Cronaca: Coyote attacks

May 12, 2008

Coyote attacks

Zoicks! A spate of attacks on children in Los Angeles' eastern suburbs:

An increase in coyote attacks on humans in the past decade is most evident in Southern California, where bedroom communities have quickly pressed into wilderness, allowing the canine scavengers to roam backyards for food.

Since the 1970s, more than 100 coyote attacks on humans in Southern California have been recorded, with half the incidents involving children age 10 and younger.

And coyotes are everywhere now: we've got 'em here in Providence, right on College Hill -- hardly a community recently "pressed into the wilderness". I've not heard of any attacks on humans locally, but this should certainly shake the neighbors' complacence.

Spotted via Instapundit Glenn Reynolds, who expresses skepticism about the LA authorities recommendation that desert suburbanites refrain from coyote hunting themselves. He's certainly right that throwing rocks and shouting won't do much to drive the critters out of one's neighborhood, but as long as there's a concerted ongoing official effort to hunt and trap them, I don't see that it's such a bad thing to discourage private coyote hunts. His concern that coyotes, unhunted, will become increasingly bold and unafraid of humans seems entirely apropos, however, for those more urbanized areas where no official coyote abatement measures are being taken at all.

ADDENDUM: Interesting tidbits from Wikipedia on coyotes:

Researchers studied coyote populations in Chicago over a seven-year period (2000-2007), proposing that coyotes have adapted well to living in densely populated urban environments while avoiding contact with humans. They found, among other things, that urban coyotes tend to live longer than their rural counterparts, kill rodents and small pets, and live anywhere from parks to industrial areas. The researchers estimate that there are up to 2,000 coyotes living in "the greater Chicago area" and that this circumstance may well apply to many other urban landscapes in North America.

And I wonder if this is part of why we don't see many cats running loose in our neighborhood:

Approximately 3 to 5 pets attacked by coyotes are brought into the Animal Urgent Care hospital of South Orange County each week, the majority of which are dogs, since cats typically do not survive the attacks. Scat analysis collected near Claremont, California revealed that coyotes relied heavily on pets as a food source in winter and spring.

For more Rhode Island coyote information, there's the Narragansett Bay Coyote Study website. This page is of particular interest, noting that the packs studied were growing in size and boldness because people were giving them so much food. Some was unintentional -- roadkill left unburied, deer shot by hunters but not recovered, open refuse piles, leaving food in the open for other animals -- but a surprising amount was deliberate:

Invariably people feeding coyotes have good intentions and do not realize it is a really bad idea. For example, one person was feeding coyotes dog food in a neighborhood woodlot with the hope of distracting the resident coyotes from pursuing the neighbors cats which were being left outdoors at night.

Unfortunately it had the opposite effect -- the dog food caused coyotes to be attracted to the neighborhood and the woodlot became a favorite hangout (day and night) greatly increasing the risk to the neighborhood cats. Other people we have spoken with feed coyotes because they enjoy watching them. This too causes coyotes to make regular visits to the feeders' yard. They may take neighborhood pets en route or appear frighteningly bold to neighbors unaware that the coyotes are being, basically, trained to expect food in the neighborhood.

Think of it this way -- if there are four coyote packs on Jamestown and six packs on Aquidneck island it only takes 10 people feeding (one in each coyote pack territory) to tame and train all the coyotes in Newport County to expect food near humans.

As the study group concludes, the management of coyotes appears to be inextricably tied to the management of people. It might be different out West where human settlements are moving into coyote territory, to be sure, but in the long-established urban areas in the East and Midwest where coyotes have made such a dramatic recent arrival, control measures may not be as difficult to implement as all that.

Posted by David on May 12, 2008 11:23 AM

Comments

One year it's sharks. Another year it's killer bees. This year's designated attack animal is the couote.

Posted by: Fred on May 12, 2008 5:26 PM

Back in 1989 I went running in Orange County in a heavily populated area along Aliso Creek (where there is now a toll road) and found myself running in a pack of coyotes. There were about ten of them, or so my imagination told me, I could only see three of them clearly. I was at the end of my run so I was quite tired and they were pacing about ten yards from me on all sides. I was running six minute miles in those days and they looked like they were hardly making an effort. The path took me up to the road and they left me.

I always knew that they were eating pets. You could hear them howl at night followed by a playful dog bark, then a howl, then a dog bark, then a frightened dog bark, and then silence.

Posted by: Skyler on May 13, 2008 4:29 PM

There should be no astonishment that the coyote population has increased dramatically with significant inroads in urban enironments. The species is intelligent, adaptable, fecund and shows parental care, has few if any predators or competition other than humans. Similarly, as our population grows (we are 330 million now!) and more development occurs expanding urbanized environments, increased contacts with coyotes will occur, just as increased contacts with the puma are taking place. Heck, joggers are being attacked and/or killed by mountain lions, and old ladies in Florida on porch swings get dragged off by the neighborhood alligator. That there is no plan in place to control coyote populations is also not unexpected. We are usually in a reactive mode and the threat has to reach "problem" levels before organized action is taken. Of course if contol programs are instituted, it is likely that special interest groups will initiate proceedings to prevent such actions. Such is the normal process these days.

Posted by: Donald Wolberg on May 14, 2008 9:24 AM

last night, in the canyons of north claremont CA., my wife and i heard a large pack of coyotes howling and excitedly barking (not a rare sound here). i'm always interested in getting a glimpse of them, so i took my dog and started walking in the direction of the commotion. i guessed that there were at least 10-12 of them by all the howling. after walking up an unlit, windy mountain road for about 1 mile, we hadn't heard any more of them and i assumed they had moved further into the mountains. it was almost completely dark by this time, but out of nowhere, we heard the very large pack start up again. i estimate they were about 50-100 yards away but behind a wall next to the road. we backtracked about 50 feet to where the wall began and right as we were about to make the turn and see what was going on behind the wall, at least 3 coyotes were coming to the exact same spot, from the other side and met us, very aggressively. they ran at us, not wary at all like i'm used to of coyotes. their behavior reminded me of some aggressive guard dogs, protecting their territory. at least 3 were running towards us, barking and growling until they were about 25-30 feet away. they exhibited no fear at all and i felt like i was within seconds of being attacked by them. they spread out horizontally, seeming to be attempting to circle us, and they were all very worked up and clearly focused on us alone. my dog (a 14 pound female pug) was probably what intrigued them most, so i quickly pulled her in and picked her up. the coyotes, at this point, showed zero fear and were barking at us in a way i've never seen them do! my adrenaline kicked in, as this instantly became a very threatening situation and i picked up a stick with my other hand and slapped it on the ground alot. like an idiot, my first reaction was to bark back, which they seemed to find as a challenge and didn't back down from at all. then i started yelling at the top of my lungs "go away! leave us alone!" and hitting the stick on the ground more (while clutching my little dog in the other arm!). after about 5-10 seconds of yelling human words and showing aggression towards them, they stared backing off and i had to walk home in a different direction that wound up being about 3 times as long.
throughout the whole short ordeal, i could hear the rest of the pack about 50-100 yards behind the 3 that approached us, but i don't know how many were actually watching us and thinking about snatching my dog. i clearly saw 3 very large, healthy ones but it was really dark and they were spreading around us very fast, so i could have missed others. plus, as fast as coyotes can run, the whole pack could have joined them within seconds.
anyway, this encounter was completely my fault and i learned my lesson. do not underestimate the aggression and confidence of the local coyotes in claremont. their sheepish and wary demeanor when they are alone and roaming through a city street is drastically different than the way they behave when in larger numbers and in the comfortable surroundings of the canyons just 1-2 miles above the freeway. they're crazy!

Posted by: buster on May 19, 2008 4:42 AM

i also live in rhode island, and i'm familiar with the narragansett bay coyote study as well as the policies of the fish and wildlife division of the state dept of environmental management. i'm struck by the complacency that these entities display regarding what is rapidly becoming a serious problem in the state.

it is an indisputable fact that in rhode island, the coyote is an invasive species. they are not being driven out of their native habitat by increased development; but rather have moved into an ecological niche that was vacated by wolves a long, l-o-n-g time ago. while botanical and marine invasives are regarded as serious threats, the trend in wildlife management for the past few decades is to preach tolerance of top-tier terrestrial predators. i think that policy is ill-advised.

recently, the lead biologist for the NBCS made a presentation in jamestown, ri, in which she said that coyotes could be categorized as "good coyotes" or "bad coyotes". i think this is not a particularly helpful statement for a scientist to make, because it implies a kind of moral component that should be completely absent in describing a wild animal. coyotes are neither "good" nor "bad"; they simply acquire survival strategies based on their particular environment. if their particular environment presents them with an opportunity to eat your pet, they are not going to mull over the morality of doing that. The same goes for your 5-year-old child playing in your backyard kiddie pool. we and our pets are simply protein to them, and whether or not they mount an attack depends entirely on what they estimate to be their chances of success.

the presenter also stated that coyotes will manage their birth rate based on the available food supply. this statement is somewhat misleading in that what might be considered by a coyote to be "available food supply" far surpasses what the average person imagines it to be. coyotes are very resourceful opportunistic hunters and foragers... they've proven that by their ability to survive and thrive in some very harsh environments such as those found in the desert southwest. imagine the population size that the biomass available in protein-rich new england can support., and the idea that coyotes can regulate their birthrate based on food supply becomes much less comforting.

people who support the continued benign policies regarding coyotes are fond of saying that coyotes attacks on humans are very rare, and that in contrast millions of people are attacked by dogs each year. i consider this to be a specious argument. if 65 million coyotes were living in homes with human families, citing this statistic might have some validity. using this "logic", just about any wild animal would fare better in comparison. grizzly bear attacks are comparatively rare too, but i wouldn't want one lumbering into my back yard.

the bottom line is that local wildlife management policy is to throw out the welcome mat for coyotes, and we're supposed to adapt to them. my little cat, whose greatest pleasure is to roll in the fallen oak leaves in our yard and to sit on the crumbling stone walls hunting for mice is supposed to stay inside now. he's forever a prisoner, because we must accommodate the coyotes. we're supposed to carry walking sticks wherever we go so that if a coyote decides to attack us, we can fend them off. i think it's something of an outrage that we are obligated to make allowances for an animal that clearly does not belong here, and to simply wait for the situation to become so dangerous that those whose job it is to manage these animals are forced to at least give the appearance of doing something about it.

anyone who is interested in learning about coyote behaviors and their patterns of aggression can download a paper on the subject at this link:

http://repositories.cdlib.org/anrrec/hrec/timm_baker_P047/

it's quite the little eye opener.

for those of you who are having problems with coyotes but are loathe to hunt and kill them, i'm currently considering the option of using a paintball gun on them. i think that would be a relatively safe, non-lethal way to send the message that they are not welcome in my yard, and would have the added advantage of allowing us to identify repeat offenders.

Posted by: fran on June 13, 2008 7:25 AM