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Chances are you may have seen more coyotes around recently. Coyote sightings in urban areas in south central Texas are definitely on the rise.
To find out why, Texas Public Radio’s Jerry Clayton turned to Texas A&M Associate Professor John Tomeček, an expert on the subject.
Clayton: People may be seeing more coyotes in urban areas, especially this time of year. What's happening out there?
Tomeček: Great question. I can make it simple for you. What's happening is we're coming into breeding season for coyotes, and that actually peaks next month, right around Valentine's Day. I kid you not. They are a very romantic species, so Valentine's Day is about when it peaks.
So those animals are just wandering around looking for mates and looking for places to have dens and have their young a little bit later in the springtime. So that's generally why you're starting to see more animals this time of year.
It doesn't mean that there's been a sudden explosion in the population. It just means they're out and about a little bit more. But it also doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them.
Clayton: How is it that coyotes have learned to fare so well in urban environments?
Tomeček: So, they're one of these species that is extremely adaptable. We refer to them as a generalist, and they're also an omnivore, right? So they eat animals, plants, you name it.
I think my favorite example of that is a lady called one time because they were eating the berries off of her Dewberry bushes. You also have to remember that we create a lot of habitat. There's a lot of woods, a lot of undergrowth, a lot of park space, but even things like storm water drainage, they can use as habitat.
And we create a tremendous amount of food in terms of ornamentals. People grow waste that humans may throw out, but also the other animals that an urban environment sports, like mice and rats and rabbits and deer and raccoons and possums. And there's actually more of that food stuff in an urban area than there is out in the countryside.
Clayton: What about the chance of rabies in coyotes?
Tomeček: Historically, this was a fairly serious problem, especially in South Texas, and really through West Texas as well, all the way out to Arizona, between coyotes and gray foxes. And it's a really great story, because we managed to get control over that rabies problem and kind of keep it at bay back in the 1990s, and it was, if you love a fun fact, that rabies management program was the first time worldwide that humanity had managed to get rabies under control.
So generally, nowadays, when we do see rabies, it happens occasionally in coyotes and foxes, but they're almost always catching it from something else, like a bat or a raccoon or something like that. Generally speaking, rabies in coyotes is extremely rare.
Clayton: What can landowners and homeowners do about coyotes in their space? Or should you do anything?
Tomeček: You know, if a coyote is around in the nighttime, or even dawn and dusk, and they're just moving through an area and they don't seem particularly happy to be around you, they're doing what they should be doing. They're behaving normally. It's when those animals no longer seem to care about being around us when they seem to be very comfortable being near us.
Let's say you're sitting on your front porch, and a coyote walks up and is around you and is looking at you. That's a red flag.
The nice thing, though, is it's fairly easy to teach coyotes to be afraid of us again, if they start exhibiting those behaviors you want to make a lot of noise .... bang pots and pans around, these kinds of things. We call that aversive conditioning, and it teaches that animal, “hey, I don't want to be around these people. They're scary. I should think twice about being around humans.”
You do want to be mindful of your pets, so coyotes, especially if you've got a small dog or a small cat. Remember, it is prey-sized to them, and they don't know the difference between that animal being with a human and not, but certainly, if you're starting to see these kinds of aggressive behaviors, or they're comfortable being around you, or they're following you while you're walking your dog, that's when, if you're in an urban environment, you need to report that to your local animal control.
If you see them out and about and they're wandering around doing their own thing, even if it's in the daytime, it doesn't necessarily mean that there's anything wrong or that they're sick. They're just out roaming around this time of year looking for mates and a place to be.
