This website likes to explore some of the more dangerous wildlife in the region. We've had articles up on Sharks, Fisher Cats, Giant Turtles, Seagull Attacks and God knows what other stuff is either in the area or in our archives.
Today, we'll be discussing the Coyote.
Eastern Massachusetts has a substantial coyote presence. Every town and even every city has them. If you drive at night enough, you'll see them around.
Coyote are not native to Massachusetts, at least as recently as when White People started coming. The canid feared by Myles Standish was the Wolf. You could kill a wolf for a bounty in Plymouth by 1630, and Cape Cod actually considered putting up a wall to keep wolves away.
Trapping, poisoning and habitat destruction drove the Wolf out of Massachusetts and even New England. The wolf was extinct in New England by 1840. We then had a Pax Lycan of wolf-free living. Meanwhile, east-to-west settlement of America drove the wolves west, where they began to breed with the smaller and more adaptable western coyote.
This newly-created hybrid- the coywolf- then began to push east as former farmland reverted back into forest. Before long, they started making appearances in in northern New York and northern New England in the 1930s-1940s. From there, they began to bleed into southern and then southeastern New England. They were all over SE Massachusetts and even Cape Cod by the time the century turned over.
As of 2016, anyone living in any town who might be reading this most likely has a coyote in their neighborhood. What does that mean for them?
Again, the "coyote" we have are actually coywolves. To be fair, "coyote" sampled around here (specimens were taken from Barnstable and closer to Boston) turned up an odd mix... they were about 25% wolf and 10% domestic dog. A four-way mix, a menage a quatre, exists, and differing levels of Coyote, Eastern Wolf, Western Wolf and Domestic Dog is what is walking around in our neighborhoods.
A coywolf is larger and more suited to suburban/urban life, perhaps because or perhaps not because of the dog DNA. It may weigh 50 pounds more than a classic coyote.
A coywolf is bad enough to kill a human if enough of them get in on it. A gang of them killed a Canadian folk singer a few years ago. It most likely won't go down that way if you see coyote around, but that's the worst-case scenario.
What you can do to lower your chances of a coyote fight is to follow a few guidelines. These guidelines are from the Massachusetts Divison of Fisheries and Wildlife, just in case you thought that the guy making the MILF jokes last month in this column has now decided to offer his own untested thoughts on protecting yourself from a predator.
To Avoid A Coyote...
- Secure your garbage.
A coyote is a fine hunter, able to bring down a deer with the right numbers. However, like most everything, they'll take an easy meal if they can get at it. If you have your leftovers from the week in a thin Hefty bag on the side of our house, that's like a Golden Corral to a coyote.
While a coyote can eventually knock over a trash can and force off the lid, animals are cunning, and a great part of cunning involves choosing the path of least resistance for your task accomplishment. Once the coyote moves along from your house to the point where the house is out of his range, he's an SEP... Someone Else's Problem.
- Don't feed a coyote.
Take this as 1A with "secure your garbage," or take the garbage one as "don't indirectly feed the coyote."
Feeding a coyote does triple damage. It keeps him coming back to Freemealistan, it takes away his fear of humans, who he will then associate with food.
I knew a guy in Duxbury who lived on a meadow. He began to see a fox around his house. He soon was able to throw hot dogs to it and have the fox eat them. One night, he made a trail of hot dogs that led right onto his porch, where he was watching the Red Sox. About around inning 7, the fox came up on the porch and ate the stash he had left there. He stuck around for a few innings, not quite begging but still with a 100% food-focus. We were able to pull this stunt at will for a whole summer, enough that, if you added up the innings, the fox probably watched two or three full Red Sox games.
We named him "Redd," and he really wasn't a problem until he got a credit card and started ordering out of the ACME catalog. We were fools to do as we did, but it does go to show you how food association works.
- Be smart with those pets!
A coyote will view a small dog or cat as prey. It will view a large dog as competition. They have unfortunately aggressive reactions to both stimuli.
Your pet is far more likely to be killed by a car than by a wild animal. The threat all across the board is raised, however, if your pet is free-roaming. That's a free-range chicken to a coyote.
Feeding pets indoors is also important, as something which eats carrion and roadkill like a coyote does is going to view a big bowl of Gravy Train on your porch (or even a pile of spilled bird seed in your yard) as you or I might view an ice cream sundae giveaway.
I did find a stat that said "the most common food items were small rodents (42%), fruit (23%), deer (22%), and rabbit (18%)." Only about 2 percent of the (coyote) scats had human garbage and just 1.3 percent showed evidence of cats. "
I my be wrong, but the totals they listed (42+23+22+18) add up to 105%. Either way, cats and rubbish are a minor part of the coyote diet.
- Close off potential dens or areas that provide cover.
If you have an open crawl space under your house, you also have a coyote Holiday Inn. There's shelter, ambient heat, nearby food, and a perfect place to issue forth and nurse a litter of the furry fuc*ers.
If you have a bunch of thick brush in your yard, you also are providing a perfect place for the coyote to hide in and strike from. His main targets will be your pets and your trash.
You want to sort of seal your property off from a coyote, rather than make him want to hang around.
- Avoid going into areas that a coyote might favor.
This is especially true during spring and summer, when they are bearing and raising pups.
Of course a coyote can be anywhere. However, you can avoid areas where sightings are frequent, and you can use social media to pick up on sightings.
Ooops, there's a coyote! Now what?
- Remember who runs the f*cking planet.
You, as a human, are more dangerous than a coyote is. Both of you know it. That's why he hasn't attacked yet. He's alive because we have not yet decided to exterminate him.
If you remember that, it will add to your confidence. That will show in your body language, and that could deter an attack.
Like the author said, “Walk tall, kick ass.... and never forget that you come from a long line of truth seekers, lovers and warriors.”
- Try a domestic dog command on it.
Who knows? It may work.
If it does, you have a circus act. Try to teach him hockey next, I saw some gypsies in eastern Europe do that with bears once
OK... it probably won't work, but if you do it with some authority, the tone of your voice may deter the beast.
- Try to scare it off.
None of us are Hitchcock, but you can make an attempt to scare off an approaching coyote.
Maintain eye contact, don't show it your back, and don't run. Running will activate the chase instinct.
Screaming, performing mock charges, spreading out your coat to make yourself look 7 feet tall or 4 feet wide, throwing rocks, playing some NWA aloud... make sure ol' Wild E. knows that he'll be in for a squabble if he goes down Messing With You Boulevard.
- Bear arms and fight like Iron Mike.
If you live in an open-carry state, congratz! Shooting an aggressive coyote is one of those good reasons for having a gun.
If you can't or don't walk the b-lock with the G-lock c-ocked, there are other means by which to drive off or even kill a coyote. A good walking stick can deter a nosy coyote. Pepper spray or some sort of bear repellent spray will make them think twice about having themselves some people food. An air horn will both scare them away and summon attention from people who can help you. If the coyote gets in close on you, a good knife will go a long way.
Either way, fight to the death. It probably won't come to that, and the coyote will probably run off before sustaining crippling injuries, but don't let your own Lack Of Intensity be the reason for that.
You may feel badly about beating down a coyote with a lead pipe, but you're actually doing him a favor. A coyote who doesn't fear humans is a coyote who will eventually have to be euthanized.
If a pack of them come up on you and if you can't avoid it, fu*k up the meanest looking one first.
Dogs of any sort live by a dominance hierarchy, and it's easier to have one brutal fight with the top dog than it is to have a half dozen fights where the opponent keeps getting better.
Look at it this way... if a pack of celebrity dogs rushes you and you smack Cujo in the face hard enough to make him run away, you're probably not going to get much of an argument from Lassie afterwards.
Notify Authorities When A Coyote Becomes Aggressive.
An aggressive coyote is just the reason to have an Animal Control Officer on the payroll.
Here's how the Commonwealth views it.
"Coyotes are naturally afraid of people and their presence alone is not a cause for concern, though depending on human-related sources of food, coyotes can become habituated.
A habituated coyote may exhibit an escalation in bold behavior around people. The coyote has lost its fear of people when it exhibits one or more of the following behaviors.
The coyote:
* Does not run off when harassed or chased
* Approaches pets on a leash
* Approaches and follows people
When wildlife exhibit these behaviors, corrective measures can be taken.
If an immediate threat exists to human life and limb, public safety officials including ACOs, police departments, and the Massachusetts Environmental Police, have the authority to respond to and dispatch the animal as stipulated in the Code of Massachusetts Regulations (CMR) 2.14 that pertain to handling problem animals . This includes animals exhibiting clear signs of rabies.
If possible, MassWildlife should first be contacted to authorize the lethal taking of a coyote.
Coyotes taking pets are not considered an immediate threat to human safety, therefore ACO's and municipal police departments are not authorized to remove these wild animals."
