Now that's a crazy/scary thing to happen. Too close for comfort. My sister just told me this week that they're getting braver all the time. She saw one not far from her house that was the biggest she's ever seen.

Shirley

We have them at the edge of the city. They are coming into people's backyards. They've been cautioned to keep small dogs and toddlers inside.

I live in the city and one block from Federal Highway 98 - we have Coyote running in our neighborhood. It's because we are using all their territory for our needs, forgetting THEIRS! It's very sad, imho!

Coyotes are becoming a big problem in most places, they are breeding like crazy and their numbers have increased dramatically. They seem to be losing their fear of humans, too. I would worry about one at my door possibly having rabies, because that's a little TOO bold.

I live in the woods, very rural and the numbers are increasing around here, too and they aren't being driven out of anywhere. We hear them every night and occasionally see one trotting across our clearing or up on the ridge. I think they're discovering there are easy food sources in cities and towns and certainly a lot of enticing smells to lure them in.

That's because all their former territory is being encroached by development.

In Youngstown, Ohio the state game wardens captured a 500lb black bear on the play yard at one of the elementary schools while school was in session. They said the custodian had taken something out to the dumpster, saw the bear in the dumpster and called the game warden, but by the time the game wardens arrived the bear had left the dumpster and was just leisurely sitting on the play yard.

How awesome! I would be too awestruck to even run for a camera.

In our suburbs in Colorado, we have the same thing. Last year, an elk bedded down under our blue spruce for the night. A neighbor a block down, had a bear eating off her plumb tree and another bud got a beautiful shot of "pretty kitty" on his back deck. It's the 'burbs, for Heaven's sake! We have overgrown our backyard with trees to prevent "swooping" birds from snacking on our Chihuahuas. Not perfect, but the best we can do.

A bit OT but pertinent. A friend of mine was soooooo proud of her "invisible fence". Her little Bishon was so darned good at staying in the boundries with his little collar on. Seems the coyote wasn't wearing the proper collar and just trotted in....

Keep your doggies safe.

There was a coyote with pups in our yard late one night last summer. It was really odd to me since this is Orlando. There is a bobcat too. Hope you don't have outside kitties!

We have or had one in our subdivision. I've seen it a couple of times. A few years ago we were in Largo and stopped at the light on East Bay and Belcher, which is one of the major intersections in Pinellas Co. Right in front of the CVS pharmacy was a coyote. This is smack dab in the middle of a county with over 1 million people. Very weird!

A cousin in a suburb of San Diego, CA, lost several indoor/outdoor cats to coyotes before she started keeping them in the house at all times.

I live on Twin Peaks in San Francisco.
I was sitting on my fire escape one morning and saw this coyote strolling up the middle of the street. The area is
heavily populated, but there is a canyon down the street and
Twin Peaks up higher is open land. We have them in Golden Gate park and other areas of the city. Weird.

I live in Long Island NY. Very busy streets. a lot of the wildlife has died off. When I first lived here thirty years ago we often saw raccoons and rabbits and possums. Then excessive building, traffic, and you only saw squirrels and birds. I recently went to a lecture on wildlife. Some animals have made successful returns to Long Island- deer,foxes, wild turkeys. They say it is inevitable we will get coyotes, tho there are none now.

No coyoties in this Phila. suburb. but last year, we started getting deer in the yard. The just walk up he street, looking for food.
The danger is, they run across the streets, and several here are heavily traveled.

"Coyotes are becoming a big problem in most places, they are breeding like crazy and their numbers have increased dramatically"

Well the same can be said for humans! It's OK for humans to overpopulate the world, cut down all he trees and forests but dang those animals need to stay out of our almighty human's territory! Such a sense of entitlement we have!

Mary, keep an eye on your dogs, check the yard before you let them out at night (if you do so) and watch them until they finish their business. Friends of ours just lost their shih-tsu to one a few weeks ago. We have coyotes here as well, got them on the trail cameras, they are a mile or so below the house. We also had a fisher, hopefully he has moved on but he is the reason we have 6 cats in the house (7 at night).

We have skunks, 2 possums and 4 or 5 raccoons that visit us most nights. When they don't come we know the coyotes are prowling the area like they were last night. We've also had bears in the yard.

{{gwi:1581810}}

i also live in a rural area in Tennessee and we have them here. i think they got baby foxes this spring...........

Coyote populations are definitely on the rise in PA. DH was bowhunting two years ago, walking back through the woods to the road and said he was totally surrounded by them. All he had was his bow. Said it was the first time in his life he was ever afraid in the woods by himself.

We just watched a special on tv last week about the first adult human to be killed by coyotes. It was a girl hiking by herself in a park. Had just passed a couple also hiking, 6 minutes later they hear a scream, it was the girl. The coyotes ran her down and attacked.

They said the coyotes in the northeast and up into Canada are called "eastern" coyotes because they have cross bred with wolves and are bigger and more aggressive.

Be careful.

Lynn, that's a great baffle on your feeder. Nice shot of the bear, too. We occasionally see bears and mountain lions around here, too.

I agree about the number of human beings growing at an alarming pace, arkansas girl. I did my part, no kids. ;)

I am not so sure though that coyotes are being forced out of the rural areas as much as they are choosing to go the urban areas where the food is more plentiful and there are fewer people there that will threaten their existence. Ranchers and farmers have the right to protect their cattle and coyotes are a big problem for them. I suppose they could be going to the crowded cities because it's safer for them.

Eastern coyotes are much bigger than the western ones, so there's a whole new set of problems there- and they carry disease that can infect domestic dogs. Lack of fear of humans is not good when you're dealing with predators. Coyotes are very adaptable and are opportunists, in my experience. And they are smart. I think they're evolving and becoming city-dwellers because it works for them.

This reminds me of a story. A few years ago I was living in Olympia, WA but still commuting to my job in Seattle. In order to meet my vanpool, I had to get up really early in the morning and walk probably almost a mile to our meeting spot. It was always very dark still that early.

One morning I was walking through my neighborhood toward the busy road and I was walking in the middle of the street where I had the most light from the street lights on both sides of the road. It was really dark and quiet and then all of the sudden out of the corner of my eye, I saw what I thought was a dog gingerly running out from between some houses on one side of the street, and was headed across to the other side of the street. I was still startled because I wouldn't think I would see a dog running around loose, headed straight at me at 4:30am. He crossed probably 3 feet in front of me and just turned his head and looked at me in the eye while in front of me, but didn't stop. It happened so fast that it took a minute for me to register that he definitely wasn't a domesticated dog and that he was a coyote. He was HUGE and very scruffy looking. First time I ever saw one "in the wild" so to speak, and we were in the city. He didn't seem to be bothered by me, at least not as much as I was taken aback by him, haha.

Be careful of odd behavior in coyotes and other mammals because it can be a sign of rabies. Glad your pups didn't get out.

Here is western Massachusetts, as in nearly all other parts of the country human progress is encroaching on the natural habitat so the wildlife is forced to adapt to servive. And in many instances their survival depends upon living closer to ppl, however, there is another creature out there today that is far more dangerous than anything that naturally occurs.

Although you very seldom hear about them, one of the most dangerous animals on this planet today are ferral dogs. Dogs who started out as pets, having absolutely no fear of man, but as ppl move from one place to another and can't keep their pets, or when their pets unexpectedly breed and produce more puppies than the owners can take care of or find homes for, far to often the excess is taken to the edge of the community and dropped off to fend for themselves.

Once released into the wild many of those dogs form packs and they interbreed so you may end up with poodles crossed with rotweilers, etc, etc.

Were I lived in Ohio ferral dogs became such a problem that they were litterally raiding family farms and killing livestock. On my Grandfathers farm we had 80 sheep killed in one night, and they were not killed for food as a wild animal would do, but rather they were killed as sort of a sport to the marauding pack of ferral dogs. After months of similar circumstances on other farms in our area the state game commission organized a massive hunt involving about two hundred local hunters who scoured the brush and swamp, shooting all dogs on sight. When all was said and done they had found over 200 wild dogs in a 4 mile square area and they were all shapes and sizes imaginable. The only thing they had in common was that they did not fear the men who were hunting them.

Flamingo, you like that baffle? LOL!! I have to battle some pretty nasty feeder invaders! LOL!!!! It's the only way to keep the raccoons off the feeders.

Katlan, what did your hubby do? I would have been so afraid. Where was the gal hiker attacked? That is upsetting. One of my neighbors runs thru our fields every day, often just at dawn or at dusk. The game warden we had here to help us figure out what was killing the animals here said she really should not be doing it, because of the coyotes.

Lazypup, a year or two ago I heard barking and yapping in the yard, went to check it out. Two of a neighbor's dogs had hold of a groudhog, they were fighting over her, for fun. I was furious. Of course they killed her, she actually died in my hands after I chased them. But I drove to that neighbor's and warned him that the next time his two dogs came onto my property only one would return. These are Bernese Mountain Dogs, so any dog can become a pack animal and kill for fun. I didn't believe that.

Ugh, that story about the dogs makes me sick. I really wish I didn't read that.