[HN Gopher] In a milestone for Manhattan, a pair of coyotes has ...
___________________________________________________________________
In a milestone for Manhattan, a pair of coyotes has made Central
Park their home
Author : sohkamyung
Score : 101 points
Date : 2025-07-01 12:12 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| doug-moen wrote:
| If the coyotes breed, then attacks on humans will begin as the
| coyotes will instinctively defend their cubs from humans who get
| too close to the den, even unwittingly. It would be better to
| remove the coyotes before this happens.
| kjkjadksj wrote:
| Coyotes are all over socal and they really don't go for people
| at all. Small dogs maybe.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Generally true but there are exceptions.
| otoburb wrote:
| >> _Small dogs maybe._
|
| A judge in Brooklyn recently ruled[1] that dogs are (now)
| classified as "immediate family members". I wonder if the
| this might push the Central Park Conservancy to step up
| considerations for eradication of the coyotes to avoid
| potential emotional damages in light of the ruling if such a
| situation were to occur.
|
| [1] https://www.nonhumanrights.org/blog/dogs-family-members/
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| if we're lucky maybe the coyotes will take out this judge?
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _Coyotes are all over socal and they really don't go for
| people at all._
|
| From four days ago:
|
| * https://globalnews.ca/news/11267424/nobelton-coyote-attack/
|
| -\\_(tsu)_/-
| mikestew wrote:
| No one is saying that it doesn't happen. One-off stories
| don't prove anything one way or the other.
| metabagel wrote:
| Smaller children are at risk for coyote attacks. A
| 12-year-old boy does seem a bit unusual, but he wasn't
| paying attention to his surroundings. It may depend
| somewhat on whether the animal was rabid, or how
| hungry/desperate the animal was for food.
| throw0101d wrote:
| They are (statistically) rare, but not one-off:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote_attack
|
| Currently (in Toronto) the attacks are generally against
| dogs/cats, but chasing of humans has been reported:
|
| * https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-coyote-
| action...
|
| * https://www.hawkeye.ca/blog/toronto-coyote-increase
| metabagel wrote:
| Small pets and small children are at risk.
| IG_Semmelweiss wrote:
| If you have plentiful prey (rats outnumber humans in NYC) ,
| this is not likely to happen
| lawlessone wrote:
| As the other post mentioned they can be aggressive to protect
| cubs then it is not about hunger..
| fmbb wrote:
| Coyotes are tiny critters. Surely they don't attack humans?
| pinkmuffinere wrote:
| They do on occasion, and there have even been a couple of
| deaths. But to your point, the rate is very very low.
|
| Edit: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coyote_attack
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _Coyotes are tiny critters. Surely they don't attack
| humans?_
|
| Perhaps adult humans are less likely, but child humans the
| risk could be higher as a coyote may think they can 'take'
| them; from a few days ago:
|
| * https://globalnews.ca/news/11267424/nobelton-coyote-attack/
| kibwen wrote:
| It sounds like you're on the west coast, where coyotes are
| tiny. East coast coyotes are much larger, on the order of a
| good-sized dog.
|
| That said, I welcome coyotes in urban spaces, and have
| admired from afar the few bold urban coyotes I've come
| across. Humans need reminders that they're a part of nature
| and not apart from nature, especially in the city. In terms
| of actual danger, coyotes kill approximately infinity times
| fewer people than cars do, so let's focus infinity times more
| energy on solving that problem first.
| billfor wrote:
| On the east coast the coyotes interbreed with wolves and form
| coywolves which are really huge and can be nasty. Look at the
| picture on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_coyote. It's
| only a matter of time before something bad happens to a small
| child. They've already killed a lot of small dogs.
| pfdietz wrote:
| They're expanding/evolving into the niche that wolves
| occupied. The superabundance of deer is facilitating that.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| Dingoes are a good percentage smaller than Coyotes on average
| and maximum (Dingoes 22 - 33 lbs, Coyotes 20 - 46 lbs).
| Dingoes are small, to the point where "Dingoes ate my baby"
| was a common and sarcastic joke after a reported attack - And
| yet that attack was extensively proven[1].
|
| Yes, a small group of Coyotes could easily corner or snatch a
| small child and pose a danger to such. Is it likely? No. Is
| it reasonable to relocate the coyotes? Absolutely. It might
| also be reasonable to manage and not relocate the coyotes.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_Chamberlain-
| Creighton#Ev...
| triceratops wrote:
| They're the size of a medium size dog, only not friendly. If
| we don't accept off-leash dogs in public I don't understand
| why coyotes are tolerated in human cities.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| They are tolerated because there is no human you can yell
| at to keep them on a leash.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| What do you mean tolerated? How many coyotes have you
| personally eradicated? If not you then who?
| vunderba wrote:
| The ones I've come across in the southwest portion of the
| U.S. are pretty small, and from Wikipedia: _" The average
| male weighs 8 to 20 kg (18 to 44 lb) and the average female 7
| to 18 kg (15 to 40 lb)."._
|
| My Pyrenees/husky mix absolutely dwarfs them and they give
| her a WIDE berth the few times I've seen them while hiking.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| At least when it comes to coyotes on the Pacific Northwest,
| they're not tiny at all. I've seen specimens that easily had
| the size of a largish German shepherd, many times. 30 to 40
| kilos isn't rare, and that's not a tiny critter at all. It's
| definitely a threat to a kid or nearly any dog and could give
| even an adult male human a run for their money if the coyote
| actually got aggressive enough to lunge (that at least isn't
| likely, since they're fantastically cowardly when confronted
| by any aggression from adult humans, at least in my
| experience)
| steveBK123 wrote:
| Probably biggest human coyote interaction risks in Central Park
| will be the bikers and dog walkers.
| slwvx wrote:
| Humans are a bigger risk to coyotes than coyotes to humans.
|
| > It would be better to remove the coyotes before this happens.
|
| following this logic, we should just kill all coyotes. We did
| this to lotsa other species, I hope we've stopped that.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| In cities where parks are the few places kids can play
| outdoors yes that is a reasonable idea.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I wouldn't worry about this; pretty rare that today's
| parent lets their kid farther away than arms length!
| triceratops wrote:
| > we should just kill all coyotes
|
| At least relocate them out of cities. Why would you ever want
| a predator that large living inside a city?
|
| Let a dog, a domesticated animal that we trust to live in our
| homes with our children and babies, off-leash in a city and
| people lose their minds. But coyotes move in and everyone's
| chill? Wtf
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Where I live you can shoot coyotes in any season with a
| hunting permit. That's chill? OK then, let's be chill about
| off-leash dogs and apply the same rules to them.
| triceratops wrote:
| That's not what the story is about. But you sound like
| you want to shoot dogs.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Do I?
|
| You sound like you think it's OK to let your dog run off-
| leash.
| triceratops wrote:
| My suggestion was relocating the coyotes, not shooting
| them. I'm ok applying that rule to off-leash dogs and in
| fact, that's what happens. They're trapped and taken to a
| shelter for the owner to reclaim. They're eventually put
| down if unclaimed.
|
| You suggested shooting dogs. Seek help.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Where do we relocate the off-leash dogs to? This
| interests me.
|
| We catch a dog off-leash in a park and the dog gets
| relocated to...where?
| triceratops wrote:
| I updated my comment because I figured a troll like
| yourself would ask. And I was right.
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Dogs kill orders of magnitudes more humans than coyotes.
| Orders of magnitude more children are killed by dogs than
| by coyotes.
|
| Chill, dude.
|
| I don't know if we should kill dogs. That's not my call.
| But at least relocate them out of cities?
|
| Would you ever want a predator as large as a dog living
| inside a city?
|
| I wouldn't, I'm a cat person.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Are off-leash dogs in your part of the world a consistent
| threat to your safety, or an annoyance? There's obvious
| recourse since dogs have owners, but maybe you should
| shoot them too?
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| >> Are off-leash dogs in your part of the world a
| consistent threat to your safety
|
| Killed people here, yeah. What's the recourse when a pit
| bull kills you, skeeter2020? Can you tell me that? When
| you're dead from a pit bull attack, what's your recourse?
|
| I'm really interested in the answer.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| >> At least relocate them out of cities.
|
| Ah yes, make it someone else's costly problem and let me
| feel good about myself because it's such a humane solution.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| Coyotes are already slaughtering pets in places where their
| population reaches saturation levels thanks to access to so
| much easy food. It's not a hypothetical, it's something that
| actively happens and in such places, attacks on little kids
| are not a miniscule risk.
|
| No, you don't have to kill all coyotes to control a specific
| population of them in a particular place in way that actually
| re-balances a completely unnatural saturation in their
| numbers.
|
| There's nothing grotesque about recognizing the reality of
| these being urban spaces in which it might just not be a good
| idea to have many thousands more 40-kilo predators wandering
| around than would ever be natural even if the area were
| totally uninhabited by humans.
| cowmoo728 wrote:
| I've seen this exact pair of coyotes three times now. I have a
| few blurry photos of them. They're about the size of my dog,
| who is roughly 60 pounds, so they are sizable and could hunt a
| small dog or child. However, they're very cautious around
| people still, and appear well fed. The wildlife in central park
| is highly adapted to the presence of people and stays away,
| except to dig through the park trash.
| msgodel wrote:
| Sssh. They don't want to hear it. It won't bother those of us
| who don't live there and they'll figure it out in a few years.
| bell-cot wrote:
| Coyotes have been breeding near human settlements, at scale,
| for thousands of years. Attacks happen, but are very rare.
|
| I'd speculate that there has been considerable selective
| pressure against the "not highly avoidant of attacking humans"
| trait in coyotes.
| VTimofeenko wrote:
| IME(living in almost rural area, coyotes live in/near
| stormwater ponds and are abundant) they will follow you if you
| get too close to the den to try to drive you away, but won't
| engage.
|
| Coyote pups are adorable though. A couple of them made a lair
| in a drain about a month ago but have relocated since. Still
| see one of them around the neighborhood with his distinctive
| tail.
| qoez wrote:
| This being a positive thing in the sense of managing the rodent
| population feels like in the simpsons when they introduce snakes
| to eat lizards and then gorillas to take care of the snake
| overpopulation.
| fluorinerocket wrote:
| But the gorillas freeze in the winter. That's the beauty of it
| thePhytochemist wrote:
| There have been some hilarious and unfortunate disasters using
| introduced populations for pest control. But coyotes are not
| introduced. They are native to the area which means there are
| many checks and balances in place.
|
| Rat control is not just a nice bonus option to reduce an
| irritation - we need to take it seriously in light of the Black
| Death. The fact of the matter is I see people having trouble
| with rat control in my area and we could use help to manage
| something that is potentially a lot more dangerous than
| coyotes.
| dylan604 wrote:
| How effective will a pair of coyotes hanging out in Central
| Park be for rodent control in the city? It's the rats running
| in the drains, streets, buildings that are the problem. Rats
| living in the park are not what the people living in the city
| care about
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Give it time. Predators breed until prey numbers are
| diminished enough that they start starving.
| lordnacho wrote:
| So then there will be thousands and thousands of hungry
| coyotes in NYC, since NYC is famously full of rats?
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| except a specialized rat killer will not be much of a
| threat to humans, and will have a natural population
| control - or go after ferrets next!
| rufus_foreman wrote:
| Coyotes are not native to the eastern US. The eastern US was
| mostly forest and coyotes don't typically hunt in forested
| areas. Coyotes only spread to the eastern US after 1900.
|
| Also, eastern coyotes typically also have wolf and dog DNA.
| Coyotes, wolves, and dogs can and do interbreed. This has
| resulted in some places in the eastern US in a subspecies
| that isn't afraid of humans due to the dog DNA, that can hunt
| in open areas due to the coyote DNA, and can also hunt in
| forested areas due to the wolf DNA.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| Coywolves are also much larger and more powerful than
| coyotes. It may have been an anomaly, but I had the
| opportunity to see one close up on the edge of my rural
| property in PA that was easily the size of a German
| shepherd.
| exegete wrote:
| In this case humans didn't introduce the coyotes. We've
| diminished the populations of most predators like coyotes such
| that other animals' populations grow out of control without
| human intervention. So in this case humans intervened by
| displacing coyotes previously not by introducing them now.
| metabagel wrote:
| Like the introduction of mongooses on some Hawaiian islands to
| control rats. The mongooses then became a pest.
|
| https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/hisc/mongoose-urva-auropunctata/
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| but there's no cobra problems on those islands, is there!
| delichon wrote:
| > Coyotes can also help manage the city's rodent problem and keep
| other wildlife populations, like Canada geese and raccoons, in
| check.
|
| Not just wildlife. A pack tracked my wily cat for months. I saw a
| couple of close calls. They learned that the cat liked to leave
| the house for a stroll a little before dawn. One morning they
| waited for him and took him right outside the cat door. It was
| pretty amazing that he lived nine years as thick as coyotes are
| around here. I can't bear to keep a cat locked in the house, so
| haven't had the nerve to get another since then.
|
| I previously lost a cat to a pack of raccoons. But my cats
| collectively are way ahead of the game in terms of animal biomass
| harvested.
| rescripting wrote:
| Probably best to keep your cats inside even if you do get
| another one, considering the devastating effect they have as an
| invasive species on local wildlife. [1]
|
| [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
| bpodgursky wrote:
| If your cat actually eats what they kill (ours did) it's not
| nicer for the environment to turn forest into farmland to
| grow corn to feed chickens to turn into cat food. You're just
| pushing the environmental impact somewhere you can't see it.
| tristan957 wrote:
| From the abstract of the article:
|
| > We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3-4.0
| billion birds and 6.3-22.3 billion mammals annually.
|
| I don't understand how to marry the point you're trying to
| make to this. Cats are an invasive species to most small
| animals, and should be kept from accessing them.
|
| In addition to the havoc they wreak on local small animal
| populations, outdoor cats live shorter lives than their
| indoor counterparts.
|
| https://www.vetinfo.com/indoor-outdoor-cat-life-
| expectancy.h...
| op00to wrote:
| > I don't understand [...]
|
| They're willfully ignoring the facts and indulging in
| emotional projection. Domestic cats aren't wild animals,
| they're pets. Letting them roam outdoors is irresponsible
| both to local ecosystems and to the cats themselves.
|
| Many dogs will run right out the door if left to their
| own devices, but somehow this is not ok while the same
| behavior for cats is. Very strange.
| whycome wrote:
| I think they're pointing out also that humans themselves
| are an invasive species. They've killed wildlife and
| converted fertile land to monocultures. Letting humans
| roam outdoors tends to be irresponsible to local
| ecosystems.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Many dogs will run right out the door if left to their
| own devices, but somehow this is not ok while the same
| behavior for cats is.
|
| That's not at all difficult to explain. The dog is a
| nuisance to the nearby humans.
| dmonitor wrote:
| Nobody cares about their pets being a nuisance. They care
| because dogs are more likely to get lost and not find
| their way home or get hit by a car.
| 827a wrote:
| Realistically, in much of the US both urban and rural,
| cats are as much a part of the wildlife as whatever
| animal purists actually want to call wildlife. You can
| spay, neuter, domesticate, and indoor them as much as
| humans are capable of doing; but they breed like, well,
| cats, and they deeply want the freedom of being outside.
| Most modern dogs would not survive if humans didn't
| intervene in their survival; but the vast majority of
| cats would. Humans don't generally actively participate
| in inciting cat breeding like we do with dogs; in fact,
| we try to stop it as much as we can. What you're
| describing is just... nature. Its harsh, its brutal, but
| cats are a very natural part of our ecosystem.
|
| Even the term "domesticated cat" is a partial, minor
| misnomer [1]. They aren't really domesticated in the same
| way dogs are. They're wild animals, who's wild behavior
| just happens to be kinda chill and mesh well with humans.
|
| Cats do live longer when you keep them inside. Humans
| would also live longer if we kept them in a prison for
| their entire life, feeding them a nutritionally perfect
| slurry. Not sure why its relevant to the discussion.
|
| [1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-
| institution/ask-s...
| bpodgursky wrote:
| You could try thinking about it. Buying cat food at the
| store isn't magic. It comes from somewhere.
|
| Cats can eat the wildlife in your yard. Or, you could
| have wildlife in your yard, and offset the calories by
| growing them on more farmland somewhere else.
|
| The only difference in the second scenario is that you
| don't see the extra acre of woods -- along with all the
| lizards and birds that would live there -- getting turned
| into soybeans.
| sosborn wrote:
| "Feral Cats are wild-living variant of the common pet
| cat, introduced to Hawai'i by Europeans. Feral cats have
| established populations on all eight of the main Hawaiian
| Islands and contribute to widespread ecological
| disruptions that threaten native Hawaiian wildlife. Feral
| cats are one of the most devastating predators of
| Hawai'i's unique wildlife. In addition to direct
| predation, feral cats also spread a potentially lethal
| parasite (Toxoplasma gondii) that contaminates
| terrestrial, freshwater, and marine environments and has
| been shown to negatively impact birds and mammals -
| including humans."
|
| https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/hisc/info/invasive-species-
| profiles/...
| noelwelsh wrote:
| Most pet food is made from waste from producing human
| food. E.g. offal. So I'm not sure pet food accounts for
| any significant loss of wild land on its own.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| This gets trotted right out every time someone mentions their
| cat being let outside, as if it were some sort of awful sin
| and thus makes the cat's owner totally wrong in any worry or
| complaint they have about their cat's safety outdoors. It's
| ridiculous, particularly when there's a very easy solution to
| cats hunting local birds: a collar with a little bell. It's
| nearly guaranteed to ruin their hunting.
|
| That aside, you yourself, as a human, are an invasive species
| that kills tons of animals indirectly through your habits
| each year, should you thus be enclosed 24 hours a day? Cats
| killing off random birds. The ship of human intervention in
| the ecosystem has long since sailed, and blaming cat owners
| for a relatively tiny part of it is an absurdity in badly
| applied blame.
| dmonitor wrote:
| You're allowed to let your cat outside and kill nature, but
| you aren't allowed to be mad when nature fights back. The
| double standard with which people treat feral dogs/cats
| (treating kill shelters for overpopulation as an awful sin)
| versus how they treat snakes and alligators (go into the
| woods and kill them on sight just for existing) makes me
| nauseous.
| chomp wrote:
| Bad take. Letting your cat experience nature means you need
| to be ok with nature experiencing your cat.
| eszed wrote:
| > a collar with a little bell. It's nearly guaranteed to
| ruin their hunting.
|
| Unfortunately, that's not true. There was a study by some
| academics in Britain a few yearsdeg ago that showed
| effectively no difference in hunting success rates between
| belled and un-belled cats. The explanation is that cats are
| ambush predators, so once they (very quickly) learn how to
| stalk (they're moving slowly, anyway) without ringing the
| bell, their quarry doesn't hear the bell until they pounce,
| when it's (mostly) too late.
|
| They were specifically looking at songbirds, as I recall.
| Maybe success rates for rodents are different - though
| that'd hardly be a good thing, because we generally _want_
| cats to kill mice and rats!
|
| ---
|
| [On reflection]: Based on where I remember I was living
| when I read it, this was over a decade ago. (Where does
| time go?) There may have been updates since.
| jhide wrote:
| While the misanthropy is compelling, and bell collars
| slightly reduce hunting success for (invasive, feral) cats,
| literally nothing else in your comment correct.
|
| Concern for native birds and small mammals which are a
| keystone part of our ecosystems is not futile. They support
| literally everything required for human survival (carbon
| cycle, water, cycle, nitrogen cycle, pollination, sea
| dispersal, pollution control, etc) directly, and indirectly
| by their behaviors which have coevolved for millions of
| years. Invasive, feral cats, just like humans have only
| been here for a very short window of time, and while there
| are still native birds and mammals and plants left to care
| for, we can and should support them by minimizing the
| wonton carnage and death which we unleash each year. You're
| probably aware that in North America alone feral cats kill
| between 10 and 30 billion native birds and small mammals a
| year. Euthanasia instead of trap neuter release is not a
| sailed ship. Planting native (human intervention) and
| undoing the lawns (human intervention) that have destroyed
| our native ecosystems is not a sailed ship. There is hope
| and it is exciting to work towards this in your own
| community and I hope you come to see that. The results
| (insects return, the soil enriches and traps carbon, and
| birds you've never seen before sing on your back porch in
| the morning) are nearly immediate and heartwarming
|
| Edit: typo
| trhway wrote:
| >You're probably aware that in North America alone for
| all cats kill between 10 and 30 billion native birds and
| small mammals a year
|
| and how many of those birds and mammals were old and ill
| and would be killed by other predators in similar
| situation in non-developed areas? Why didn't you specify
| that comparative number? May be because that would have
| shown that the cats are just doing the job of other
| predators pushed out by humans?
|
| Btw, the cats kill up to 4 billion birds annually. At the
| same time 3.5 billion birds die hitting glass of the
| buildings. Cats kill old/ill. The birds hitting building
| aren't majority old/ill. Thus killings by cats are mostly
| beneficial to the bird species while glass buildings make
| tremendous damage to the bird species.
| rescripting wrote:
| What evidence do you have that the birds killed by cats
| are mainly old or ill?
|
| Cats being an invasive species in most places on earth
| means that most bird species have not evolved with them
| as a natural predator, and so are at an innate
| disadvantage.
|
| And yes, birds hitting man made structures is a major
| problem. There can be two bad things at once. Just
| because there are two bad things doesn't mean we give up
| tackling one or the other.
| trhway wrote:
| >What evidence do you have that the birds killed by cats
| are mainly old or ill?
|
| it is well established pattern of predation in the
| Nature. Again, you specified the total number without
| providing the old/ill number. The relation of those
| numbers can completely change the conclusion, and i can
| only wonder why you didn't provide the old/ill number.
|
| >Cats being an invasive species in most places on earth
|
| What planet "earth" you're talking about? On the 3rd
| planet from Sun the wild cats are practically everywhere.
| And in the places where there are no cats, there are
| still similar predators - ferrets, foxes, etc.
|
| >And yes, birds hitting man made structures is a major
| problem. There can be two bad things at once.
|
| No 2 bad things here. Predation by cats is natural, and
| thus mostly good, in the Nature-way, for the species
| being predated upon. The man made structures are really
| bad as i described in my previous comment. Yet somehow
| you want to tackle the first and not the second.
| Tade0 wrote:
| You can always walk your cat on a leash. It's a unique
| experience and very different from walking a dog.
|
| My SO would occasionally unleash our cat and run alongside
| it.
| trhway wrote:
| >Probably best to keep your cats inside even if you do get
| another one, considering the devastating effect they have as
| an invasive species on local wildlife. [1]
|
| >[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
|
| You're posting an article by the Smithsonian department
| employing that felon convicted for animal cruelty toward
| cats.
|
| Wrt. the article itself - it has pretty much no scientific
| merits as, not surprisingly given the authors' agenda, the
| article has an obvious fundamental flaw disqualifying it from
| science - it doesn't specify how many of that wildlife killed
| by cats were old/ill who would be anyway killed by other
| predators if it were a natural setting and not a developed
| area where the only predators left are cats.
|
| If we to believe the article's total numbers then it would
| really mean what the cats are just doing the job of other
| predators pushed out by humans. Killing the old/ill birds,
| reptiles, mammals by predators is good for those birds,
| reptiles, mammals species. (and around humans say an old/ill
| bird not killed by cats would become a dead bird and a food
| for rats or something like this)
| rasz wrote:
| How many birds did the free roaming house cat kill over the
| years?
| dang wrote:
| I do understand the strong feelings around this but let's not
| go into that flamewar please.
|
| (Cat and dog flamewars are surprisingly vicious, as are bike
| vs. car flamewars.)
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| except unlike bike vs. car where bikes are the obivious
| right choice, both cats and dogs are cool :)
| adzm wrote:
| I train my cats to not predate birds.
| hungmung wrote:
| Coyotes are small but dangerous. I wouldn't even let a 100lb
| dog outside off-leash if I've seen coyotes in the area, they
| just go right for the belly and rip out the innards.
| noelwelsh wrote:
| Our cats go into cat jail in the evening, and don't get
| released until we wake up. Keeping them inside during the night
| means fewer fights, less risk from cars, and reduced chance of
| encounters with wildlife.
| thePhytochemist wrote:
| Thanks for posting this, such a nice story and writeup!
|
| Where I live in Vancouver the coyotes have been very noticeable
| this year. I love to hang out with them in the park and garden,
| and hear them howl with the cop cars at night. They are not pets
| though - I always keep my distance and keep aware of the
| possibility that they might sneak up on me.
|
| I take care of an outdoor cat in the neighborhood, and yes it's
| possible that a coyote will eat a cat or small dog. I worry about
| her but there are many fences, she is smart as well as a good
| climber. There are many hazards in the city that don't have the
| positive sides that coyotes do, and I think it's important that
| we learn to live with them and honour what they bring to our
| lives. That includes rat control, which we rather need here.
| mikestew wrote:
| _I take care of an outdoor cat in the neighborhood, and yes it
| 's possible that a coyote will eat a cat or small dog._
|
| I live near a trail which also serves as a wildlife corridor,
| including coyotes that we regularly see on our dog walks. Years
| ago, we had a feral cat that we would feed and care for
| (including neutering). He remained outside because he refused
| to even be brought inside, let alone live with us. This guy was
| huge, and looked like he had won his share of fights with the
| scars to prove it. If a cat would survive in the wild, it would
| be this guy. But even he wasn't tough enough to hold off (what
| I assume were) coyotes forever, and one day he just quit coming
| around.
|
| After that I've noticed that we just don't have outdoor cats in
| our neighborhood.
|
| (And for context, we aren't out in the boonies; this is within
| the city limits of Redmond, WA, where the local elementary gets
| locked down about once a year because mama bear and her cubs
| showed up off that same trail.)
| ilamont wrote:
| In our neighborhood near Boston, coyotes have become very
| active at night and trot in the middle of roads and between
| houses. Several times in the morning I have found absolutely
| shredded carcasses of squirrels and rabbits on our property in
| locations which are not likely to be attributed to other
| predators such as owls.
|
| We have also noticed fewer raccoons on our security camera,
| which we used to see several times per week at night around our
| fishpond (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33952437)
| but now only once or twice per month.
|
| Neighbors have also reported missing outdoor cats, which I
| believe are probably coyote kills (we live on a small peninsula
| ~1 km^2 so cats are unlikely to wander far from home). About 10
| years ago, a nearby relative found the carcass of a cat on his
| front lawn, which he believes was a coyote. All that was left
| was the skin/fur and the intestines.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| >I love to hang out with them in the park and garden,
|
| It's good fun to watch and listen to the coyotes until one of
| them steals a beloved pet away right before your eyes. My
| family has lost a total of three cats to these things and I
| know people who've lost smaller dogs. Cases of them attacking
| kids aren't unheard of either, and the risk isn't something to
| laugh at when it comes to unsupervised small kids.
|
| As far as i'm concerned, when coyotes reach the population
| levels that it's easy to see in metro Vancouver, it's a good
| time to start a culling campaign. This is not an endangered
| animal.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/opinion/in-zimbabwe-we-
| do...
|
| People love to celebrate when the population of large
| predators near _other people_ increases.
| jhide wrote:
| Coyotes do not deserve to be mentioned in the same breath
| as a lion. And people should celebrate anytime a native
| predator is able to carve out a niche in an urban
| environment as long as it doesn't involve murdering
| children. Which coyotes don't do. They eat small mammals
| and also sometimes invasive feral cats.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| The reason coyotes don't eat children is that they're
| kept separate. Same reason sharks don't eat children.
| Left to their own devices, coyotes obviously will eat
| children.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22707064
|
| > I used to go for six mile walks in the High Desert for
| exercise. I routinely ran into coyotes. They never
| bothered me.
|
| > I did tell my children to not go out alone at night.
| There had been two or three attacks on children in the
| previous five years.
|
| Another story that came up on HN was someone describing
| how he used to adventure through the wild areas near his
| home, and was never bothered by the lone coyotes he saw,
| but that on one occasion he met two coyotes together, and
| they began circling him. I didn't manage to find that one
| today.
| jhide wrote:
| Coyotes attacked a small dog in the park near my house
| last fall (when the juveniles leave the den and try to
| stake out territory) so I understand the concern. But
| comparing them to lions in Zimbabwe doesn't resonate with
| me and I live in Chicago (we have tons, one was under my
| porch last year).
|
| Think of all the samples of the interaction function
| between humans and the >1mm coyotes (often unbeknownst to
| the humans) in American cities each day. The list of all
| attacks recorded in modern times has a Wikipedia page. In
| human-created spaces we make very little separation from
| the habitats coyotes live in. They choose not to predate
| the defenseless babies they encounter in backyards
| because it is not the ecological niche they have carved
| out.
|
| I will let my older children play unsupervised in my
| backyard despite knowing there are dozens of coyotes in
| my city because no creature has made a niche out of
| killing them. The same is not true for my very young
| children but that's because toddlers have made an
| evolutionary niche out of killing themselves :)
| BriggyDwiggs42 wrote:
| My dad lives in Silverlake LA and there's a coyote den up
| the hill a bit from his house. He's got two huge dogs,
| but sometimes when you walk em they'll get super excited
| to go after a coyote standing in the middle of the
| street. Thing is, they're damn smart, and you can be sure
| that if you see one in the street, there's another one
| the opposite way down the street, usually hiding under a
| car. They 100% know when they have numbers on a larger
| animal and when they don't.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Were they indoor cats?
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| one was, but liked to sit in the front patio, where the
| coyote literally grabbed it right in front of my mother,
| just a foot from the door. The other two were younger and
| outdoor cats. The dogs I know of having been killed were no
| more outdoor dogs than any dog is while being walked,
| sometimes briefly off-leash, in a park or wood, by its
| owner.
|
| Implying blame on the owners of these pets for a plague of
| predators way outside the scope of any natural population
| they would have in an area is also just off the rocker. We
| live in a modified environment largely of our creation,
| where many wild animal populations have long since slid
| from whatever would have in some distant past been natural.
| Culling coyotes in urban areas, where they can be a real
| danger to both pets and kids, is not some sort of grotesque
| ecological sin.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| Any perceived implication is a result of your own
| projection. I asked a simple, neutral question. I've had
| an entire litter of labs get eaten by coyotes and was
| literally just curious about your own predicament.
| awnird wrote:
| At a certain point if you keep getting outdoor cats
| you're making a conscious choice to keep feeding coyotes.
| jhide wrote:
| There have been less than 10 (Wikipedia says 2) fatal
| coyote attacks in recorded history. A conservative
| estimate of the number of native birds and small mammals
| killed by feral cats since unix time began counting on
| 1/1/1970 is 1 trillion. Literally 20 billion a year.
| That's a grotesque ecological sin against the ecosystems
| which keep us alive. Artificially supporting an invasive
| species which eats your petsmart kibble and then ravages
| (often as play) whatever vestige of the native wonder
| that existed in North America before we turned it into
| lawns is an ecological sin. Not caring for it and trying
| to leave it a better place than we found it for the next
| generation is an ecological sin.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| >> a plague of predators way outside the scope of any
| natural population
|
| You're talking about humans, right?
| jhide wrote:
| On the topic of rat control, your comment interleaves two
| diametrically opposed approaches in the biological solutions
| space. Providing calorie input to a feral (invasive, nonnative)
| cat as opposed to merely recognizing the beauty and
| effectiveness of a species which is native to this continent
| (although maybe not Vancouver before 1900, TIL). I have an
| indoor cat so I understand the caretaking instinct. But the
| consequences for our urban ecosystems of artificially
| supporting feral cats are severe. They rarely kill rats,
| especially not when they have easier options like our birds and
| native small mammals. And with the surplus calorie supply that
| so many concerned city dwellers give them, they often fall back
| to their kill and play instincts instead of actually hunting
| for food, which leads to even less of the desperate "I shall
| attack a 12 ounce demon with buck teeth" behavior that we
| fantasize about.
|
| I live in Chicago and had a coyote briefly staying under my
| deck last autumn when the juveniles leave their dens. They
| regularly prowl through my neighborhood, traveling north and
| south on the commuter rail line tracks and ducking off into
| parks and backyards for hunting. Such a magnificent creature to
| see up close. That experience motivated me to kill the
| ornamental boxwood that was in my backyard and start planting
| native plants which can support native birds, pollinators and
| small mammals and in turn provide a food supply all the way up
| the food chain to that coyote. I wish more people in my city
| spent their money and time on that food chain instead of one
| that begins and ends at PetSmart.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I grew up in a buffer zone with a lot of coyotes and one day
| our (small male) dog was lured away by noisy females. The next
| day all I found was his collar about a km away, chewed through
| and bloody. They are most certainly not pets and are incredibly
| smart and resourceful.
| srean wrote:
| Given all the news about elevated levels of human Coyote
| interactions over the last 10 ~ 15 years, I wonder whether we are
| witnessing the beginnings of another domestication/speciation
| event -- new "dogs".
|
| I just wish this does not turn adversarial.
| gotoeleven wrote:
| That we should be overprotective of dangerous animals--in this
| case celebrating that they are living in the middle of a very
| dense city--is a luxury belief. It makes dumb rich people feel
| good and the costs are borne by others. For another example see
| the reintroduction of wolves in Colorado.
| sdwr wrote:
| Coyotes are adorable!
|
| https://youtu.be/UW5Or7bIVJk
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