KPHO news site report that coyotes stalk and attack shoppers to get access to grocery bags.
do you notice this problem in your area?

http://www.kpho.com/news/14021056/detail.html

where I live, if an animal indulges in this type of behavior, it is quickly dealt with using the ".10 cent solution".

Live in a suburb just north of Phoenix, and I've noticed an increase in coyote traffic the past six months. Have a wide wash behind our house, and over the three years here, wasn't uncommon to see a pair of coyotes loping by right after sunset. Now four or five in the group and see them more frequently. But no reports in the area of "marauding" coyotes.

Despite the six-ft wrought iron fence across the back yard, my wife is paranoid about our Sh*tzu becoming coyote food.

She's not paranoid. I grew up in a little town about 75 miles south Phoenix. Had a paper route that meandered down a couple of desert roads. One customer had about 12 Chihuahuas, then a couple of months later she had 11. Then about a year later she had 10. When I would deliver in the pre-dawn hours I frequently saw Coyotes around her house. She had a chain link fence, but they dug under it. They are patient and smart. I've even seen one look both ways before crossing the highway.

Looks like the problem here is with people feeding them. We never had a problem with them attacking people, or even larger animals. Just the occasional chicken or unlucky Chihuajua.

no, we have mountain lions - but not quite as up-close and personal.

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/aug/27/park-closed-after-mountain-lion-sighted/

2nd time this year the park is closed.

We had a flyer put in our door last year by the HOA, telling us that two (supposedly two young adults) were sighted in our immediate area the day before. According to our neighbor, he called in a sighting ... in his backyard. That really got my wife goin'.

that's too up-close and personal!

isn't nature wonderful - as long as we keep an eye on our pets!

Chihuahua : I thought that word's meaning indeed WAS coyote food, in mexican language

Not so much in downtown Chi-town.

Hey, it's not just the coyotes you have to worry about. On Tuesday I was in Rocky Mountain National Park on a day hike, eating lunch and relaxing on the shore of Odessa Lake. There didn't appear to be any animals around, although we saw some fresh elk tracks/scat. Then, a single female mallard duck swam across the lake in a beeline towards us, walked up to my hiking companion, bit him on the toe, then jumped back into the water and swam away. We may have been 'armed for bear,' but apparently not 'armed for duck.'

that's what you think.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3006417

When it comes to smarts, I'll bet on a coyote against the average human every day of the year.

Sue

Coy[]tl, the Nahuatl name meaning 'God's Dog' gave us Coyote, AKA Canis Latrans. The precolumbian range was roughly the interior Southwest extending into Mexico. The great trickster has rapidly expanded to present day Panama south, all of the contiquous US,Canada and Alaska south of the Arctic. The medium for this expansion was the eradication of their controlling species Canis Lupus, aka the Wolf, aided by their superior adaptability via variable behaviors. A coyote can easilly clock 43 MPH and jump 4 meters. They range in wieght from @ 15 lbs to 45lbs. The record individual was 75lbs and measured 5" less tail. Coyotes have lived up to 18 years in captivity and average 10 in the wild.

"...the ".10 cent solution..."


Works for me...

I stand corrected...

dam. this coyote has good taste in sandwich subs. It headed directly Quizno sub store. who said advertising isn't effective? This coyote was hook on subs.

I wonder if they've ever been domesticated. Given their intelligence they'd probably give new meaning to the phrase "my dog's really smart."

"..."my dog's really smart." ..."

Then how come ole Wiley C never got that roadrunner???

A. Not a dog, really dumb cartoon character.

C. Didn't eat his Wheaties.

E. All of the above.

A Coyote found wandering around downtown Chicago (the Loop) in April was trapped in a Quiznos restaurant. Nobody was injured.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/325903,CST-NWS-coyote04.article#

I've heard and seen them a few times around here {suburbs about 25 miles east of Boston }. They don't bother me , in fact , I like that they are out there . I've heard some storys about cats disapearing but thats about it . IMO a lot of people are making too much of a big fuss about them .

People are concerned since a hungry coyote can easily kill a toddler. It takes just one death of a child to instill fear of this animal into people minds.

Out in the wastelands of south-central Washington State, I new a few wheat farmers that used to run greyhounds after yotes. Them coyotes knew they were in trouble and would lay their ears back and hit the afterburners, but it was like F-4s chasing Migs in 'nam; it was only a matter of time before them greyhounds caught up to that yote and put him tail over teakettle. Then it was a matter of if you could get up to the intercept sight before the greyhounds had the yote so tore up you couldn't recognize what he was any more.

I talked to one of the farmers about live and let live, and he told me that he thought about that a long time ago, till one of the yotes had taken his momma's poodle out of the backyard. After that, he said the war was on.

It sure is funny how them yotes will hang out on the trail and just watch you drive by, even stand there and watch you stop and open the door and get out, but the moment they see that gun barrel they light out full throttle. They ain't stupid, just hungry.

I think thats funny about the poodle. They put a small (I'm guessing it wasn't a standard bred poodle) tasty animal all alone in a fenced in yard and then they were surprised that the coyotes ate it.

I guess the way the story goes is that momma wasn't minding the door like she would normally do and the poodle got out where she wasn't supposed to be and got nailed. Last momma saw was a yote trailing away with the poodle (a mini I am assuming) hanging out of it's mouth. The farmer being the type raised that whatever makes momma unhappy needs to be taken care of, decided that such wouldn't occur again on his watch, ergo the declaration of war ensued. I seen a fair number of pelts tacked up to fence posts and barn doors out in farmland/rangeland. Sheepherders area especially hateful of yotes.

Some time ago in Australia a dingo snatched a baby from a tent and disappeared with it. The mother was accused of her murder and spent several years in prison before being cleared. The story made headlines and was made into a movie with Meryl Streep and Sam Neill.

But he did!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJJW7EF5aVk

LOL !!

Isn't it funny how so many humans want their wilderness sterilized and sanitized?

If you don't want your kids and pets eaten by coyotes or wolves or bears, don't leave them where they can get them! Is this too basic?

[WARNING: Rant On]
By the way, do you know how much ranchers are paying to have their livestock destroy OUR PUBLIC lands? They're paying a paltry $1.79 per head per month. For this tiny fee, we get to have the local springs trampled into mudholes, waterways contaminated with feces, timberlands destroyed due to grazing of new trees, grasslands turned to powder due to overgrazing and destruction of the native rodents, destruction of desirable plants/animals and delicate ecosystems, and the destruction of predatory species by the ranchers.

And if that isn't bad enough, but we're also paying something like $300 million in subsidies to let them continue the destruction.

(RANT OFF)

Did you know that when the pioneers moved west in the 1840s, '50s and '60s (etc), they could usually find water at least once every day, enough for the people and all the stock? I'll bet it's not there now, if you happened to need it.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find any ETS members who bugged out during/after a disaster to the wilderness lying dead on the ground, dead from a bullet to the head. You would be nothing but competition for water with a Hereford/Angus mix, plus you'd be a source of danger to a walking chunk of meat. I don't think that would be tolerated. (And you think the pot farmers are dangerous?)

Sue

Yep, it was a far better environmental solution back in the 70s, when cattlemen built huge feed lots with 10,000 or more head and kept them all cooped up together and fed them processed feed including cotton hulls, molasses, and whatever grain they could get the cheapest.

Mis-managed use of the environment will continue to be a concern as long as we keep allowing people who know nothing about what it takes to conserve the resource to make decisions about how it will be used. Munching tree limbs is bad, but letting the whole forest burn up because they've outlawed logging and even clearing out the debtritous is causing the greatest loss. There's a whole lot of things we could be doing better to conserve habitat and promote the beneficial use of the wilderness. Greed and the ignorant apathy of the electorate condemn us to continue soiling in our own bed.

"...Yep, it was a far better environmental solution back in the 70s, when cattlemen built huge feed lots with 10,000 or more head and kept them all cooped up together..."

The '70's??? Drive by the Harris Feed Lot, second largest in the county last I heard, on I-5 in central CA today and you will see between 80k and 125k head of cattle in a pretty small area. Side note, many are fed a special high fat diet and flown to Japan on 747 bull haulers. John Harris, son of the founder Jack Harris, is a rich man...

Oh yeah, they're still around, just not nearly as abundant as they were when I was a kid. I saw an awful lot of them empty out in about a decade. You can still find em, remnants of an era.