Coyotes in our urban neigborhoods

[GoingDown]

That is where you are wrong.

This is from an Arizona Fish & Game flyer on the subject dating to April, 2004

http://www.azgfd.gov/pdfs/h_f/urban_coyote_faq.pdf

Here’s a 2006 warning

http://www.birdandanimalcontrol.com/state/county/city/Phoenix-Arizona.php

And, in 2006 there was a push to do something about stupid people. . . don’t know if the law passed. . . doubt it

http://www.azgfd.gov/artman/publish/printer_478.shtml

My point is this. . .

I have lived in this Valley for 25 years - only the last 10 in a more rural location. Coyote sightings in Phoenix are not unusual. See them all the time at parks, golf courses, schools - any place where there is room to run and water. What has changed is the population growth and what that brings - dumb people who think feeding wild animals is cool. The animals who, for the most part, stayed away from humans in the past (limiting themselves to what the parks, golf courses and uninhabited school grounds would bring), are now braver than ever and have no fear of jumping into one's backyard. Yes, lack of sustenance brings them out but that is our fault as we have destroyed their habitat.

If we, as the rulers of this planet, want to take the ability to co-exist away from the “lower life forms” that we share this planet with, we better be ready for the consequences and think of ways to protect ourselves, short of killing off every creature that we perceive as a threat. And. . . we need to stop being irresponsible.

Des.

Here I am quoting the news article in my original post, and remember, I am talking about an urban Phoenix neighborhood, not a suburb...

PHOENIX -- Some coyotes have made their home in one Phoenix neighborhood, and they aren't shy - trotting around in the middle of the day, according to neighbors.

Residents of the area near 32nd Street and Campbell Avenue have seen a number of coyotes, almost on a daily basis.

"In the last two months, I've seen five [coyotes]," said Ron Cheuvront, who has lived in the neighborhood for 50 years.

And until a few years ago, he hadn't spotted any.

[MSbklawyer]

This is definitely one solution to the problem, but I'm afraid the City of Phoenix police department would frown upon us discharging a rifle inside the city limits.

Oh, my little town would too. But there are usually 'life or limb' exceptions to those kinds of statutes and I swear, that coyote was about to charge me. ;) Probably rabid. And 22 cartridges are no louder than a door being slammed, so it didn't get a lot of attention.

[OhioFiler]

Oh, my little town would too. But there are usually 'life or limb' exceptions to those kinds of statutes and I swear, that coyote was about to charge me. ;) Probably rabid. And 22 cartridges are no louder than a door being slammed, so it didn't get a lot of attention.

Your little town! Y'all probably sit on the hood of the Sheriff's car drinkin' moonshine and shootin' all sort of critters all evenin'. ;-)

[MSbklawyer]

Your little town! Y'all probably sit on the hood of the Sheriff's car drinkin' moonshine and shootin' all sort of critters all evenin'. ;-)

You've been spying on me, haven't you?

[GoingDown]

Here's another video of the aftermath of a coyote attack on a little boy who was playing in his own back yard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxsfJNFseDs

[Pandora]

We have coyotes here in our "little neck of the woods" - pretty awesome actually IMO. (yes I'm the "odd ball") My thought is we - as humans - keep taking their homelands away in the name of "progress" - so where are they to go? Take woods away, you take the small game away that the bigger game hunt.

We also have bear and bobcats on our property as well - worse that ever happened was the bear ate my suet feeder (my fault..should've known better than to put it out). As far as the coyotes and farm animals - we've never had any issues with them harming our chickens at all, and they've walked right up to the coop (have pictures of prints walking around it). While I realize the OP was talking about the "city" - we are actually in a small "subdivision" if you will...but its zoned AG.

I think that before "land developers" clear cut entire forests, they should think about the consequences of doing so. Perhaps leaving at minimum 50% of forest to the animals..... Before too long we wont have any animals and the only place you'll be able to see them is in pictures or in a zoo. Already happening unfortunately.

[GoingDown]

I can see your point, but I'm talking about a part of Phoenix that goes back to a time before my grandfather was even born. This is not like a new subdivision which just recently displaced coyotes.

And I hate the feeling of being like a prisoner in my own home, afraid to let my dogs use their doggy door to go out to their own fenced backyard and do their business whenever they feel like it, especially when I'm not home to let them out there. It just doesn't seem fair.

And the Chihuahuas get along with the neighbors' cats and chickens which freely visit my yard, and control pests for me.

Coyotes don't eat scorpions, but chickens do.

Coyotes don't eat cockroaches, but chickens do.

And once again, I ask about the double standard going on here. Would you be okay with a pack of pit bulls coming into your yard whenever they felt like it and feeding on your domesticated pets? Would you be okay with them not being vaccinated for rabies?

If your answer is "no", then why do you think it is okay for coyotes to do this in the city limits?

This is from nearby Scottsdale, Arizona...

http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/region_northeast_valley/scottsdale/coyote-attacks-family-pets

[GoingDown]

Here's a very interesting news article I found...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/03/nyregion/03coyotes.html

"RYE, N.Y. — Firefighters have searched for them with heat-sensing cameras. Police officers, under orders to kill, have fired shots at them outside dark golf courses. Nerve-racked parents have stayed up late researching their behavior online.

“It’s all that anyone talks about,” Kate Taubner said, keeping a hand on her son Jack’s head as if to hold him close.

In this idyllic suburb, dotted with basketball hoops, training wheels and bubbling creeks, life has been upended by mangy intruders that seem to be on a tear: coyotes. In the past nine days, two young girls playing outside their homes were attacked in separate episodes, officials said. Both girls survived with minor injuries, but the highly unusual attacks have prompted a wide-ranging response that has included helicopter searches, errant gunfire and an endless stream of gossip.

As Madeline Donovan, 5, said on her way to the pool, “Blah blah blah coyotes.”

Her mother, Diane Clehane, a former Rye resident who now lives in Scarsdale, N.Y., shrugged. “You don’t expect to put coyotes on the list of great concerns living in suburbia,” she said, adding, “They know a good neighborhood when they see it.”

The police have advised parents not to let small children roam farther than an arm’s length away, and to keep them indoors at night. People walking their dogs at night carry large sticks alongside their leashes. The police commissioner, William R. Connors, has had to discourage would-be vigilantes from taking the problem into their own hands.

“There’s the bad-man talk, stranger danger, don’t eat so much candy — and now here’s the coyote talk,” said one mother, Marian Wright, who had to sit her children down and explain the latest threat. “It’s pretty freaky, actually.”

The first attack occurred June 25 in the Glen Oaks neighborhood about 9:15 p.m., when a 6-year-old girl running alongside her house was knocked down by two coyotes. The animals bit her on the shoulder and the thigh, and scratched her head and her back, according to the police. The girl’s mother, who was some 25 feet away, ran over screaming, scaring the coyotes away, the police said. “It was terrifying,” said Steve Hodulik, the girl’s father.

The next attack occurred four days later. About 7:15 p.m. on Tuesday, a 3-year-old was playing in her backyard with a neighbor when a coyote jumped from behind a rock and knocked her down, biting her on the neck and the torso. The girl’s father, who was on the deck about 30 feet away, ran toward the neighbor’s cry of “Mommy, coyote!” and scared off the animal, according to Mr. Connors.

Coyote attacks against humans are extremely rare. Experts say there may be as few as five a year across the country. Mr. Connors said witness descriptions indicated that different coyotes were involved in the attacks.

The police have special shoot-to-kill orders but have so far had no luck, shooting and missing in three attempts.

“You have a crafty and smart adversary,” Mr. Connors said. He recalled a new truism circulating through the department: “It’s so much easier to catch a criminal — you have fingerprints, you have addresses, you have known associates. With coyotes, you have none of that.”

Mr. Connors said that the city had hired trappers and that the police were working overtime, with special teams assigned to respond to coyote sightings, and others assigned to observation posts in the woods.

The City Council also held a community meeting on Thursday night, which more than 50 people attended, to let residents know how the situation would be addressed. Officials advised the public to scare coyotes away by throwing things at them and even kicking them rather than running in fear, which would only embolden the animals, they said.

“Kick it; fight back,” said Kevin Clarke, of the state Department of Environmental Conservation. “Do what you have to do to protect your family.”

He did, however, discourage vigilantism.

Coyote experts — it is a small but vibrant community —said that the animals were thriving across the country, and that clashes were inevitable.

Stanley D. Gehrt, an associate professor at Ohio State University who specializes in coyotes and has a Google Alert set up for “coyote attack,” said some coyote populations in cities and suburbs had become so used to humans that they had lost their fear of them.

“They find a bounty of food, they have a lack of predators, there’s no hunting and trapping,” Dr. Gehrt said. “Once they can crash that threshold into that urbanized landscape, they find that the living is pretty good.”

He added: “It’s not just us encroaching on their territory. They’re encroaching on us.”

Back in Rye, Hunter Wright, an 8-year-old resident of Los Angeles, where coyotes are far more common than outside New York, had lots of advice for his cousins, whom he was visiting. After all, he said, coyotes killed two of his cats and maimed a third. His words were simple: Don’t run. If there’s a tree, climb it. And most important, don’t look them in the eye. “That’s when they start running and biting you,” Hunter said.

Paul D. Curtis, an associate professor at Cornell University Cooperative Extension, said the best thing to do would be to “yell, clap, throw stones, whatever it takes to get the coyote to move on so that it’s not comfortable in the area.”

Along Purchase Street, Rye’s main drag, and at every coffee shop, people traded coyote stories — there was the one who jumped in a minivan filled with children, and the one spotted by the creek.

“I hate to be one of those people who say ‘Something should be done,’ ” Ms. Wright said, as she watched her children play in the grass. “But maybe something should be done.”

[DYLAN150]

Cascade Way resident warns neighbors after seeing coyote kill dog
Longview Washington
Steve Harvey was enjoying a morning stroll early Sunday when he heard a dog start yelping.
He turned back and the small white dog he'd just seen scampering at the corner of Cascade Way and Cedar Place was now in a coyote's mouth. The dog didn't survive.

"It was a rather traumatizing thing to see," Harvey said.

Harvey has heard of coyotes in the Longview's Cascade Way neighborhood from time to time, but he never expected to see a small dog attacked.

"It was kind of a harsh realization that this is still a possibly, even in town," he said.

Harvey doesn't know the dog's owner, though he did contact the Humane Society in case anyone was looking for the dog. But he said he wants to alert other pet owners to be aware of the dangers. His own cat lives indoors, but Harvey worries about other cats and dogs in the neighborhood.

State Department of Fish and Wildlife officials said coyotes do live in the area — and basically every part of the state. However, state officers say they don't trap the German shepard-size animals unless they endanger humans. For the most part, coyotes are scared of people and will run away when they see one. Cats and small dogs aren't as lucky — especially if the coyotes have become more comfortable in a city setting.

"If they get habituated to people, that tends to make them a little bolder," said Craig Bartlett, a Fish and Wildlife spokesman.

[GoingDown]

"If they get habituated to people, that tends to make them a little bolder," said Craig Bartlett, a Fish and Wildlife spokesman.


And that is the problem with allowing them to live in the city limits.

They're losing their fear of us.

I have installed barbed wire on the fence in my back yard, after getting permission from the landlord. And I've been doing some target practice with my pellet gun. Coyotes will be in for a surprise if they try to get my Chihuahuas.

When I hear them howl out in the alley at night, I get on my ladder, shine a bright light at them and throw rocks at them. They take off and run away. They seem to have stopped coming around my area. At least, I haven't heard them howling for the past week or so. I was hearing them every night.

The neighbor's chickens just fly up into a big pecan tree in the neighbor's yard and then fly from there over the fence and the barbed wire doesn't stop them from coming into my yard. I've been feeding them carrot peels and stuff like that, and they go crazy for them.

[GoingDown]

These coyotes are a menace! Now they're going around biting people in Metro Phoenix.

Unfortunately, nothing will probably be done until some child gets killed or badly injured.

http://www.azfamily.com/news/Coyotes-bite-3-people-in-one-Peoria-housing-development-142714525.html

[UnderH2OMom]

I live in a well populated area of Orlando, Fl and a couple weeks ago I was pulling into our development and I saw a guy chasing a small dog down the street. I pulled my car up to the guy and asked him if he wanted me to help him catch his dog, as I was in a car and he was on foot. He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Lady, that was a coyote, not my dog". Oops. We had a good laugh after that and he told me he had lived in this development for years and just recently started spotting them.

[DYLAN150]

I spotted 3 out back this morning. They tried to catch the neighborhood cats but had no luck this morning.
I tried to paste a picture but couldn't.