchers were worried about their cattle and Bison, as well as elk. Turns out that the species hit hardest by the wolves are the coyotes, reducing many such populations by over half. Coyotes exist around us in NW MT, but they never seem to get out of control, and some of that is likely a result of the wolves there.

    In AZ, we have a house in PHX, right by a nature preserve/open space. So, naturally, there is a pack of 4 or so coyotes living there. Small pets are not safe from them, and they have been known to go over the 6’ fences between houses. I go armed when walking our small dog, and the PD has assured me that they are fine with that, and aren’t going to mind if I have to sacrifice one of the coyotes for our safety.

17. In San Francisco I lived about 100 yards from the lip of Glen Canyon, a weird magical canyon in the center of SF that seemed to be the best kept secret in The City (as we called it in caps).

    You entered it from a city street, walked past the recreation center, then suddenly you found yourself on a rural dirt road, surrounded by fields and woods and the walls of the canyon with no signs of the city aside from the stilt houses and street lights along the canyon rim.

    A coyote family had settled in the canyon. It was in the local news. Apparently they had trotted across the Golden Gate Bridge from Marin and found their way to Glen Canyon. They were signs in the canyon about the coyotes and how they should not be disturbed.

    I would sometimes see the coyotes during my exercise sessions in the canyon. I once met a woman there who had focused her retirement on observing the coyotes.

    I loved the coyotes. Sometimes I would hear the coyotes howl at night from my house. I was in the middle of San Francisco!

    The only thing that bothered me was that there was a children’s summer camp only a hundred or so yards from where I figured the coyotes lived.

18. Southern Missouri here, coyotes out the wahoo.

    When I had my farm I had the lowland and Thompson had the ridges to the north. My dog Sam had staked out the whole property as his of course and had no problem at 95lb Doberman/Samoyed mix picking fights to keep it that way. Over the years, both ears had folds in the middle from bites and he had a number of minor scars. He’d go up the ridge and take on however many were there and always came home with a grin.

    On good nights, when the coyotes gathered on the top ridge to sing, he go onto the porch and join in with his baritone. At first, they’d shut up but after a number of times they started singing with him and it sounded like they understood how to harmonize and even play with the echos. It was a really beautiful thing to listen to and usually went on for a good fifteen.

    When Same aged out, on his last days he grew really anxious and did a lot of whimpering.

    On his last night, while I held him on his bedding in our big room, the coyotes came onto the property, which they never did, came around to the south of the house and sang directly at him for a few minutes.

    I cried my damn ass off and my wife came wandering out of the bedroom mouth agape.

    As with a lot of stuff in my life, it inspired one of my fables, Arota’s Chosen.

19. I know that there are many animal lovers here, and some of them are apparently pretty outdoorsy, even to the extent of having wilderness survival and orienteering training. People for example who hike in shorts, carry only bear spray instead of a .357 or .44 mag as well, and believe in sharing the land.

    Ok, fine, so far as that goes. But as far as I am concerned, coyotes are welcome to return to their original range, and best encountered in old western movie scenes as the protagonists sit around the evening campfire drinking coffee.

    When they race in a pack through the farm yard [ i.e., “the cottage”] as the kids are roasting smores around the fire pit at night … well, that’s enough.

    They take the wild turkeys, they attack fawns, housepets ( my neighbors’ down here in the “city” ), spread mange, and it is only a matter of time before some lost toddler in Ohio or Pennsylvania is attacked and devoured by a pack of coyotes or a coywolf.

    And not that I particularly love foxes, but I have seen one of them chased around and around an ornamental yard spruce by a coytote trying to kill it about 100 feet from my house.

    I’d gladly blame them for the disappearance of the quail too, but I think that that’s a stretch… a very very long one. I do miss the childhood sound of the bobwhites in the summer evenings as the sun slid down, though.

    My particular grievance against them is that they have dug their dens in the south faces of the hillsides where I had my wildlife plantings; causing significant erosion, as if the damn elk did not do enough damage to the grade.

    And about two weeks ago my brother in law lost his buck to coyotes during the night when he failed to find it at dusk. It was half devoured by the next morning. Since the temp was not much below freezing the deer might have gone to waste anyway. But it’s the principle. I didn’t invite the damn things on the property and they are not native to the region, so I don’t owe them anything, and apparently the State agrees.

    They can be pretty animals I grant, if they have a healthy pelt, kind of a cream orange or light amber color. But that doen’t stop me from expending a .444 round on one if the opportunity arises while I’m pursuing more profitable game.

    Yeah, in cowboy movies set in the deserts and plains. That’s where they belong. Wouldn’t mind hearing their yipping out there, myself.

20. There’s a lot of good, vivid writing here.

21. Huxley, maybe some vixen writing, too.
    [Except definition 2]
    vixen /v?k?s?n/
    noun
    1) A female fox.
    2) A woman regarded as quarrelsome or ill-tempered.
    3) A she-fox. [aka a foxy she person]

    The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition • More at Wordnik

22. What a collection of interesting coyote stories! Didn’t realize so many Neo readers had coyote tales, even a coyote tailing someone.

23. Coyote attacks on humans, especially children, have been increasing in frequency in Texas, particularly in the Dallas metroplex, as it continues its rapid expansion of housing developments into former range and ranchland.

    I would never assume that coyotes are afraid of stalking humans or dogs. They’re naturally shy and very canny with their tactics: Many natural observers have seen them cooperate, splitting the pack using a few to drive game into the remainder, waiting & ready to ambush. And with dogs, they will goad them at night with their howling and carrying on, but when the dog gives chase, others in the pack will ambush from behind. They go for the hamstrings and tendons in the rear legs, to prevent the dog from escaping.

    Some wildlife biologists are noting that there is active hybridization between wolves, coyotes, and domestic canines that has generally diluted what are considered the classical gene lines. As a consequence, coyotes are generally bigger now, and perhaps bolder as a consequence.

24. I once asked a river otter to leave my yard. It hissed like a cat.

25. I live in the proverbial middle of nowhere, about as far north of the Midwest as anybody can get. I often hear coyotes, though rarely see them. But I have friends with a small farm, and they’ve lost so many chickens to coyotes that they’ve had to buy two dogs to guard the birds.

    I don’t like our urbanized tendency to romanticize animals, but I have to admit to strong feelings when I hear the coyotes howling on a winter night, with a full moon and ten feet of snow on the ground. It’s a rough choir that punk bands could never hope to match. They don’t know what wild is.

26. Since OCT 1, I have lived on a horse ranch. It is big enough that it has both a woods, and a lake on property. Because of coyotes, and a bear that gae cameras have shown lives on our ranch, and a footprint down by the lake thaat strobly suggests that we also have either a lynx, or a cougar as well, I have been instructed to never go in the woods unarmed. So I take my .45ACP SIG, loaded with Winchester Silvertip hollowpoints, and sometimes, my Winchester 1300 patrol shotgun, with 8 slugs, ( can you tell I am a retired Deputy?).

    We have two Great Pyrenees, two year old Jupiter, who is the size of a small pony, and his twelve week old daughter, Lilyana, who is currently bright pink. ( We have had three snow so far, and she loves to lie in the snow covered driveway of the ranch, which Brenda thinks is no place for a snow white dog to nap, so she took Punk/Goth hair dye, and Lilyana is now a Day-Glo Pink dog!)
    Jupiter spends his nights guarding our 22 horses, and flock of goats and chickens from coyotes. They are interested in goatlings and colts. I will be glad, when Lilyana joins her Dad, in the Patrol Force, as two Great Pyrenees can handle just about anything likely to show up.

    Jupiter is a gentleman towards humans and his herd, a very laid back beast. Lilyana, being only twelve weeks old, gets overly excited, and playing can sometimes turn into attacks, when she gets too wound up. But last night, I told Brenda that if Lilyana grows up to be as laid back as her Dad, she will be the Bestest Dog Ever. Brenda, who loves Lilyana, replied, ” She aready IS the Bestest Dog Ever “!

    We have a female cat, Love Bug, white is brilliant snow white, except for her black tail and ears. I want to dye her fire engine green, just for the winter. Brenda says no.

27. Neo,
    Be very careful of any animal that acts unusually. Coyotes will attack people but most likely are after the dog.

28. Quite common in my Santa Monica neighborhood. I always keep an eye out now when I walk my 13lbs dog. They mostly stay away from us too but my neighbor’s 60lbs dog was attacked by one last month. The dog survived. The coyote did not.

29. Coyotes howl all the time near us. It really gets my dog’s attention. I’ve watched them trot down the road past our house. We have all manner of wild critters in our neck of the woods.

    I took the dog for a hike yesterday and he stopped to sniff bear scat that was smack dab in the middle of the path. He normally runs ahead of me when we’re out in the woods, but he kept stopping, looking off into the woods, and stayed close to me, so I knew he sensed something out there. That happens often when we’re out hiking in the woods.

    The most scared I’ve been around a wild animal was when I stopped to lock my hubs on my truck and looked up to see a goat eyeing me from about 25′ away. One horn missing, so I figured he was accustomed to violence. I got back in the truck and watched him for a few minutes. He just stared at me with his diabolical goat eyes.

    Farmers in the area place donkeys in their cattle herds. They’ll kick a coyote into the middle of next week. From what I’m told, donkeys are attracted to commotion, so if a coyote gets in amongst the cattle, the donkey trots over with his hooves ready to inflict some punishment.

30. My view: the more wildlife, the better. I know the objections; I reject them. I know the dangers; I accept them. (I’ve faced those dangers). The biggest threat to my life are feral youth in Chicago and the bus coming down the street that may smoosh me if and when I step unwittingly off the curb. Back in the day in Colorado when I was a wilderness guy I used to argue with ranchers who held the view that public lands were exclusively their domain and reserved for cattle ranching and nothing (and no one) else. I’m very big into de-extinction studies. I hope to see the day when woolly mammoth/elephant hybrids are roaming the great plains.

31. You’re lucky it was only a coyote.

    The suburbs of LA are known to be filled with cougars.

    😛

32. Never underestimate coyotes. They can take down larger animals than you think. And they can and will attack people, even adults. Once they start associating people WITH food it’s not much of a leap to thinking people ARE food.

    To give you an idea of just what bold and intelligent hunters they are, when I lived in a suburb about 20 miles east of San Diego it wasn’t really unusual to see a ‘yote trotting right down the middle of the street. All the dogs are going crazy, trying to break out of their yards. All the male dogs. It’s a female in heat. As soon as she gets a dog to chase her she leads him right back to where the rest of the pack are waiting. Not even a large dog stands a chance. They kill for a living, pet dogs don’t.

    This was after they had killed all the neighborhood cats and the smaller dogs.

    Of course they don’t always have to resort to such tricks. A lady who lived in the neighborhood was walking her lab when a half dozen or so coyotes just stood up in the grass by the side of the road. The lab, which must have weighed 80 lbs at least, instinctively tried to protect his owner. But the coyotes weren’t after the owner. Those coyotes made short work of that dog.

33. I used to live in a suburb of Seattle; just NE of Seattle / Lake Washington.

    Yep, coyote sightings – usually of 3 or 4 at a pop, all strung out walking in a straight line – were no big deal and I never had any concern seeing them unless I was walking with my toddler daughter.
    I would just pick her up and walk home.

    The REAL concern was cougars (the felines).

    An elementary school near my home there, once or twice locked down as a result of cougar sightings near the school play yard, at which point they would bring in animal control folks with hunting dogs to track the cougar and to tranquilize it (if found).
    My wife swears she saw a cougar in our back yard one morning when she was placing our toddler into her car seat.
    I never saw one though.

    A couple of times one would read in the Seattle papers of a cougar spotted in a park in Seattle proper, or in other nearby towns.

    Anyway, on my normal walks where I now live, there is the massive, muscle bound dog that looks like an over sized pit bull on steroids . I don’t know what breed it is – it looks like the canine version of a comic book action hero – but I just bought some pepper spray that I hope I will never have to use.

34. Coyotes are a problem here in LA County. They’re smart enough to have a healthy respect for adult humans, and will stay just out of reach (and I do mean *just* out of reach). But they don’t actually fear humans, as they’ve realized that humans in the area won’t attack them directly. They go after pets. And there have even been instances in which they’ve attacked small children (fortunately no local fatalities yet). They are *everywhere* in the cities in the county.

    There needs to be a bounty on the things to teach them to once again fear humans. But the authorities would never permit that.

    There was an instance a little while back in which a pack of coyote-wolf mix canines killed a woman in Canada out on a trail.

35. I know that coyotes have been documented killing deer by themselves. I know about half the time I used to see coyotes back in San Diego they were in packs of 4 to 6. The other half there was only one. Of course, just because you only see one doesn’t mean what looks like a single coyote isn’t working with others you can’t see.

    That tale of the pack sending out the female (my over riding impulse is to use the proper word for a female canine) may seem far fetched but I lived where I lived so I could be close to the national forest in order to hunt. I was on good terms with the game wardens. When I told one about what I thought was inexplicable and unusual, a coyote trotting right down the middle of the street, he filled me in on what was happening. Others confirmed it.

    That to me seems almost primate level planning and organization. But they’re capable of it.

    Here in Texas I haven’t seen the same pack behavior I did in Kali. But I’ve seen a behavior I’m familiar with from Kali. A coyote sitting in the grass outside a schoolyard during the noon hour, watching elementary school kids play.

36. Re: cougars, when I lived east of Cougar Mt and south of Tiger Mt, got that call from the school to meet my kindergartener at the bus as a cougar was roaming the neighborhood. I wonder where those names came from.

37. You are supposed to “raz” the coyote. The WI Department of Natural Resources has a video.

38. Out here, a mile down a dirt road I hear yips every night, but, for some reason, the locals don’t howl very often. I see one occasionally, going away at a trot, for good reason: Constitutional carry, which means that about 30% of the populace is armed, and coyotes are good moving target practice.

39. In Coastal Bend Texas, any time the weather is nice enough to sleep with the windows open, we hear the coyotes when they gather in the evening and again before dawn. We very rarely see them in the daytime.

40. I can’t recall having ever seen a coyote in FL, offhand. Might be here, but the area is probably not very hospitable, as there aren’t any caves or anything like that to use for dens. Lots of deer, hawks, etc, however. There might be some in the deeper woods (less and less of that, in FL, any more) — there are bear in the Ocala National Forest, so might be some coyote there. And I do know people who hunt feral hogs, so, again, might be some in that kind of area. But they aren’t very common near (e.g., within about 20 miles) any major inhabited area.

41. Coyotes don’t need caves.

42. Coyotes in Florida:

    https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2020/01/16/interactive-map-find-the-coyote-sightings-in-your-florida-neighborhood/

    UFOs are easier to spot? (not)

43. Yep, socal suburban guy here:

    Coyotes have attacked and killed small dogs on leash in San Diego, bitten kids and I tell people looking for lost cats to look for coyote scat with fur in it…

    They are very smart and most well adapted urban predator in North America, expanding range greatly.

    There’s packs in Chicago tracked and studied 20 years. A pack of coydogs killed a female singer a few years back in eastern Canada.

    They can go over an 8ft fence with prey in jaws. I had two coydogs from a GSD in heat. Smart as a whip.

44. I see a coyote, in daylight, at least twice a week around the Mesa area. Of course, we have problems with javalinas also, but they probably won’t eat your cat, just your young yucca plant.

    We tried to kill them off for decades. We failed, but you find water towers in the countryside in Iowa and South Dakota because we did manage to get arsenic into the ground water. So these places have piped water to farms.

    They’re in every state except Hawaii.

    Others here have said they don’t see them but they hear them at night. I see them often, but have not heard them howl in Arizona. I did hear them in Minnesota, and saw perhaps one or two in 20 years.

    Gotta love the bitch coyote luring dogs to death by pack. It sounds exactly like a scene from the Tom Cruise Jack Reacher movie.

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