October 2, 2009
Solving Problems with Coyotes
Coyotes almost certainly do humans more good than harm by keeping a natural balance between animals and landscapes
John Harrison
Trying to eliminate coyotes isn’t the answer. Our best bet is to learn what interests and attracts the coyote to our homes in the first place, and then use strategies for avoiding, or humanely resolving conflicts.
People often live with coyotes nearby and never see them. Occasional night choruses are the only evidence that they are there. We, and they, have a long way to go together in learning how to live in an increasingly urban world, and then, of course, how to live with each other.
What attracts coyotes to urban areas?
Common conflicts and solutions
Aversive conditioning
Why killing coyotes doesn’t work
Public health concerns
Resources
What attracts coyotes to urban areas?
The promise of food can lure coyotes into suburban yards and create a “yards are good places to look for food” mindset. Without the lure of food or other attractants, their visits will be infrequent and brief. But a coyote who finds food in one yard may well search for food in others.
Food
Deliberately feeding coyotes is wrong. You may enjoy the sight of wild animals who regularly visit your yard for handouts, but this is a sure way to habituate them to humans in a way that is likely to lead to conflicts. Here are some other general rules about feeding:
- Avoid feeding pets outside. If you do, feed only during the day and remove the food bowl after your pet finished her meal.
- In dry conditions, water can be as much an attractant as food, so remove bowls set outside for pets and make watering cans unavailable.
- If you compost, be sure to use enclosed bins and do not compost meat or fish scraps.
- Good housekeeping, such as regularly raking areas around bird feeders can also help discourage coyote activity near residences.
- Keep trash in high-quality containers with tight-fitting lids. For good measure, don't place the cans at the curb until the morning of collection.
Bag especially attractive food wastes, such as meat scraps or leftover pet food. If it is several days before garbage will be picked up, freeze them temporarily or haul directly to a dumpster or other secure storage container.
Shelter
Coyotes are secretive animals, and studies have shown they can live for a long time in close proximity to dense human settlements without ever being noticed. Such coyotes are abiding by the rules we set for minimal conflicts, and should be left alone.
In the spring, when coyotes give birth and begin to raise young, they concentrate their activities around dens or burrows in which the young are sheltered. At these times, they may become highly defensive and territorial, and challenge any other coyote or dog that comes close to the pups. People walking their dogs in parks and wooded areas may run in to these coyotes and even be challenged by them to back off. Rarely, fights occur, probably most often when the dog is off lead. It’s important to recognize such incidents for what they are: defense of space, not random attacks.
Common conflicts and solutions
Killing free-roaming pets
Individual coyotes can be serious predators of cats and small dogs. Although coyotes are primarily nocturnal, the best way to minimize risk to pets is not to leave them out unattended at any time. Don’t allow your cat to roam freely. Ideally, cats should be kept indoors regardless of whether there is a coyote in the area or not—to keep cats safe and healthy as well as to keep them from killing wildlife.
If you decide not to keep your cats inside and there is little natural tree cover around, you can give them an escape route from pursuing coyotes by installing “cat posts.” These can be long, climbable wooden posts (four inches by four inches or corner posts) that stand out of the ground at least six to eight feet.
Protect poultry or hobby animals from coyotes (and other predators) with fencing (both structural and electric) and by ensuring that they are confined in sturdy cages or pens each evening.
Coyotes can leap walls and fences of five to six feet fairly easily, but you can install a coyote “roller” on the top to deter them. Fences should be secure at ground level, since coyotes are good diggers.
Feral Cat Colonies
People who feed feral cats are often concerned coyotes might prey on the cats. These concerns are justified, as coyotes will be attracted not only to the source of food provided for the cats but to the cats as prey themselves. Here are some general suggestions for keeping the cats safer:
- Feed cats only by day and pick up any leftovers immediately. Let them eat for 20 minutes or so and then that’s it for the day.
- Provide escape routes for cats. In treeless areas, erect cat posts; where there are trees, it means place feeding stations near them.
- Elevate the feeding station beyond coyotes’—but not the cats’—reach. Coyotes might figure out how to jump onto the station, so some tinkering with the design may be necessary.
- Discourage/harass any coyotes seen on the property. Go after them aggressively, using the techniques described in aversive conditioning. Make them feel uncomfortable.
Danger to People (Coyote Attacks)
There is a considerable controversy among wildlife professionals about coyote attacks on people. Coyotes do occasionally approach people aggressively and sometimes even boldly when they are used (or habituated) to people. Sometimes, a coyote will have been fed by someone else and approach other people, thinking they will provide food.
Bites or other injuries are very rare, and there is only one recorded incidence of a death; a child in Southern California in the 1970s. In the majority of unprovoked attacks, or where attacks on pets are misinterpreted as attacks on people, children seem to be the object of attention. These events, rare as they are, are serious and warrant serious response.
A coyote who has bitten or attacked a person should be removed from the population. Most health departments mandate that the coyote be tested for rabies, which requires that the offending coyote be killed for testing. Under no circumstances does such an attack warrant the killing of coyotes at large, in an effort to reduce the population or simply ring up the bill on coyotes as an act of retribution.
Damage to Gardens
Coyotes can get into gardens and damage some crops, usually commercial crops rather than home gardens. But coyotes’ affinity for melons and a tendency to take no more than a bite or two out of each one can sometimes lead to substantial damage to a field of these vegetables.
Possible solutions:
- Fencing is the best answer to any really serious wildlife problem in a garden, but coyotes rarely, if ever, cause enough damage to warrant that expense.
- Scaring devices, such as the Critter-Gitter™.
- The Scarecrow™ sprinkler.
- Sometimes any object left in the garden will spook a coyote. Try a sweat-soaked shirt from after a jog.
Aversive conditioning (hazing)
Aversive conditioning is the use of certain tools and practices to provide an unpleasant experience to convince a wild animal to avoid an area. The objective is to change a behavior. When it is applied repeatedly, aversive conditioning can be called hazing.
Coyotes who’ve adapted to urban and suburban environments, may realize there are few real threats and feel safe being active by day or visiting yards even when people are present. These bold coyotes should not be tolerated or gawked at, but definitely given the message that they should not be so brazen:
- Shout at them.
- Chase them.
- Spray them with a hose.
- Fill a small coffee can with a few marbles or rocks, so that when you shake it, it produces a loud rattling noise.
- Throw a tennis ball or small rocks at them while yelling.
Some communities where coyotes have become controversial have even organized “aversion squads” of volunteers who will respond to coyote sightings and aggressively haze these animals.
Repellents
There are no repellents registered for use on coyotes. The repellents used for dogs and cats, however, might work to discourage coyotes, but as a practical measure this approach to resolving conflicts with coyotes is probably of limited practicality.
Why killing coyotes doesn’t work
By killing unwary coyotes, human beings have left behind only the most wary and best adapted animals to survive and reproduce. This selective pressure has created an animal perfectly adapted to thwart humanity’s attempts at lethal control and persecution. Urban coyotes have been very well researched, especially in the Chicago area, where studies show that coyotes settle as mated pairs into defended home ranges, preventing populations from growing beyond a certain point. Coyotes without mates and territories become “transients,” who move through other coyote’s home ranges but keep on moving until they find their own space or a coyote who has lost a mate and is receptive to taking up house-keeping with another.
What this leads to are two principal rules for people and coyotes in the current environment:
- Available space will be filled.
- Removing coyotes is, at best, a temporary measure.
Better the coyotes you know than those you don’t. If the territory holders aren’t causing problems, leave them be. They will keep away other coyotes who might.
Unfortunately, new strategies, newer tools, more extensive programs, and more and more resources are aimed at killing coyotes, to less and less effect. The few voices that suggest acknowledging coyotes as an important part of the natural scene sadly remain largely unheard amid the demands for ever more aggressive deadly control.
Public health concerns
Coyotes, like all warm-blooded animals, may contract rabies. Their close kinship to dogs places coyotes at greater risk where there are populations of unvaccinated domestic dogs. Recent advances in rabies control using oral bait to immunize wild animals without having to capture them have made controlling the spread of rabies in coyotes much more feasible than in the past.
Resources
» Purchase a copy of Wild Neighbors in our shop.