Comments on: Wile E. Is Getting Too Bold

By: Sgt. Mom

Sgt. Mom — Wed, 14 May 2008 19:38:38 +0000

My parents live in a very rural part of Northern San Diego County, where you expect to have coytotes around. They are doing their best to keep their current cat indoors all the time, since they have lost nearly half a dozen cats to coyotes over the years. Having an outdoors cat where they live is basically a death-sentance for the cat, even if the cat never goes very far from the house. I am not the least bit surprised to hear of them attacking children.

By: Joshua

Joshua — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:46:26 +0000

Put up a PA system on your patio and play RAP music at concert level. The coyotes won’t stop until they’re in the next county.

That would be good advice, if only it didn’t have the same effect on most human beings. :P

By: David

David — Wed, 14 May 2008 02:54:37 +0000

We've got coyotes right here in Providence on College Hill. These recent news reports got me looking into the local situation, summarized and linked here. Seems that humans feeding coyotes are the reason behind their proliferation here. Some of it is inadvertent (unburied road kill, garbage left uncovered), but I was shocked to find out how many people are deliberately feeding the critters.

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 13 May 2008 05:49:43 +0000

When I was a newlywed back in the early ’70s coyote hides were fairly valuable. Money was tight and I got my luxuries by hunting, skinning, curing and selling coyote hides. My hunting dogs were fed mostly coyotes and jackrabbits. Then the bottom fell out of the fur prices.
It isn’t that coyotes act different in cities, people act different. Out here if there is a coyote sighted someone will peg a shot at it. About half the houses around have calves, sheep or goats, foals in season or chickens, geese and ducks. Most of us have a rifle or shotgun loaded and ready “ahint the door”.
Here you can still see a boy on a bike with a .22 across the handlebars with a dog running alongside. And nobody calls the SWAT teams. Well, it is different these days, sometimes it’s a girl now.

By: beatrix

beatrix — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:15:38 +0000

Very interesting. We have a large coyote population here in rural upstate NY, but I have never heard of an attack. Quite the contrary — it’s quite common to see one at a distance, but all you have to do is take a step or two in its direction and it’s gone. Are all the attacks being reported in suburbs, as opposed to rural areas? I wonder if there’s something going on in more built-up areas that affects their behavior.

By: Dan from Madison

Dan from Madison — Tue, 13 May 2008 00:01:03 +0000

RAH – I would agree that hunting laws will be relaxed as more people get attacked. But what needs to be done more than anything is to outlaw people feeding and coddling these vicious animals, and their prey. Just read The Beast in the Garden. You will learn more from that book than I could ever think about putting in a comment section. Although the book is about cougars, the lessons learned apply to coyotes, wolves (which we have larger amounts of now in Northern Wisconsin) and other animals.

By: RAH

RAH — Mon, 12 May 2008 23:30:51 +0000

Dan from Madison,

I have been reading upon the cougar problem on the west coast and have notice that the rangers or wildlife officers generally do take hounds to track cougars in attack incidents. Not always sucessfully. I may have been wrong on the laws about using hounds for hunting. I guess the problem is getting bad in British Columbia, Washington. Oregon, California and Colorado. I am not sure the laws there,but I agree the most effective hunting method is with hounds. It also may train cougars to run from humans and dogs instead of thinking them easy dinner.I expect as parents get scared of coyote and cougar attacks on their kids that laws will be changed. That may be the reason that wildife officials have downplayed the incidents.

By: Dan from Madison

Dan from Madison — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:58:52 +0000

RAH – hunting with a pack of dogs with an experienced handler is the only real way to hunt a cougar. I say experienced handler because the cougar needs to be tracked for a little while until you get to know its pattern, then you have a good place to start with the dogs (cougars roam large areas on a regular basis). I think this type of hunting will be made legal in more places – and more necessary – when more attacks of humans begin, which seem inevitable. These animals such as coyote and cougars being allowed to condition themselves to humans and the human environs is a recipe for disaster.

By: RAH

RAH — Mon, 12 May 2008 18:03:07 +0000

On the east coast coyotes have been increasing and they do breed with dogs. I have heard of fox hunts that have picked up coyote instead of fox in NY and PA. There are packs of hounds that hunt coyotes and they do adopt fox like tactics when hunted.

Unless a large dog is taken by a pack of coyotes, dogs can protect themselves. Cats have been killed by dogs and humans for a long time. Cats should be able to hide and avoid coyote unless they have been too conditioned and too friendly.

California and Washington states I beleive have made illegal the hunting of cougar and other game animals with pack dogs. If they really want to lessen the numbers just OK a few dog hunts who will track and flush the predators.

By: jerry

jerry — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:56:31 +0000

Eastern Coyotes have more dog in them which makes them larger (The mate with bigger dogs and eat the small ones) and less afriad of humans those out west

By: NVSmith

NVSmith — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:44:18 +0000

A comment and a question: coyotes are about the only native critter to have increased in range and territory since our colonial period. Once almost exclusively western they are now gound coast to coast. The question: is anyone sure that these crittes are pure coyotes and not hybrid coydogs? I remember reading reports years ago about feral dog-coyote mixtures that were considered to combine the worst attribute of both.

By: willis

willis — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:19:02 +0000

Put up a PA system on your patio and play RAP music at concert level. The coyotes won’t stop until they’re in the next county.

By: renminbi

renminbi — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:01:24 +0000

I suppose Hawaii is the only state without coyotes,or am I wrong?

By: Dan from Madison

Dan from Madison — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:47:52 +0000

Perusing the wiki on coyotes, it seems that 60% of the 224,000 sheep deaths due to predation in 2004 were caused by coyotes. I had no idea. I am beginning to think that allowing these pests to not be scared of humans may be as bad as allowing cougars to do the same thing.

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:22:54 +0000

A coyote attacked the 6-year-old son of an acquaintance of mine about a year ago. His older sister eventually scared the animal off. (The kid needed a lot of stitches on his scalp but as far as I know recovered without permanent injury.) This was in suburban New Jersey. The comments section of the local newspaper’s online article about the incident was full of comments from environmentalist jerks who blamed the kid or otherwise thought it was their duty to take the side of wild animals against people.

By: Jim Lee

Jim Lee — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:50:08 +0000

I have a nice Marlin .22 with a 4X scope and a legal suppressor attached. With .22 Stinger or Yellow Jacket hollow points it’s a very effective anti-coyote weapon at up to a hundred yards or so.

If you’re thinking of getting a suppressor (silencer) be prepared for a 4-6 months wait, ATF does not place a high priority on issuing these tax stamps.

Coyotes are a very common sight and night sound in the nearby Great Smoky Mountains National Park where I enjoy backcountry camping and also where one is not allowed to legally carry firearms for any reason.

Donkeys and burros are also natural enemies of coyotes and lots of east Tennessee farmers and cattlemen are adding them to their herds for protection. Coyotes are capable of bringing down and killing young calves and horses.

A burro will stomp a coyote to death with its sharp hooves and almost never loses a fight with them. Not surprisingly coyotes are afraid of them like they used to be of humans.

By: jerry

jerry — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:49:10 +0000

Jim:

Unless your dogs are small or are de-natured show dogs then you don’t need a gun to deal with the occasional coyote. Just let them loose if it appears to be a threat and you will have one dead coyote.

I encountered a lone coyote in an Arlington, Virginia Park last winter while walking my Coonhound. She didn’t go bananas like she does with a fox but she was ready to defend her “packmate.” I suspect if I was walking with one of my friends who has two Plott Hounds they all would have been raring to go at it with the unfortunate coyote. As it was, confronted with a dog of similar size the coyote made off in a different direction.

Unless you live in the country where there are large coyote packs, a large dog will be enough to send a coyote packing. Predators aren’t interested in replaying “the thrilla in Manila” scenario. Winning ugly ultimately results in starvation or death from infection.

By: Dan from Madison

Dan from Madison — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:43:54 +0000

Jim Miller – feeding the coyotes? Argh, that is so stupid I can’t believe people do things like that. I guess they paid a very steep price.

By: renminbi

renminbi — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:43:38 +0000

Something analogous is politicians losing fear of their voters-I’m thinking of Labour promising a referendum on the EU’s new constitution and reneging,or EU member states ratifying without public approval. In Europe and the UK the political class has contempt for the public and the feelings are returned. In the UK the politicians lie much more shamelessly than in the past,or so I hear.
Here,Republicans are in trouble because they act like Democrats (corrupt and profligate with pork);they don’t seem to understand that what is tolerated by Dem constituencies, is not accepted by Repub voters.The point is that the political animals are losing their fear and are acting more shamelessly. I don’t think that is good,in the long run, for the animals,political or otherwise. And it certainly isn’t good for the public.

By: John Richardson

John Richardson — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:06:06 +0000

If it weren’t for FDR’s full employment act for displaced revenuers aka the National Firearms Act, we could easily be like the rest of the civilized world and have suppressed firearms. As it is, if I want a suppressed Ruger 10-22 .22LR carbine to deal with coyotes and other varmints, I’d have to pay a $200 tax, go through an extensive background check, be fingerprinted, etc. I still think it would be an excellent way for urban and suburban dwellers to deal with no longer fearful of humans coyotes.