Althouse: A coyote trotted down our street at 5:06 AM.

June 21, 2015

A coyote trotted down our street at 5:06 AM.

Never seen that before around here. Have seen foxes. I hope they, the coyotes, like the foxes, eat chipmunks.

65 comments:

Michael K said...: Maybe some have traveled east from California. I certainly hope so. We have more than enough.

West Nile virus wiped out the mountain squirrels here so maybe they are looking for more.; 6/21/15, 8:13 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/21/15, 8:17 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: It should be strongly presumed that a coyote on a road is after a road runner.; 6/21/15, 8:18 AM
Original Mike said...: We live close to Hoyt Park. Have also seen coyotes trotting down our street. Lately, my wife has frequently seen a fox as she walks to work. I was within 10 feet of the fox last week in our driveway. We just stood and looked at each other for a little bit, then he trotted off.; 6/21/15, 8:22 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/21/15, 8:34 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: Yesterday in Seattle's Fremont District there was a lot of beaver on the streets.

I am Laslo.; 6/21/15, 8:34 AM
great Unknown said...: They eat chipmunks...and puppies, and rabbits, and just about anything not too large and not too fast.; 6/21/15, 8:35 AM
Unknown said...: They'll eliminate the feral cat population fairly quickly.; 6/21/15, 8:36 AM
pious agnostic said...: As Rick Perru might say, if you meet the coyote on the road, kill him.; 6/21/15, 8:39 AM
Original Mike said...: When the coyotes show up, so do the "missing cat" flyers on the telephone poles.; 6/21/15, 8:40 AM
lgv said...: They will eat McDonald's, but hey prefer Chick-Fil-A, but who doesn't?

Chipmunks? Sure, if there isn't enough garbage to eat. Cats are easier, they don't climb as well. The like Yorkies, but with Pekinese, they get hungry again after an hour.

I had one saunter across the fairway and pick up my golf ball and leave. I don't think it digested well. I was given a free drop.

We have a bobcat that loves our neighborhood. Far worse than a coyote. We are talking about inside the city of Dallas.; 6/21/15, 8:45 AM
lgv said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/21/15, 8:45 AM
Michael K said...: "They'll eliminate the feral cat population fairly quickly."

Pet cats, too. An outdoor pet cat here has a life expectancy of days. My son's family don't let their cats outside.; 6/21/15, 8:47 AM
Bobber Fleck said...: We have a rabbit epidemic in SE Minnesota. Our neighbor's big, slow lab has killed about 15 so far this spring, which doesn't even put a small dent in their numbers. Meanwhile, coyotes are scarce here. Funny how that works...; 6/21/15, 8:48 AM
lgv said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/21/15, 8:57 AM
Eric the Fruit Bat said...: Coyotes might be the orcs of the canine world. Or maybe the goblins. But they aren't the Uruk-hai. Of that I'm fairly certain.; 6/21/15, 8:59 AM
Bob Ellison said...: I grew up in Phoenix, AZ, where coyotes were a pretty common sight. They look like long-legged dogs. In most of North America, people mis-identify them routinely.

Coyotes tend to be extremely wary of humans. It's difficult to get within 100 yards of one.

They do not eat all the cats and dogs in the neighborhood. This is a weird presumption that I have encountered in places where nobody has ever seen a coyote.

A guy knocked on my front door a few weeks ago to warn me that I should get my dogs inside, because he saw a coyote wandering around. I asked him what it looked like, and he said it was a golden color with a shortish tail. I pointed at my dog and said, "like that?" Yes, it was my dog.; 6/21/15, 9:05 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: If you do end up with a coyote problem, one solution is apparently to reintroduce wolves. On a percentage basis, coyotes were apparently the species most seriously affected by their reintroduction into Yellowstone, by far (I seem to remember about a 50% casualty rate). And without a large herbivore population nearby, the wolf population will ultimately crash too - unless they den up around an elementary school.

We joke about this, but we are living in a part of MT where the wolves are moving back in, and the coyotes are being pushed out. Kinda like, maybe, the gentrification that is being complained about around the church that experienced those shootings a couple days ago. And a lot of other places.; 6/21/15, 9:12 AM
RMc said...: I hope they, the coyotes, like the foxes, eat chipmunks.

What have you got against Alvin, Simon and Theodore? #chipmunklivesmatter; 6/21/15, 9:15 AM
khesanh0802 said...: Coyotes love cats and are very efficient at cleaning up the excess supply.; 6/21/15, 9:17 AM
khesanh0802 said...: @ Bobber Fleck I don't know where you live in SE MN, but we here in Houston County have nightly symphonies from our "'yotes". On the rabbits, it HAS been a prolific year. My Brit has been finding nests all over our place. I imagine the coyotes have too.; 6/21/15, 9:21 AM
Michael K said...: "They do not eat all the cats and dogs in the neighborhood. This is a weird presumption that I have encountered in places where nobody has ever seen a coyote."

A few months ago, a woman in my area was standing talking to a neighbor on her front lawn with her little dog beside her. A coyote, which she thought was a neighbor's dog, trotted up and snatched the little dog and took off.

A couple months ago, a friend who goes to work at 5 AM looked out her window and saw a coyote trotting by with a cat in its mouth. She threw something at it but it didn't even dodge.

Big dogs are probably safe but I have called back my basset hound when he was chasing a coyote a couple of times. They will use one member of a pack, often a female, as a lure for dogs and the pack is around the corner waiting.; 6/21/15, 9:22 AM
Bob Ellison said...: Bruce Hayden, that's an interesting analogy. Grey wolves are the gentry, and coyotes are the downtrodden. Squirrels and rabbits...not sure. And what about the white-tailed deer?

Wolves eat coyotes. Humans have tended not to. Why do humans generally eschew carnivore meat? I discussed this with my son yesterday, and speculated that carnivore meat may be tougher, more lean, and more gamey than herbivore meat.

We eat omnivorous birds like chickens, but they grow tough after only a few months. Hence the coq au vin.; 6/21/15, 9:27 AM
Bob Ellison said...: I wonder, too, and am too lazy to research it online, why the successfully surviving large carnivores of North America (wolves, coyotes, mountain lions) are so skittish, usually, around humans. Once in a while a puma eats a human, but in general, the American big cats and dogs stay away. It's as though entire species have learned to avoid our stench.; 6/21/15, 9:35 AM
Bob Ellison said...: Bears, too, of course. Sorry, bears, to have left you out.; 6/21/15, 9:35 AM
jimbino said...: Coyotes do eat cats, and I'd love to have some of them, as well as Chinese and Koreans, around here to deal with the cat problem and save Texas songbirds.; 6/21/15, 9:39 AM
Paddy O said...: "It's difficult to get within 100 yards of one.... They do not eat all the cats and dogs in the neighborhood. This is a weird presumption that I have encountered in places where nobody has ever seen a coyote."

Like people, coyote populations differ. I was sitting in an open field near a ravine in eastern LA county. I had coyotes come quite near. One I start walking towards, within about 15 feet, and he stood his ground. He was eyeing me up. I made a loud noise, he sauntered away. Same place. Four coyotes were on the path leading towards the ravine. Three went into the brush, one came towards me. I was sitting on a lawn chair. He did a lap full circle around me about 15 feet away. I chatted with him, had my bag ready to block. He wasn't afraid, was curious.

I moved to local mountains. No cats at all in the neighborhood. I know friends who walked their dog, and coyotes would try to separate the dog from the owner. If not on a leash, a dog would run after one coyote only to find others in between. During a fire scare, my mom had her doves in a cage in my dad's jeep, ready for evacuation. Left them in the car overnight, doors closed. I was there at the time to help, went outside, door of the jeep was open, coyote inside the jeep, two dead doves. They're opportunists, and coyotes used to people take advantage of people's presence, including pets. They'll run away if chased by anything bigger. I chased more than a few to keep away from our house.; 6/21/15, 9:49 AM
Big Mike said...: We used to have a large black snake that made its way around the neighborhood, slowly moving from house to house and then off to neighboring developments. It seemed to make regular circuits and it did a great job keeping the chipmunk population down. After it got run over we've been deluged by chipmunks -- there are at least 3 of them digging up our flower bed.

About a year ago I caught a fox staring into our basement sliding doors while I was down there working and a couple months back another one (or perhaps the same one) was checking out the squirrel and chipmunk population in our yard while relaxing under a neighbor's tree. Maybe he'll take care of things for us.

I've even seen a skinny juvenile coyote entering our neighborhood from a nearby regional park. A little smaller than a fox, longer legs, mangy brown-colored fur, bushy tail. No mistaking that for someone's pet.

Considering how close we are to a major city (just a few miles outside the Washington Beltway), that's a lot of wildlife.; 6/21/15, 9:52 AM
Paddy O said...: "wolves are moving back in, and the coyotes are being pushed out"

Same pattern with ravens and crows here in SoCal. Crows used to be everywhere. I'm seeing more ravens in places, and where the ravens are, there aren't a lot of crows. My neighborhood doesn't have ravens, so we have a decent amount of crows.; 6/21/15, 9:52 AM
Big Mike said...: @Bob Ellison, in his book The Beast in the Garden (available through the Althouse link to Amazon) David Baron suggests that predators learned the hard way to avoid humans with sticks in their hands. From paleo-Indians with spears to modern humans with rifles, we're pretty dangerous in our own right. The book is about the return of pumas to areas where humans live, and the sometimes fatal consequences for humans jogging or riding bikes.

While I was up in Alaska on business a bunch of years ago the news was about a group of three women jogging together and finding themselves surrounded by a hungry wolf pack. I didn't catch how they got rescued, but you could see from the interviews that the women were still shaken to find themselves on the menu for a pack of wolves. On a different trip to Alaska I was taking a short walk on a clearly marked trail through the woods within sight of the hotel when the hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I had the unmistakable feeling that something dangerous was watching me. An over-active imagination? Perhaps. But that night a grizzly tried to break into the bear-proof dumpster and the bear-proof trash cans on nearby houses.; 6/21/15, 10:05 AM
Bob Ellison said...: Big Mike, thank you for the link. I read that book a few years ago. It's a great and frightening story.; 6/21/15, 10:20 AM
Original Mike said...: "What have you got against Alvin, Simon and Theodore?"

Alvin just chewed all the flowers off my Lysimachia Congestifloras that I had to visit three garden stores to find. I say "chewed" rather than "eaten" because the flowers were still there, strewn all around the base of the pot. Alvin, Simon, and Theodore are destructive little bastards.; 6/21/15, 10:22 AM
JAORE said...: Coyotes eat cats. See it. Rather I have seen one snatch up a cat in a suburban neighborhood and run into the woods. I doubt if it was for a play day.

We hear them running the ravines and howling regularly where I live.

Oh yeah, as to the shy away from humans, there are two cases. In God's country, where we are able to deal with them via firearms they do shy from humans. In Hell's Kitchen (i.e. cities) where they are confronted with squeals of fear and loud shouts of "Shoo!", they lose that fear.; 6/21/15, 10:35 AM
Lyle said...: Coyotes live everywhere in the U.S. now thanks to trains.; 6/21/15, 10:43 AM
victoria said...: In my neighborhood, near the Arroyo Seco, coyotes are common visitors, especially in the summer. They come up from the water looking for food and water. Cats and small dogs are on call, get out of the way of the coyotes. Scare me a little so i will cross the street when i walk in the early morning to avoid them. Always look lean and hungry.

Vicki from Pasadena; 6/21/15, 10:43 AM
jr565 said...: What's wrong with chipmunks? We just saw one on my moms property, and she commented on how cute it was.; 6/21/15, 11:11 AM
Pettifogger said...: I'm sure coyotes are fond of both chipmunks and foxes as well as anything else they can catch. :-)

Coyotes are smart. I once stood on a hill overlooking a pasture. Two coyotes were in the pasture going after a rabbit. True to lore, the rabbit ran in a large circle. One coyote chased while the other rested in the center of the circle. Periodically, they switched roles. They eventually got the rabbit.; 6/21/15, 11:14 AM
exhelodrvr1 said...: The coyotes will eat the foxes.; 6/21/15, 11:16 AM
Hagar said...: If you do end up with a coyote problem, one solution is apparently to reintroduce wolves.

So, now you have a wolf problem.

A better solution is pair of greyhounds. Run down and kill coyotes is what they do.; 6/21/15, 11:23 AM
Skeptical Voter said...: Well coyotes have made it across the country. They're in downtown Chicago--and as one commenter here has reported, they're in the Beltway. According to National Geographic, Los Angeles County (where I live) now has more coyotes than it ever did. And LA County has a population approaching 10 million with a metroplex population approaching 20 million.

They do eat small dogs and cats; I live in the suburban hills just 8 miles (as the crow flies) from LA City Hall. Shortly after I moved here 40 years ago, 3 coyotes jumped my back fence and chased my slow moving basset hound. I drove them off, but after that all my dogs have slept inside. About 15 years ago, a pack of coyotes killed a three year old girl riding her tricycle--about 3 miles from my house.
Three months ago, a neighbor saw her small dog getting scarfed up by a coyote. The critter was driven off and dropped the dog. And my neighbor has paid a vet bill approaching $10,000 to repair the damage to her dog.

Coyotes aren't particularly afraid of humans here in Los Angeles. You can't walk up and pet one; they keep their distance, unless you are walking your dog, and they are looking at "lunch".

As for big cats, mountain lions have killed three German Shepherd sized dogs in the last two years--all within a couple miles of my house. (I live in the brushline in the Verdugo Hills just above Glendale and Burbank). And we've got a resident mountain lion in Griffith Park near downtown LA. Biologists tracking the lions---either with transmitter collars or with "photo traps" have a pretty impressive collection of photos of our resident lions. And of course mountain lions have made fatal attacks on half a dozen California residents in the last 25 years or so.

It's a wild world out there.; 6/21/15, 11:41 AM
jimbino said...: So the conclusion is: better subsidize an invasion of Chinese and Koreans to deal with the stray cat and dog problem than a bunch of Coyotes, who, unlike the Chinese and Koreans, also consider kids as food.

In the meantime, where can I order some Coyotes?; 6/21/15, 12:14 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Why don't we eat more predator meat? Partly, maybe, it is the high muscle content. And, maybe, partly, because they tend to be less plentiful. But, another big one is that they tend to have more parasites. Why? Because some parasites tend to move up the food chain. And, if they can successfully move to one predator, they can more likely cross the species barrier to us.; 6/21/15, 12:19 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: As for big cats, mountain lions have killed three German Shepherd sized dogs in the last two years--all within a couple miles of my house.

Maybe 25 years ago, I was living in the mountains west of Denver. Neighbor noticed (thanks to his dog that was half wolf) a mountain lion through our yards every day about the same time. We had a small gully on the back of our properties, and that is where the cat would go through. Then, dogs started disappearing on Lookout Mountain, a couple miles east of us. After a couple of them, a professional hunter was brought in, but didn't make much headway until the cat took a larger dog (I think that it was a German Shepherd). It couldn't carry it, so dragged it back it its lair, and that was it. Pretty sure that was the cat that had been moving through our yard every evening, because we never saw it again.

I should note that my kid was pretty young then, but we had such a glorious view of the Continental Divide from the porch, that we spent a lot of time playing out on that porch. Not surprisingly, I never left the kid alone, and was well armed.; 6/21/15, 12:27 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Last story, at least for awhile. Son-in-law has a couple of acres out in the desert. It is fenced, but that isn't that much use, in regards to coyotes. What does seem to make a big difference though is that they have a couple of Huskies, which tend to howl somewhat like wolves, and that seems to keep the coyotes from the chickens, and maybe the goats. One of the Huskies is showing their age, and so have acquired a comparably sized dog (when full grown). Still will be interesting though, since we can hear the coyotes when they come through early in the morning (since we sleep with the 2nd story door and windows open), when their howls are answered by the Huskies.

My understanding is that you really need at least two dogs if you live in either coyote or mountain lion country (or keep them in at night). The problem with coyotes is that they are pretty smart at suckering other species to their demise. With cats, one chases the cat up a tree. Then, after awhile, loses interest and leaves. When the cat comes down, another coyote pounces. Pretty sure that was what happened to my parents' cat when they moved up into the mountains (the next two cats were declawed and strictly indoor cats). Something similar with dogs.; 6/21/15, 12:37 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: So, now you have a wolf problem.

Well, yes, but my presupposition was that they would ultimate die off as a result of running out of coyotes and other acceptable prey. Wolves we have in MT these days are big enough, and run in big enough packs, that deer aren't that much use in feeding a pack. So, yes, they sometimes move to cattle, which is not a good decision in MT, on the part of the wolves, since they (or, actually close relatives) were hunted out by the grandparents of the ranchers effected. So, yes, wolves are now hunted, and no longer really protected when on private land that also has livestock. Win-win. Coyote populations are down, the more regal wolves are resurgent, and apparently much more fun to hunt.; 6/21/15, 12:44 PM
Swifty Quick said...: Bob Ellison @9:05:
Coyotes tend to be extremely wary of humans. It's difficult to get within 100 yards of one.

They do not eat all the cats and dogs in the neighborhood. This is a weird presumption that I have encountered in places where nobody has ever seen a coyote.

1. It's only on the Roadrunner cartoons where all the coyotes are in Arizona. In the real world coyotes are just about everywhere in the US, and are particularly ubiquitous in the west.

2. Urbanized coyotes are no longer wary of humans, or considerably less wary than they used to be. I see coyotes almost daily, and at a lot closer range than 100 yards, sometimes within 10 yards.

3. Tell my coyote-eaten dead cat that the coyote that ate him doesn't eat cats. Outdoor cats (and loose dogs) are at high risk of becoming coyote food, especially during the time period of about 4:00am to 6:00am.; 6/21/15, 12:50 PM
Gahrie said...: I have coyotes in my neighborhood all of the time. I have had foxes, skunks, raccoon, and possums.

I was once talking with a friend as they got in their car in front of my house about the coyotes when one ran down the middle of the street behind me. Freaked the guy out.; 6/21/15, 12:50 PM
richard mcenroe said...: Coyotes eat chipmunks. They also eat cats, small dogs and have been known to attack children. They also carry rabies and in suburban/urban settings quickly lose any fear of humans. HVe fun.; 6/21/15, 12:53 PM
jimbino said...: The urban legend that coyotes eat cats does serve to cover the mysterious demise of the cats that have entered my traps.; 6/21/15, 2:44 PM
jimbino said...: Careful: lots of tiny critters that look like chipmunks are, in reality, ground squirrels. The way to distinguish chipmunks is to note their stripes that pass, from back to front, right through the eyes.

The ground squirrels destroy house foundations and need to be trapped and disposed of. A rat-trap baited with peanut butter and sunflower seeds (bird-feed) does the trick. I managed to trap, kill and dispose of 19 of them last summer in colorado, but only after they had actually eaten through concrete walls of the cellar, probably after my home-brew beer.; 6/21/15, 2:50 PM
jono39 said...: A Coyote was bagged in Lower Manhattan this spring. They started in lUpper Mexico and from what is now Arizona have moved across the entire Continent. Impressive.; 6/21/15, 4:06 PM
Bob Ellison said...: A coyote made my dishwasher stop before rinsing yesterday.; 6/21/15, 5:29 PM
Bob Ellison said...: City dwellers, take note: if you see a coyote, it's probably a dog. That does not mean you should go up and pet it.; 6/21/15, 5:36 PM
Anonymous said...: "While I was up in Alaska on business a bunch of years ago the news was about a group of three women jogging together and finding themselves surrounded by a hungry wolf pack."

Quite a few years ago I was beset by a pack of dogs while jogging in Torremolinos, Spain.

I made sure a wall was behind me, and when the lead dog came snarling forward I punched him hard in the snout.

Despite having never punched much of anything before, my fist sent the mutt into a yelping retreat, taking the other dogs with him.

I resumed my jog.

(whether this would work with a coyote, I have no idea); 6/21/15, 5:55 PM
amielalune said...: What? I never would have guessed you were a chipmunk-hater! What's the story??; 6/21/15, 6:29 PM
SteveR said...: We live on the edge of the desert. At night you can hear them "yipping". They make noise to drive their prey, usually rabbits around here, toward the pack, laying in wait. Owls are good predators here as well, light colored cats are vulnerable at night.; 6/21/15, 6:41 PM
RMc said...: "What have you got against Alvin, Simon and Theodore?"

Alvin just chewed all the flowers off my Lysimachia Congestifloras that I had to visit three garden stores to find.

"AAALLLLVVVIIINNNNNNNNNNN...!!!"; 6/21/15, 8:10 PM
K in Texas said...: If you live in the Denver area, you'll soon notice you don't see cats running around in the neighborhood. Nor does one see small dogs kept outside. The reason? Coyotes. I've seen them in broad daylight trotting by with a prairie dog in its mouth. A couple of years ago I was in Breckinridge and I was walking from lodge to the main part of town for dinner. I was at a four way stop waiting for the traffic light to change when I glanced down and I had to do a double take- what I thought was someone's dog was actually a fox. He was waiting with us people for the light to change so he could cross the street. I later found out the fox lived in the neighborhood, would walk down the sidewalk next to people and cross the street at the corner with the light.; 6/21/15, 9:08 PM
Kelly said...: A coyote got my neighbors little beagle in their fenced in backyard. My mostly outdoor cat has made it seven years without being caught by the packs I hear yowling nearby.; 6/21/15, 9:32 PM
gadfly said...: Yepper - chippers, kittens and puppies - but unlike the fox, they also eat carrion.; 6/21/15, 10:40 PM
Michael K said...: Mountain lions have attacked adults in Mission Viejo in the past five years. One woman was saved by a friend and some passersby who beat the lion off with tree branches. The sheriffs were looking for the lion when they found another victim, this time dead nearby.

The woman who was attacked was the life of a local oral surgeon. They let him see his wife in the pre-op room before she went to surgery. When he saw her he fainted.

I've treated several kids attacked by lions but that was before I retired. There are lots of lions around here and coyotes everywhere.; 6/21/15, 11:25 PM
SteveR said...: The coyotes in Phoenix even play hockey.; 6/21/15, 11:40 PM
Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of New York said...: Here the coyotes have crossed with wolves. Vermonters call them "coy dogs" and used to say that they were crosses with dogs, which never made sense to me because domestic dogs won't bring home food for pups.

Genetic testing on 400 showed 399 crossed with wolves. They are pretty large, my Lab had a stand-off with a pair of them one moonlit night on the frozen lake and one of them stood shoulder to shoulder with him, the other was smaller. They can be very loud at night and seem to hunt in packs. I always thought coyotes were solitary.

They certainly eat small dogs and cats, they also eat deer, which is fine, because this place is infested with them and they think my garden is a fast food joint, I think.; 6/22/15, 12:43 AM
Petunia said...: Oh geez, I live about eight blocks to the south of your neighborhood, and I have three small dogs. Fenced yard, but it won't be much of a barrier to a determined coyote. I will keep a closer eye on my dogs, and warn the neighbors at our upcoming block party. Thanks for posting this.; 6/22/15, 1:07 AM
Firehand said...: Short version: coyote eat anything they find or can catch.

Biggest one I've ever seen was in the middle of Oklahoma City one night(no, not a dog; I got a real good look at him). He was also the fattest; he'd been living real well on stray dogs and cats. And all the possums that've moved into town.; 6/22/15, 9:20 AM