Coyotes are getting bigger and are coming to your home

Coyotes are getting bigger and are coming to your home

Across the country, coyotes are moving into the cities and urban areas. And they are not always good neighbors. I recently received this message from a guy in Connecticut:

“Excellent article on the coyotes in the latest issue of The Maine Sportsman. 45 lb coyotes??? Come on! Down my way, they are 60+ lbs!!!!

Early last year we had over six coyote dog/human attacks where three dogs were killed and three were injured by coyotes while being walked by their owners.

Besides that, one of my friends had his small dog attacked by three coyotes when he was let out in the back yard. Two days later, a deer crashed through his neighbor’s sliding back door with two coyotes hanging on!!!!

An acquaintance of mine in a neighboring town harvested close to 60 ‘yotes in a year’s time – all at least 50+ lbs. One went over 65 lbs.

In CT we have a serious coyote problem and that is not so much in the forests (they are there for sure) but in the urban areas.”

A recent news story in the New York Times reported on this issue. Here’s the beginning of that story.

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Dennis Murphy sniffed the bobcat urine he uses to lure his prey. He checked the silencer on his AR-15 assault rifle and loaded a few snares into his Ford pickup.

“Let’s go kill some coyotes,” he said.

But he wasn’t heading for the wilderness. Mr. Murphy’s stalking ground is on the contentious new frontier where hunters are clashing with conservationists: cities and suburbs.

Coyotes are largely associated with their ancestral bastions in the wild lands of the American West, but they are highly adaptable, and in recent years they have been colonizing large population centers throughout North America. The hunters have come after them, stalking the predators in settings like strip mall parking lots, housing tract cul-de-sacs, and plazas in the shadow of skyscrapers.

You can read the story here.

George Smith

About George Smith

George stepped down at the end of 2010 after 18 years as the executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine to write full time. He writes a weekly editorial page column in the Kennebec Journal and Waterville Morning Sentinel, a weekly travel column in those same newspapers (with his wife Linda), monthly columns in The Maine Sportsman magazine, two outdoor news blogs (one on his website, georgesmithmaine.com, and one on the website of the Bangor Daily News), and special columns for many publications and newsletters. Islandport Press published a book of George's favorite columns, "A Life Lived Outdoors" in 2014. In 2014, George also won a Maine Press Association award for writing the state's bet sports blog. In 2016, Down East Books published George's book, Maine Sporting Camps, and Islandport Press published George and his wife Linda's travel book, Take It From ME, about their favorite Maine inns and restaurants.