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.
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6 comments:
The reason you started this website seems to be academic. Why are you interested in coyotes?
What' s their intrigue, if any? Are you interested in their survival in the urban wilds of JP, their irradication or could you just as easily have developed a website for sightings of JP's albino squirrel or one footed duck?
- Curious
1/20/09 - I saw two coyotes on hill between Rambler Road and Westchester Road around 8 a.m. on January 18 and heard coyotes howling early this morning, 1/20. The howling is very spooky!!
Peg
On one level, my reason for starting this site was indeed academic. I had to report and create a multimedia site for a class. However, I chose to document coyotes in JP because I knew their presence here to be controversial. I figured that if JP residents and other interested parties were going to express strong opinions on the matter, they at least should be as informed as possible.
Personally, I am neither strongly for nor against coyotes in Jamaica Plain or other urban areas. I hate to hear of pets being killed by coyotes, but I also would hate to hear of coyotes being killed by humans.
As for JP's albino squirrel and one-footed duck, while they're both curiosities, I don't know if the news-worthiness is quite there for sites of their own.
Do you have any sense of how large a coyote population JP can accommodate? Has this been studied in other urban environments with similar open space ratios, human population densities and climates?
CB14 Chair
Hi,
I work at SpringHouse in JP every Tuesday and Thursday and as I was leaving today I saw a coyote near the back of the building walking through the woods. At first I thought it was a big dog, but as it got closer, I realized it was a coyote. I wasn't too surprised since I have heard of other people that have seen them around that area. Just wanted to let you know!
Thanks,
Bonnie
We now see coyotes regularly, at any time of day, up here on Neillian Crescent. They walk within feet of us, unabashed. Ww would like to embrace their presence, but with small children it makes it hard. Very few incidents recorded of them biting human adults, but not much data since these current days that we have been coexisting in such close and constant proximity.
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