Quote: Amy VandeWeerd

I've always found that my kids' pellet/paint guns usually scare them off if I can hit them. Have shot a couple with it and they haven't returned. We have them all over near the small farm and have never had any problems with them killing any stock (or even chickens) Funny, I can hunt just about anything except coyotes and fox. I guess they look too much like dogs for me Coyotes are also said to be population based breeders meaning they breed to replace the ones that have been killed, but ususally keep a fairly even population if left alone. I don't know if that's true but we haven't hunted ours and the population is much smaller than other farm land I know of that continuously hunt and trap to try and irradicate them. In the western part of our state they are a huge problem and they shoot from airplanes.

So coyotes control how many pups they have to replace the ones who died? You sure the population increase and decrease has nothing to do with environmental factors, like food?

I doubt much coyote hunting goes on in So Cal, or within many other city limits, yet they have serious problems with the 'yotes. I have a friend who lives in Anaheim and lost two yorkies last summer, one right after the other, and watched both get carried off by the coyote. He is a retired police officer, and couldn't do anything about it, because, well, you cant discharge firearms in the city or anywhere else except at a gun range.

 Quote: Janet Foley

This is kind of freaking me out. My youngest son is 9 and pretty small for his age. Where we live is a little boys paradise...

I don't know how comfortable I feel with him being outside alone now. It's not like he runs the woods unsupervised, but he has free reign of the property...or at least he did.

This sucks.

Eh. He'll be fine. If the yote keeps coming around, and you dont want to kill it, try using some kind of less-then-lethal rounds on it. Ive shot at coyotes with paintballs, and all it does is add some color to their coat and allow me to recognize which ones keep coming back. The noise seems to be what spooks them, but I dont know if the paintball actually impacts beyond the fur.

 Quote: Webboard User

 Quote: Janet Foley

This is kind of freaking me out. My youngest son is 9 and pretty small for his age. Where we live is a little boys paradise...

I don't know how comfortable I feel with him being outside alone now. It's not like he runs the woods unsupervised, but he has free reign of the property...or at least he did.

This sucks.

Eh. He'll be fine. If the yote keeps coming around, and you dont want to kill it, try using some kind of less-then-lethal rounds on it. Ive shot at coyotes with paintballs, and all it does is add some color to their coat and allow me to recognize which ones keep coming back. The noise seems to be what spooks them, but I dont know if the paintball actually impacts beyond the fur.

Yep! And 9 is old enough to be responsible with a bb gun. Teach him to aim for the face if there a need to use it. Our oldest (8) uses a Daisy model 840 C. She likes the scope feature.

 Quote: Amy VandeWeerd

 Quote: Webboard User

 Quote: Janet Foley

This is kind of freaking me out. My youngest son is 9 and pretty small for his age. Where we live is a little boys paradise...

I don't know how comfortable I feel with him being outside alone now. It's not like he runs the woods unsupervised, but he has free reign of the property...or at least he did.

This sucks.

Eh. He'll be fine. If the yote keeps coming around, and you dont want to kill it, try using some kind of less-then-lethal rounds on it. Ive shot at coyotes with paintballs, and all it does is add some color to their coat and allow me to recognize which ones keep coming back. The noise seems to be what spooks them, but I dont know if the paintball actually impacts beyond the fur.

Yep! And 9 is old enough to be responsible with a bb gun. Teach him to aim for the face if there a need to use it. Our oldest (8) uses a Daisy model 840 C. She likes the scope feature.

What if he shoots his eye out?

Amy- It's true. Coyotes with higher hunting, trapping, and poisoning pressure have more and larger litters per year to replace those killed. This means that the more you try to kill them off the more coyotes will persist.

Coyotes (and wolf-coyote hybrids) are doing very well. All over the US, despite endless hunting, bounties, trapping, and poisoning campaigns for at least a hundred years. Canids can be very adatable, as we know with our dogs. Rather than dying off, like the Red Wolf, the Eastern Grey Wolf, Eastern cougar, wolverine, etc. these larger predators are doing very well, and expanding their range.

They are smart, adaptable, and can live anywhere and eat almost anything. I wouldn't start freaking out about coyotes killing people just yet. There is one very well publicized incident and people worry. Bees kill far more people each year, even sharks kill more people each year. Bears or dogs kill more people each year. Bison or cattle kill more people each year. Flu kills far more people each year.... and so on. I assume most of us don't avoid the ocean, the outdoors, or any other people to eliminate all these threats.

As far as a threat to dogs, keep dogs in sight and carry bear spray/other legal weapon in populated areas, a gun if you could shoot coyote without injuring your dog in other places.

Trapping/snaring/poison are much more dangerous for our domestic dogs- poison meat dropped out west to control coyote populations probably kills far more domestic dogs than coyotes ever have. Somehow, against all odds, coyotes have managed to learn to live with us. They are here to stay.

I have them here, too & I live in a small city in the Northeast, an hour east of NYC. I occasionally see one in the woods, outside my fence, behind my house at night when the dogs go out a bedetime.

I have a 6' stockade around my backyard. So far no yotes have tried to breach the fence either by digging under the fence or jump it. I check my fence & yard daily for any signs of animals digging etc. I have intact dogs so I am always vigilent when my dogs are out in the yard, especially when my female is in heat. She is never out there for a second that I am not out there with her.

We had 3 coyots here last year that attacked a neighbor (2 streets over) small dog on their back deck & were deterred by the owner chasing them when they heard the noise. Another neighbor 1/2 mile away,100 lb + pitbull in his 6'10' kennel was surrounded by these most likely same 3 coyotes. They were trying to figure out how to climb in & get to him when the owner came outside & chassed them off. Both of these attacks took place in the very early morning.

 Quote: Kiersten Lippman

Amy- It's true. Coyotes with higher hunting, trapping, and poisoning pressure have more and larger litters per year to replace those killed. This means that the more you try to kill them off the more coyotes will persist.


Trapping/snaring/poison are much more dangerous for our domestic dogs- poison meat dropped out west to control coyote populations probably kills far more domestic dogs than coyotes ever have. Somehow, against all odds, coyotes have managed to learn to live with us. They are here to stay.

That would be very interesting if true. Ive looked around and found others who say studies are showing that when hunted/trapped, they reproduce more...but cant seem to find any actual studies. Links?

Im not a fan of tainted bait as well. As a matter of fact, I despise those who do it.

There is a reason why coyotes can be hunted and trapped, day or night, all year round, for free.

Just to be clear, Im not saying coyotes dont tend to reproduce more when hunted, I just want to see the studies done on it. It doesnt make sense to have a huge population of coyotes in large cites where they are not hunted if that were true.

 Quote: Connie Sutherland

 Quote: Katie Finlay

Where I live the coyotes are big and ruthless. I do not live in a rural area. I have a client who's dog was chased and attacked inside her own house through the dog door. A few years back one tried to carry off a toddler. I know an intact male Boxer that was mauled to death. They go after large animals. Yes, they're mostly around because of the abundant supply of rabbits and cats and small dogs, but I wouldn't take any chances.

Where I live too, Katie.

http://sagehen.ucnrs.org/Documents/visitors/wildlife/coyote.pdf

I don't live in a rural area, either. I live in a medium-size city, surrounded by mountains and close to a lot of state parkland. There's also a university campus within the city that contains many acres of reserves.


We actually have (rare) mountain lion appearances, too, as well as bobcats.

We have cougar problems too, though very rare. One of the women in the mountain bike group I'm a member of is a survivor of an attack, though the man attacked was not so lucky.

 Quote: Webboard User

Just to be clear, Im not saying coyotes dont tend to reproduce more when hunted, I just want to see the studies done on it. It doesnt make sense to have a huge population of coyotes in large cites where they are not hunted if that were true.

This is a pro-predator website that published this letter, but it does state the studies that were used if that helps I could see applying some of the points in the article to city dwelling yotes (instead of hunting, take cars and poisonings etc. into consideration) http://www.predatordefense.org/docs/coyotes_letter_Dr_Crabtree_11-04-97.pdf