Article - Call of the not so wild: Coyotes in big cities, suburbs

[JNA]

From the AP Wire:
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wi...on-apnewjersey

Highlights:

Forget Wile E. Coyote's hapless pursuits in the cartoon wasteland. His real-life kin are prowling the country's concrete jungles, and they're anything but a laughing matter.

In more heavily populated areas, they're drawn to the ample rabbits, rodents and small house pets that are easy pickings compared to running down a fawn in the forest. Parks, golf courses and well-tended residential areas provide a good food source and cover. Throw in dog food left outside or food scraps in trash cans, and you sweeten the chance a coyote comes calling.

But experts say there should be no expectation coyotes will be purged from cities and suburbs any time soon.

"People have been trying to wipe out coyotes for 200 years," Bluett says, "and they've failed miserably."

Related article listing incidents:
Case of urban coyotes popping up lately across the U.S.
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wi...on-apnewjersey

Saw the video about the one in Chicago - on WGN.

Has your fair city had a coyote siting or worse incident ?

With my fair county's landscape range I am surprised that I have not heard of an incident.

[Mud Princess]

Certainly no official coyote sitings that I'm aware of... but I have heard them in my neighborhood on occasion, and I have no doubt that they are in the area, given the availability of deer, rabbits, and wild turkeys. I am not concerned about it. Honestly, I am much more worried about the damage caused by ATVs in the woods, and getting poison ivy!

[Bubba]

There have been plenty of sightings and incidents of pets being eaten in metro Atlanta, especially around the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park (where you have undisturbed tracts of NPS land surrounded by suburbia).

[Cardinal]

We have some in the woods behind our home in suburban Milwaukee. I have seen one a couple times. Our kids (a 35-pound terrier mix and a 60-pound collie/husky) will sometimes be unwilling to leave the porch when they go out for the last time in the evening. We suspect that the coyotes are close then.

[ofos]

Our kids (a 35-pound terrier mix and a 60-pound collie/husky) will sometimes be unwilling to leave the porch when they go out for the last time in the evening. We suspect that the coyotes are close then.

Coyotes and bobcats are pretty common around Dallas and it's suburbs. There are annual stories, usually unsubstantiated, of folks claiming that their pets have been killed. No doubt that happens but malicious kids usually do most of it.

We have another place out in the country and we've noted that our dogs (65-75 pound chow/golden retriever mixes) stay strangely quiet when the coyotes start to howl but react normally to dogs barking.

[tsc]

Coyotes are very common in the NYMetro area. I live about 40 miles north of Manhattan... near a large open space parcel. This time of year the pups are born...and do they ever howl at dusk. Cornell University is doing a study of the Coyotes in our area.

http://www.nycoyote.org/

[Mercer]

We just had a brown bear swim from Maury Island to DesMoines WA (small island in the Puget Sound 2 miles from mainland). DesMoines is a small suburb about 10 miles south of downtown Seattle. Needless to say the bear was quikly tranquilized and shipped to the Cascades.

There are constantly reports of cougar sitings in the sprawling suburbs. Little kitties and puppies (for some reason cougars prefer poodles) are on the dinner menu on a weekly basis.

http://archives.seattletimes.nwsourc...531&query=bear

[illinoisplanner]

Coyotes are a BIG problem in my neck of the woods. I live in an area that only 15 years ago was mostly farmland and is now consumed by suburban development. There are still splotchy areas of woods, prairie, wetlands, and farmland, and of course, tons of landscaping which makes the area look nice but at the same time attracts the coyotes to make a habitat in the developed areas.

In my area, coyotes have been known to harm small pets and sometimes children. In fact, recently in the news, a local woman was walking her two poodles. Out of nowhere, a coyote came out of the woods and snatched one of the dogs. The coyote dropped the dog after a man yelled at it. The owner was able to retrieve the dog, who died on the way to the hospital.

Deer are also a problem. It's not uncommon to be driving through the middle of a residential neighborhood and see a deer eating vegetables and plants in somebody's backyard garden.

But what are you going to do? People move out to the burbs to live closer to nature, right?

[craines]

In LA coyotes in the downtown region are not yet popping up but they are abundent in Griffith Park ( Its around 4300 acres and a lot of it is semi-native.)

[The One]

This place CRAWLS with coyotes....day....night....twilight.....dawn.....dusk.....you name it! I see them on the roads, by the trees, by the lakes, by the by and so on and so forth...... I met Wilie E. Coyote the other night while taking the trash out.....he's a good drinking buddy of mine now.....we both HATE roadrunners

My parents tell me stories about coyotes following runners around Sloans Lake in Denver and during broad daylight! A side effect of those great radial trail networks

[Richmond Jake]

They're in San Francisco, too.

SAN FRANCISCO
Yes, there really are urban coyotes
Leave them be and don't feed them, says animal control

Animal Care and Control officials in San Francisco have a few words for people who have spotted coyotes recently in Golden Gate Park and Bernal Heights: "We know."

And: "Don't feed them."

And: "No, they won't eat your kids."

Well, they're not likely to.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg...AGERQ9IL91.DTL