We are so emotionally attached to our horses, dogs, cats and other pets. If I had seen that scat, I would have felt significant sorrow for the woman’s loss and what the dog went through before its life ended.
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That doesn’t sound like coyote behavior but does sound like deer. Are you positive it was the coyotes who were sleeping there as opposed to seeing them later? Coyotes typically do not sleep out in the open, which “tall grass by a creek” might fall into that (obviously depends a lot on terrain).
We have deer in our front yard and all the pens in the back. Our front yard has perimeter trees and is somewhat enclosed. The deer like to lay in my driveway island and also the grass. Their imprint is significantly different than what I saw by the creek. BTW, the creek on each side is a 10’ dropoff with trees growing in the banks, so it appears somewhat secluded. Those imprints were definitely coyote-sized. We put an ammonia filled bag down and haven’t seen them since.
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Unfortunately we had to put our pony down due to a significant heart murmur and severe heaves Saturday night. The vet mentioned coyotes. We stayed with her till about 2:00 in the morning. As a precaution, we covered her with a tarp and placed bags of vinegar/bleach around her as we were out of ammonia. We also left a flashlight with its strobe feature flashing. Luckily, no coyotes bothered her. I was very thankful for that. While sitting there, occasionally we would shine the flashlight in the woods and I saw a pair of eyes - no telling what they were though.
What color were they? If I recall…white will be deer, and orange/red will be dog/coyote?
They were gold/green. Interesting - I didn’t know each animal will have different colored eyes. I checked on the internet and it said that was probably a cat, dog or raccoon. I just saw them once and then I shone the flashlight in that spot again (right away), it was gone. Glad it wasn’t a coyote - thanks!
Oh, well if it was green it might have been a dog or a coyote. So, more likely coyote than domestic dog.
I couldn’t remember - I guess red isn’t very common. Moose, have red eyeshine though. Not a lot of those in my area.
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got a response from animal control after suggesting to get code enforce involved to force the land owner to clean the property up to remove all the overgrowth
Is that the landowner with the missing dog?
no, this is a property that was bought about thirteen years ago, the new owner started remodeling the house then and now it just remains which is a shame since the property’s land alone is valued at half a million. (it is tied up as part of the real estate collateral used for a multi million dollar business…there have been numerous people who have attempted to buy the place but the holder of the note will not do a particle release of the collateral)
But with that property being on the west vacant and the other property on the east is also vacant since the house torn down to make way for the new house that is yet to be built as the cost of materials went through the room just as they started…so this puts us in the middle of over ten acres in the middle of the city
My nearest adjacent neighbor is to the rear, their house is just about 1,000 feet away
All land except that to west is highly maintained without any place for the coyotes to hide.
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Yes, they follow human activity, they don’t occupy territory that we mo e into. Coyotes and foxes move into human territory, because we are their food source. The mice and rodents proliferate around human habitation, the chickens near the house, even b thevwildcturkeys are around humans, coming out of yhe woods into the plowed fields, etc. We don’t move into the coyote territory, the coyotes are drawn to us because of the opportunities we present them, including protection for their you, raising them close to or under our buildings, where their predators won’t go. So think before you say something glib like, we move into their territory, when it’s not true.
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I don’t agree. Coyotes have been present in North America long before humans showed up. And they were definitely here long before the current human inhabitants moved into their current abode. IMO, wildlife DOES have a right to exist. Even if it is considered a “nuisance” by some humans. There are currently over 8 billion humans on the planet, and that number is increasing exponentially daily. We are destroying the planet with our policies. Is it our “right” that we exterminate every other form of life that we consider to somehow"lesser" in importance or a “nuisance” or for our entertainment value? I don’t think so. Perhaps you do think so. That’s OK, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Opinions are like arseholes, everyone’s got one.
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appears April 13, 2029 there might be a solution as there is nearly a 3% chance of earth being impacted by a pretty sizeable rock
Apophis is a near-Earth asteroid and a potentially hazardous object with a diameter of 370 metres (1,210 feet) that caused a brief period of concern in December 2004 when initial observations indicated a probability up to 2.7% that it would hit Earth on April 13, 2029 .
that should take care of the coyotes and earth’s over population in one stroke (that is if that the over due Yellowstone Supervolcano does not go off first) ,
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I live and ride in a metro suburb that has significant green space and wildlife corridors that reach into the mountains and wilderness. We have learned to cohabit with racoons, skunks, deer, black bears, coyotes, bobcats, and the occasional cougar.
Last summer I took my horse camping way out of town at a guest ranch/ small working cattle operation that backed onto forest service rangeland. The ranch had two big livestock guardian dogs on the property that patrolled all night and a couple of border collies. We did not see signs of any wildlife. The rangeland was full of beef cows and calves being semi feral, but nothing else. The ranchers said it was a long time since they’d seen a bear around.
And it was gorgeous wildlife country for bears or deer or coyotes Berries, grassland pockets, water sources, very trusting chipmunks or ground squirrels.There were some forest service roads to small lakes with bare bones campsites but no one was going into the actual forest much except the ranchers on horseback.
I thought that was very interesting compared to our suburb where the bears and coyotes and even sometimes the bobcats wander on heavily used pedestrian bike horse trails.
I do expect the ranch was careful about attractants, but we weren’t given any “Bear Aware” lectures about where to stash our coolers or greasy propane cookstove. I saw no evidence of chickens and they didn’t have smaller vulnerable farm animals, just horses and beef cows.
So it very well might be that the suburbs attract wildlife that breed here.
When I was about 5 we moved to a new suburb and I remember my father driving us out to watch the bears feeding at the garbage dump. Mid 1960s, dump is long gone of course.
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Coyotes may have been in North America, but that does not mean they originally lived where we live. Before Europeans arrived, they were restricted to a swath down the center of the continent.
We exterminated the wolf in large parts of North America and provided a modified ecosystem which coyotes moved into. After we created it.
There is a map here:
https://urbancoyoteresearch.com/coyote-info/north-american-distribution
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I can attest that over the decades from the 1960s that wildlife has become more common in our suburbs and it’s not that we’ve built much further up into the mountains. Our mountains behind the city go straight up to Alaska with no significant development in between. There is still a lot of wilderness to escape to. But bear, bobcats, coyotes are down breeding in the suburbs in a way they did not do in 1960s or 70s. They have found a niche.
Eagles and owls have also made a huge comeback post DDT.
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here there is an easy explanation as to why wildlife has encroached into the city, there has been built well over 100 miles of connecting trails in Fort Worth alone These are actual trails open to horses, not the interconnecting sidewalk system. The total trail system in north Texas is now approaching 700 miles
Add to that the few hundred miles of green belts on the rivers that no one has any idea as to just what lives there these river green belts have been connected
Somehow animal control got rid of the wild pigs that were terrorizing the place for several years
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How did they do it ??? Inquiring minds are desperate to know.
I don’t know how the pigs seem to have exploded in population in the last 30 years or so. But they seem to be like kudzu in large parts of the U.S. now.
It would be less of an issue if they weren’t so destructive of forage and habitat for all other animal life. Predators don’t seem to make much difference to them, possibly due to their size and group habits.
Eradicating them or even keeping their numbers in check seems like ongoing futility. They probably have the cycle like mice and rats, if their numbers decrease, they produce more young. Or something.
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The way they get rid of wild hogs is a bullet. They are always in season where I live, and for a while they paid bounties on them. They don’t fear people any longer, I’ve seen them eating next to a busy road, and running around in the burbs.
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I have expect wild pig is gamey, but could it be rebranded as wild boar or made into prosciutto or something?
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One at a time. That is not working, there are far, far too many hogs.
It’s like trying to eradicate all the flies in a county with a fly swatter. With 10 fly swatters, with special permits to spend all of their time swatting flies, with bounties paid to them for dead flies. The fly swatters are making good money but there is little discernible difference in the county population of flies.
That was part of my point. Some really diligent hunting, including trapping and shooting by the pen-full (brutal but it does kill hogs), can cut down on the numbers for – less than a year. It’s not even approaching a solution.
I was wondering what Fort Worth did. It wasn’t just shooting, they must have been strategic about it.
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