When Man Becomes Prey

by Cat Urbigkit

  Unfortunately, despite best efforts by the city of Boulder, conflicts continued. A month after the hazing program ended, two coyotes surrounded a man with two five-year-old boys on the Boulder Creek Path. When one of the boys ran to the man, one of the coyotes lunged at him, biting the child on the back of the leg. The man gave a detailed description of the two coyotes involved, and wildlife officials shot and killed both the animals within the next few days. Within a few weeks, at least two separate incidents of people confronted by aggressive coyotes as they walked their dogs were reported.

  Surging Conflicts in Canada

  Canada has also experienced a surge in conflicts between humans and coyotes. An October 2009 video of an aggressive coyote was posted on YouTube.com. The video focuses on a man in northern British Columbia as a coyote approaches him, seemingly in a playful manner at first, and getting more and more aggressive as the encounter continues. The coyote eventually bites and gnaws on the man’s boots before the man tires of the encounter and has to aggressively force the animal away. The man engaged in very dangerous behavior, and with the encounter ending in no negative consequence for the coyote, the danger for the next person to encounter the animal is imminently higher.

  A woman walking her small dogs on the Highlands Golf Course in Edmonton, Alberta, in October 2012 was startled when a coyote grabbed one of her dogs. When others arrived on the scene, they found the coyote circling and following the woman as she held a second dog in her arms. The coyote was apparently targeting the small dogs as a food source. Although the woman had managed to protect one dog, the other was not recovered. Another dog walker in the area said he had been stalked by a coyote moments before. Both people reported the coyote had refused to retreat when confronted. City officials estimate there are more than 2,000 coyotes in this metropolitan region, and city officials have instituted an educational program focused on avoiding conflicts between humans and coyotes.

  Toronto, Canada, officials killed two aggressive coyotes in separate incidents in early 2012. In one case, two young girls were chased by coyotes from a residential yard into a residence, with an eight-year-old girl receiving a bite on her leg in the process. An officer responding to the complaint was confronted by a coyote on a nearby trail and subsequently dispatched the animal. A few months later, during an active law-enforcement investigation, another officer encountered an aggressive coyote just east of Toronto’s downtown area and was able to shoot and kill the animal. Toronto officials were forced once again to kill an aggressive coyote after its repeated encounters with people in downtown Toronto in early 2013.

  In March 2013, Parks Canada issued a warning to the public to watch out for a bold coyote in the Lake Louise ski area. The coyote repeatedly approached people and had no fear of humans. The warning included the suggestion that skiers and snowboarders should travel in groups, and children should not be allowed to ski alone.

  ANIMAL ADVOCATES PROTEST

  Some animal advocates protest when coyotes are killed after aggressive encounters, and fear that government agencies take control too far. In early 2013, the Beach Coyote Coalition in Toronto advocated for peaceful co-existence with coyotes, but in the process discounted or minimized conflicts. It provides dangerously erroneous information. The group insists that coyotes “do not predate on dogs”—a blatantly false statement. Another false statement made by the group is this: “A coyote will not see a person as potential prey.”

  Rather than notifying wildlife authorities of coyote encounters, the group recommends it be contacted instead: “We recommend that, apart from disclosing the location of the sighting to us, you keep that information confidential in order to protect the coyote.” While the group may be well intentioned in its animal advocacy, protecting coyotes that exhibit predatory behavior could result in the loss of human life, or cause severe human injury.

  Continued Conflict, Injuries, and Debate

  A coyote attacked a female security guard working at the entrance to the Kennecott Utah Copper mine outside of Salt Lake City, Utah, in October 2012. The woman was working in the booth when the coyote entered and lunged at her. She defended herself, throwing up her arm, and was bitten several times. The woman was able to get the coyote out of the booth and call for help. A police officer responded to the scene and shot the coyote. The animal was healthy and did not have rabies.

  In October 2012, a fourteen-year-old boy was attacked by a coyote he encountered on a trail near his home in Austin, Texas, after neighbors reported aggressive coyotes in the area. The coyote responsible for knocking him to the ground and scratching him was not found, and the boy underwent a series of precautionary rabies shots.

  In December 2012, a Kent, Washington, man reported that, while he was out in his backyard with his dog, a pack of three coyotes attacked him. He fought off the animals and also received rabies shots after visiting an emergency room for treatment of his coyote bite and scratches.

  In January 2013, a coyote attacked and bit two teenage students while on the Brandeis University campus in Waltham, Massachusetts. One student was walking when the animal approached her from behind, biting her leg. Since the injury did break the skin, the student received medical treatment, including shots for tetanus and rabies. The other student was unharmed in the attack, as her thick boots prevented the coyote from inflicting damage to her skin. City officials reported their belief that someone was feeding the coyote, causing the human aggression.

  The city of Waltham posted a notice on its website, noting: “MA Wildlife and the Environmental Police are aware of the situation. It is believed someone is feeding the animal. This has led to it approaching people and grabbing at legs and feet in an attempt to get people to feed it, causing minor abrasions to one Brandeis student.”

  Although city officials suspected the coyote was aggressive because it had received human food rewards, the notice actually discounted the danger when it continued: “Had the intent been to attack, any injuries would have been quite severe, so people should not fear that a coyote is going around attacking people. However, this is still not acceptable behavior and the public safety is our utmost concern.” In reality, the fact that this coyote had already bitten several people should have been cause for alarm, and reason enough to suspect another attack could be imminent, and could be more severe for the next victim.

  Waltham could have taken a page out of the playbook of another Massachusetts town. Just a few months before the attacks in Waltham, the Massachusetts town of Belmont’s Board of Health approved a coyote management plan that included the deployment of a team of trained volunteers to harass coyotes that grew too bold, and to educate town citizens about how to keep the animals at bay.

  Orlando, Florida, residents were disturbed about the number of family pets gone missing from their neighborhoods in early 2013. One man kicked a coyote off the family dog, while a woman screamed when a coyote tried to attack one of her dogs. The coyote fled, but killed the dog in the next yard on its way out. Some neighborhoods tried to hire trappers to help control the problematic predators, but other residents protested, pleading for people to coexist with the animals.

  May 2013 saw a spate of coyote attacks on humans throughout the West. Residents of Santa Clarita, California, were warned about an aggressive coyote in their neighborhood after a coyote attacked and killed a small dog as it was being walked on a leash by a child and her mother in Summit Park. A jogger in the same area reported being chased by a coyote a few days later; a passerby came to her aid.

  In Kamloops, British Columbia, a man sleeping under the stars in his sleeping bag in a developed campground was attacked by a coyote. The man received stitches, and the coyote—which was in good health and showed no fear of humans—was destroyed by wildlife officers.

  Two preschool children were attacked by coyotes in separate incidents on the same day in a busy city park in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Unfortunately, these weren’t the first coyote attacks here: There had been other incidents involving aggressive
coyotes approaching humans in the area before the attacks. Wildlife officials took action and sought to destroy the coyotes. Two coyotes killed in the area were found to have mange. Some speculate that a wild animal suffering from ill health is more prone to seek out nontraditional prey (such as pets or humans).

  In July 2013, a two-year-old girl was bitten and nearly dragged away by a coyote while with her family visiting an Orange County, California, cemetery. The child’s mother grabbed the child in a momentary tug-of-war with the coyote and recovered the girl, who then received treatment for her injuries. Although wildlife officials eventually destroyed three coyotes near where the attack took place, a lawsuit was filed against cemetery officials later that fall by a woman who claimed to have been attacked by a coyote while visiting her mother’s grave in August. The lawsuit alleged negligence and premised liability due to the cemetery’s lack of preventative measures to keep such attacks from happening, as well as a failure to warn visitors of the risk of attack.

  While it seems the majority of the attacks are aimed toward children, adults—particularly adult males—are not immune. In October 2013, a twenty-two-year-old Colorado man was attacked by a pack of three coyotes early one morning as he walked away from his disabled car in Niwot. He fought the animals off. Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials called the attack unprovoked and killed three coyotes in the area. Necropsies revealed the animals (two females and one male) to be healthy adults, all with food in their stomachs.

  Colorado wildlife officials cautioned: “Coyote attacks on humans are rare; however, coyotes in the metro area become habituated to human presence. Habituation can cause coyotes to lose their healthy and natural fear of people, become territorial, and sometimes aggressive.”

  Management Challenges

  Wildlife managers face a variety of challenges as predator populations expand. According to authors David Foster, Glenn Motzkin, Debra Bernardos, and James Cardoza in a paper published in the Journal of Biogeography called “Wildlife Dynamics in the Changing New England Landscape,” the trend “towards a maturing forest landscape with large mammals, in conjunction with an expanding suburban and exurban human population, will lead to increasing conflicts between human interests and appreciation for wild nature. At the very least this raises the need for educating humans about wildlife, nature, and its history, and then using this education effectively to modify human behavior and attitudes. In the case of many of the larger mammals (e.g., bear, moose, beaver, coyote), the social carrying capacity of the landscape (i.e., the density and distribution of a species that humans can tolerate or accommodate) is ironically declining as the natural carrying capacity of the land is increasing.” After decades of learning about the need to conserve wildlife, it will take a major shift in public thinking to acknowledge that many wild-life (and predator) populations have reached the point that efforts must now turn to keeping a distance from the animals, for the good of both human and animal populations.

  The second challenge, of course, is effective regulation of wildlife populations, which Foster and his fellow authors called “a formidable task for a suburbanized human population that is generally poorly informed about nature and wildlife dynamics and is largely opposed to the most ready means of wildlife regulation: hunting and trapping.”

  Lethal control targeted at individual animals is often the fastest and most effective way to prevent further attacks when a dangerous situation is discovered. An assessment of the Broomfield, Colorado, coyote conflicts found that lethal removal of problem coyotes via high-powered rifle is both a practical and selective method to end conflicts in urban settings. While using a predator call to attract coyotes to an area of repeated conflict often enables offending animals to be removed via lethal control, coyotes are intelligent animals and will likely learn which trucks and people to avoid if a shot is missed or the animal is harassed before a shot can be taken.

  Rather than publicly condemning wildlife officials for taking needed action to reduce dangers to the public in neighborhoods experiencing conflicts between humans and coyotes, it would be helpful for residents to understand and be supportive of the need for action when aggressive coyotes are identified in a community. Once coyotes behave in a bold or aggressive manner around humans, it is unlikely that attempts at hazing will ultimately be successful in reversing the problem. In these circumstances, removal of the offending animal is the only effective strategy.

  Removal of a few problem coyotes can help to reestablish fear of humans in the remaining coyote population, which can resolve problems in both the short and long term. Other coyotes will move in to occupy vacant territory, so the removal of problem animals has no long-term negative impact on population numbers.

  In a 2004 International Union for the Conservation of Nature status report on the conservation of wild canids (the scientific name for the family that includes coyote, dogs, and wolves), C. Sillero-Zubiri and D. Switzer wrote, “Realistically, in human-dominated landscapes where canids and people coexist there will only be, at best, an uneasy tolerance.”

  The coyote that saunters down a suburban residential street in broad daylight, ignoring the presence of humans, exhibits strikingly different behavior from a coyote that lives in the wild or a rural ranching community and survives because it has successfully avoided other predators, traps, snares, and gunshots.

  —Robert Schmidt and Robert Timm, “Bad Dogs: Why Do Coyotes and Other Canids Become Unruly?”

  TEACH THE KIDS!

  Children should be taught how to recognize coyotes and instructed to keep their distance from the predators. Emphasize to children that they should never turn their backs and run from coyotes, but they should yell loudly for help while trying to climb up onto something, or get into a vehicle or building, to get away from a coyote that approaches them. The child should yell loudly but not shriek, since shrieking sounds are similar to that of wounded prey. If you see coyotes in your neighborhood, do not allow your children to play outside without adult supervision.

  Additionally, Canadian authorities recommend teaching children the acronym BAM when faced with an aggressive coyote:

  Back away

  Act big

  Make noise

  Avoiding

  Coyote Conflicts

  While conflicts with coyotes are occurring more regularly across North America, there are ways you can take action to avoid them. Coyotes are food opportunists, and it’s this basic principle that brings coyotes into close contact with humans on a regular basis. Do not place food out for coyotes, or for any other wild mammals for that matter. Clean up under bird feeders, in the rows of vegetables in gardens, and under trees where seasonal fruits or berries may fall. Pet food or human garbage should not be left outside and made available for coyotes or other wild animals.

  Small pets and their food can be major attractants for urban coyotes, and often pet owners have no idea that coyotes are in the area until a pet is seriously injured or killed. Keep cats and small dogs under close supervision during the day, but particularly at night. Some coyotes appear to seek out domestic cats as prey in residential areas, so consider keeping your cat inside at all times. Coyote-proof kennels or enclosures are another option to keep pets safe. Generally these enclosures should be at least 6 feet tall and have a wire apron around the bottom so that coyotes cannot dig their way underneath.

  If you see someone intentionally placing food for coyotes, notify authorities. Although the offender may be well intended, providing coyotes with food provides an association of humans as a food resource. Managers at the Cape Cod National Seashore in Massachusetts threatened to close down beachside parking areas in Provincetown in November 2013 after nine coyotes were seen approaching parked cars in the area to beg for food. Apparently a number of people had decided to feed coyotes in that area, and the coyotes begin making a habit of approaching cars for food. People who feed coyotes are at risk of being bitten and have increased the risk of attack on their neighbors and others using the area.


  Household trash should be placed in a container with a lid and placed outside the morning of pickup to provide less of an attractant to coyotes. Rinse trash cans with hot water and chlorine bleach on occasion to eliminate residual odors.

  Installation of motion-detection lighting around your residence and outbuildings helps to deter coyote habituation. The use of game cameras with flashes has also been effective at repelling coyotes in some cases.

  Crawl spaces under homes and outbuildings should be closed off so that coyotes cannot access these spaces. Clearing brush and dense vegetation on rural properties eliminates cover for coyotes and their prey. Wood and brush piles can attract small mammals, which then attract coyotes as well.

  Avoid known or potential den sites and areas with thick vegetation where coyotes, and their prey, may seek cover. Never corner a wild animal; if you encounter a coyote, make sure it has an escape route to get away from you.

  Coyotes are territorial mammals and conflicts with dogs can occur when a coyote attempts to assert dominance over disputed space—which can be a rural yard. Bold coyotes visit yards and howl and threaten larger dogs that they do not judge to be prey. Most of these incidents are territorial disputes, but a coyote may also see a dog as a potential mate.

  When walking with your dog, keep the dog on a leash. If approached by a coyote, keep the dog under control and try to calmly leave the area, without running or turning your back on the coyote. If the dog is small, pick it up and carry it while yelling at the coyote and trying to appear big. Do not allow your dog to interact or “play” with a coyote. Do not get between a coyote and your pet, since the coyote may turn the focus of its attack to you. Never simply ignore, just watch, or turn your back on a coyote. Indifference can have the same effect as feeding a coyote.