Coyote news all over the place

Not the finest few days for coyotes in eastern North America, thanks to the pair responsible for the death of Canadian folk singer Taylor Mitchell. What happened is sad and tragic.

There's a lot of coverage to sort out---Jon Way has been seemingly all over the news. I'll do my best to pull together some of the more important, informative stories soon.

Until then, try to refrain from joining any hot-blooded coyotes search parties.

Some recent sightings

These are just rehashed from comments on the last post, but below are a few recent, detailed sightings around the hood.

John said...

This morning, Sept. 4, 2009, at about 7:10 I was driving down Dunster Road from Centre Street towards Jamaica Pond. When I was in front of 100 Dunster, I saw a cayote trotting down the sidewalk on the south side of the street. It was fawn colored and larger than any other I had seen before, about the size of a skinny German Shepard. When I stopped the car to look it continued down the street towards Dane Street.

Julie Whelan said...

I live at 100 Dunster Rd. Friday, Sept. 4, when I went out to get my newspapers, I saw this same coyote right in front of my house. He was very large and seemed to becoming out of our driveway. I had just let my cat out the backdoor, so rushed in to get him back into the house.

Anonymous said...

I, too, saw the coyote at 100 Dunster on Sept 4. I was walking my dog on the sidewalk and saw the coyote pouncing in and out of the shrubs in front of 100 Dunster. I shouted at the coyote who trotted off down the sidewalk. After the coyote had left, a large ginger and orange cat emerged from the shrubs and ran down the driveway and into the back yard.

This is my third coyote sighting in 3 weeks. The first was on Aug 18, across from 56 Prince St when I saw a coyote leap up a tree to grab a neighbor's cat. After a tussle at the base of the tree, the coyote trotted down the middle of the street holding the cat by the scruff of its neck. Later on that day, another neighbor found the cat's body in his yard.

The second sighting was of a coyote trotting down the sidewalk of Prince St. on Aug 28.

And Rhea said...

I heard there was a coyote around the Eliot Street/Eliot Place area around a week or two ago (Sept. 13). I want to warn cat owners to keep the cats in. Can you help?

Thanks, all. I'll do my best to keep posting when things come up. If there are other coyote-related things you'd like to see on the site, please let me know.

Big dogs beware too

I know this isn't much of a blog here, with posts showing up about every two months, but I think it's still worth sharing any useful or interesting coyote news that pops up from time to time.

Today's bit is a link to an article last week on SouthCoastToday.com about a 130-pound black Lab that was bitten by a coyote in Dartmouth. The dog has recovered, so no tragic cute-dog-eaten-story this time, but the notable thing here is the size of the victim. This dog is big -- a lot bigger than the attacker, unless Eastern Coyotes have started breeding with bears.

A biologist at the Mass. Division of Fisheries and Wildlife does mention that when a coyote attacks a bigger animal like this, it's usually a case of the coyote protecting (what it thinks is) its territory.

Who knows when and where coyotes will feel territorial like this, but the point is that 10-pound terriers aren't the only ones at risk.

Bobcat Proves Coyotes' Champion

A 49-year-old hunter was attacked by a bobcat about three weeks ago while hunting turkeys in the woods of Templeton, Mass., according to a story Sunday on MyFoxBoston.com.

The hunter, from Western Massachusetts, told MyFoxBoston that he was standing still and making turkey calls when the 35-pound bobcat leapt on to him, knocking him to the ground. The man blamed the attack on his convincing turkey calls, the products of a hand-held device.

“The whole time he thought I was a turkey because I wasn't moving at all,” he told MyFoxBoston.

The hunter also said, though, that he initially thought his attacker was a coyote because he had hunted, and been stalked by, coyotes before.

Fortunately the hunter sustained only a few scratches, which since mostly have healed.

Takeaway? A couple, I think.

First, hunting is dangerous, for the hunter and the animals. If you must hunt, bring a weapon for protection.

Second, a combination of turkey hunting and coyote hunting may result in unpleasant bobcat side effects.

Urban Coyote Education in Billerica

Dr. Jonathan Way, Eastern Coyote researcher and the voice of Jamaicaplaincoyotes.com, will be at Billerica Public Library on Thurs., May 28 at 6:30 pm. According to the announcement on the Billerica version of WickedLocal.com, Way will talk about his research on urban and suburban coyotes from the last 10 years.

Here for more information.

Not JP, But Still A Mass. Coyote Attack (Likely)

The Patriot Ledger reported today that a Middleboro pet Yorkshire Terrier was killed, likely by a coyote, early last Wednesday morning in its owner's backyard.

According to "Vicious coyote attack in Middleboro brings attention to seasonal threat", the terrier was carried off by a "brown shadow" at around 4 am right under the nose of the dog's owner, a retired police officer.

The attack naturally is sad for the pet and its owner, but the reporter includes a couple of paragraphs of information and advice about coyote-human interaction, especially around this time of year, when coyote mothers need extra food for their pups.

This from a biologist with the Mass. Division of Fisheries and Wildlife:

""Coyotes are omnivores. Their primary food is fruit, berries, and small rodents. In suburban areas, they will go after unprotected pets,” said Larson. “Also, people should not leave garbage out at night. It provides an all-you-can-eat buffet for coyotes, rats, and foxes. They should put garbage out in the morning.”"

This from another Division biologist:

"If a coyote is found in a backyard, try and scare it off by banging pans, blowing whistles and air horns, even squirting them with a hose or throwing tennis balls to mark your territory."

So, there are few options out there.

Colorful Sightings

In light of the recent Denver coyote news, I thought I'd show some of our local reactions to coyotes. The following sightings were posted anonymously on this blog:

2/6/09: "I was woken up last night at 2:30 by the erie howls of a coyote very close and the response of 3+ coyotes further away. There is a single set of tracks across the upper yard. In contract to their night time demeanor, they are beautiful to watch as they play and frolic during the daytime hours."

2/19/09: "We have seen coyotes in our yard/ in front of our house on Moss Hill Road by the foot path several times a week since early January. We have spotted them at all times of day solo, pairs or three at a time. We were awakened by three howling and frolicking in the street in front of our house two weeks ago and they continued to 'play' for nearly 45 minutes. We have two small children and I am a bit concerned by the presence of the coyotes and how close they come to our house and car. We see them in our yard quite often and have found remains of a rabbit as well as a few squirrel tails in the yard - yes, just the tails"

I haven't put either report on my sightings map, for lack of specific location, but the descriptions and reactions are interesting. I sure hope one of the squirrel tails wasn't all white.

Coyotes, Not Eastern, But Still Urban

Denver has seen its share of urban coyote news lately, with a few related stories in the Denver Post, and even one on Monday in the New York Times. Denver-area residents seem to be dealing with coyotes on a large scale, with Greenwood Village, a 14,000-person suburb, having reported 110 sightings in the first two months of 2009.

After several attacks on both animals and humans, Greenwood Village has gone as far as to hire an animal management firm to shoot coyotes deemed "a threat to humans or animals," according to the New York Times.

Not surprisingly, the Times article paints a complicated picture of reactions to the coyotes, which have been "spotted hanging out in local parks, trotting down city streets and lounging in backyards, content and seemingly unafraid of humans." While the prevailing opinion expressed in the article is to want the animals gone, some in the town support eradication, while others have adopted non-violent methods.

Mentioned in the Times article, and at the center of the Denver Post article, is the practice of yelling and gesturing at the coyotes, hopefully to drive them away by instilling a fear of humans -- a method the Denver Post termed "hazing."

A coyote expert quoted in the Times article points out that the coyotes' comfort around humans may largely be our own doing. The Ohio-based expert, Dr. Stanley Gehrt, stated the following: “We do know that when coyotes start to flip over to the dark side, it is almost always because of human feeding... [the coyotes] become more comfortable, and then they become aggressive.”

The coyotes in Denver are not the eastern variety like ours here in JP, but they're still coyotes living in urban and suburban areas among humans. The articles (links above) are worth reading.

Coyote Neighbors

I've received some reports in the last few days that indicate sustained coyote presence around JP. As one commenter reported, the animals seem "unabashed" and are coming quite close to people.

I don't know if sightings actually have picked up, or if more people are turning to my site. But either way, it seems that coyotes are staying around JP, at least for the time being.

My interest in local coyotes continues mostly to be academic, but given the now-apparent potential for close contact, I'd feel remiss not to provide some guidance on human-coyote interaction.

"Living With Coyotes" is a page on Dr. Jonathan Way's site about Eastern Coyote Research. Way offers a partial info sheet on the animals and some advice and guidelines for safe interaction.

Way's page should be most useful for those people already accepting of (or resigned to) the fact that coyotes are a part of the neighborhood. For those who want the animals gone, this site on coyote hunting might be more appropriate, if a bit distasteful. I include it only for the sake of balance.

Updated Coyote Sightings

After several months of comments with reported sightings around Jamaica Plain, I've finally updated the interactive map on Jamaicaplaincoyotes.com. Thanks to everyone who wrote in.

I received an impressive number of reports, for sightings as far back as 2007 and as recent as this past Sunday (Jan. 4). There are now 16 paws on the map, for 17 total sightings (two sightings, at South St. and Bussey St., were so close together that I gave them one marker. But both sightings are described).

Many of the sightings seem to have been late at night, with the coyotes spotted only fleetingly from a moving vehicle.

I've provided descriptions of the sightings mostly paraphrasing what was given to me. I did my best to figure out where the sightings occurred, but some of the paw markers on the map are approximate locations. If a someone said their sighting was on a street between two locations, for example, I just marked the midpoint between the locations. If anyone notices an error in the spot of their sighting, please let me know, and I'll fix it at once.

I hope to learn of more sightings soon. This time I won't wait six months to post the locations.