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♪♪

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-I have a high respect for coyotes.

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They are so adaptive.

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-I just think coyotes
are fascinating in general.

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-I just find them to be amazing animals.

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They're super intelligent, able
to live in different places.

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-This is an animal that has had to outsmart

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larger predators
as their population expanded.

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And then they've slowly started to go from
this more wild rural animal

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to do exactly what they do
in all other metropolitan areas.

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-In the early 1900s,

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coyotes essentially lived
between the Rockies and the Mississippi.

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Now, they're found,
you know, from northern

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British Columbia and into Alaska,
all the way down to Mexico, coast to coast.

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-Coyotes have probably been here
for half a century or quite a bit more.

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-First, Coyote was documented
King County in 1937 in Enumclaw.

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-We hear a lot of you know, it's
urban sprawl.

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And I think that's true for many,
many wildlife species,

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but not for coyotes,
because they're coming to us.

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They're coming to where the food is.

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♪♪

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-They’re prey generalists,
so they can eat lots of different things.

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There's some research going on right now
looking at that actual question.

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-The Seattle Coyote Study is looking
at the diet and genetics of urban coyotes

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throughout the greater Seattle area.

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So we use all noninvasive methods.

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So mainly just looking for scat on trails
and whatnot.

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And then we use a process called dietary
metabarcoding, which basically looks

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at the genetics of prey items
within each of these scats

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and IDs it to species. That allows us
to kind of understand what vertebrates

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and what plants

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that these coyotes are generally
eating across a long period of time.

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-Having the scientific evidence,
this is how many hundreds

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or thousands of coyote samples we've taken
and from these areas

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of the county or Western Washington,
I mean, that tells us a lot.

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- Mainly they're eating rabbits.

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They've got some chicken in their diet.

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They've got
they do have a little bit of cat.

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Everyone always thinks
they're only eating cats.

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Not true.

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-It's more likely that cats are hit by cars,
as far as the statistics out there.

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But if someone calls us and says,
you know,

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I've got my cat outside, is it possible
that coyotes could take it?

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I can't say “No.”

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-I can tell you from looking at scats,
there's a lot of blackberry in there.

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But I've also seen them
eating thimbleberries and blueberries.

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They'll eat a lot of cherries as well.

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Small mammals
like voles and rats that cause,

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infrastructure destruction
or spread diseases and things like that.

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- To the extent
that coyotes are focusing on those types

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of prey items, it can be really beneficial
to human communities.

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(coyote howling)

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-Coyotes have a very

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intricate communication system.

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(coyote howling)

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-Those yips and barks are not

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“I'm coming for you.”

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(coyote howling)

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-They vocalize just to keep social contact
within the family group.

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-Oftentimes that's just them saying, “Hey...

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(coyote howls)

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who's out there?”

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You know, “I'm over here.”

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So, it's a non-confrontational call,

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depending on the time of the year.

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We get those calls all the time
where there's 30 coyotes here.

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(coyotes howling)

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-It's called the Beau Geste effect,

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something to do with harmonics
in their vocalizations.

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And it makes it sound like there are
more animals than there actually are.

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(coyotes yap and howl)

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So there have been studies
that have shown that humans

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overestimate the number of animals
by about a third.

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(coyote howling)

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-Sometimes when they see dogs or people
kind of near something

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they care about, like their dens, they’ll
emit like a warning bark

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(coyote barking)

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and there's nothing to be scared of there.

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They're just communicating

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that you're kind of in their space
and they might not want you there.

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-It's not uncommon for coyotes to follow
people along green spaces or down trails.

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-In Seattle, the peak kind of denning time
is between May and June.

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And so that's often when we see that
escorting behavior and all they're doing

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is pretty much making sure

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that you're away from their babies
because that's what they care about.

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That's what they're protecting.

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-There's a tremendous amount of fear

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that doesn't necessarily need to be there.

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I've been doing this for 23 years,
and out of thousands of calls

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that we take, I'm
guessing less than ten times, has

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there been actual contact
between a coyote and a human.

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So it's very rare.

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-We don't even have a coyote bite a year.

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It's more likely the animal's going
to follow you is going to be inquisitive.

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And that's when we need

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to have both adults and children educated
to have a reaction that's appropriate.

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-We call it humane hazing.

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It's really trying to just encourage
coyotes to not become too

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used to being really close to people.

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- I'm going to throw this

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stick, you know, or if I've got a coat on
because there's rain.

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We're raining right now.

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Make yourself look novel and big and yell,
“Go away, coyote.”

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- Any activity at all.

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Any behavior
you can do that makes them feel unwelcome,

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the more you can exclude, the better.

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If the whole community is doing that,
the animal never has the opportunity

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to think I've got it
made in your backyard.

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The encounters
we don't want to see is when the coyote

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doesn't budge,
doesn't seem like it's scared at all.

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- It may not seem like that
big of a deal then, right then and there,

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but that's not natural for a wild raccoon,

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coyote, whatever, to be walking around
amongst students on a college campus.

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-People sometimes think that feeding
coyote is helping that coyote,

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but there's kind of a saying in wildlife
biology that I fed coyote is a dead coyote.

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And that's because I will habituate
coyotes to think that people equal food.

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-That's just only going to lead
one way. Loss of fear and then

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the ultimate removal of the animal.

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- Lethal removals,
You just change that territory dynamic.

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So that's an open house.

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- We know that another coyote
is going to fill that void.

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The goal now is to educate the community

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to keep that new coyote wild.

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It is virtually impossible
to reinstill fear into adult coyotes.

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Now, with young coyotes, you can really
ingrain fear into those coyotes.

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And, and that's really
what we should be doing.

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-In most cases,

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it's a peaceful coexistence.

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Coyotes live quite well without having
any interactions with people.

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Mostly what it comes down to
is making sure our food is secured.

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Any outdoor food, not leaving
pet food on the porch.

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-Clean up your garbage,
your compost, your garden.

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Again, exclude as well hotwire fencing.

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- You also have a pear tree and a plum tree,

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I know it's daunting,
but you might want to try to keep

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that stuff picked up
because that's why they're coming there.

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-And there's nothing that coyote will
or can do to avoid that.

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It's on us to make them avoid it by making
those spaces unfavorable to them.

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We live in Coyote country
and they're not going away.

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So the thing of it is, is learning
how to live with them.

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(coyote howls)

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♪♪

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on the Seattle Channel,
or find us anytime online

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at SeattleChannel.org.

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♪♪