<p>There have been reports of coyotes in not only the Atlanta suburbs, but in the fancy intown neighborhoods of the city itself. We have heard them howling at night. Creepy.</p>
<p>From the CT Department of Environmental Protection:</p>
<p>Interesting Facts:</p>
<p>Eastern coyotes are generally larger in size than their western counterparts. Recent genetic research has attributed the eastern coyote’s larger size to interbreeding with Canadian gray wolves.</p>
<p>In addition to being larger than in the West, the coyotes in the Northeast are apparently more prone to being insufferable prestige whores: [Columbia</a> University students warned about coyotes - NYPOST.com](<a href=“http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/columbia_university_students_warned_uWUb72rdppKCg6mOR3lFtJ]Columbia”>Columbia University students warned about coyotes)</p>
<p>Our 50lb mutt killed a coyote that was in our yard in suburban CT. She’s a dope but a very protective dope. Realy turns into Cujo if anyone/thing comes into our (her) yard.
Schmaltz- too funny!</p>
<p>Some of you city slickers are probably wondering how you tell a coyote from a wolf or a German Shepherd. Some say it’s the size, and some say it’s the coloring. I’ve always found that if it’s wearing a jet pack and roller skates, or is opening up a wooden crate from the Acme Anvil Company, chances are it’s a coyote.</p>
<p>^^^ that made me laugh :D</p>
<p>We have had cases of the coyotes attacking labs that were being walked, but not on a leash. They have also followed people walking their dogs on a leash.</p>
<p>I kind of like the idea that coyotes are still able to survive in the midst of our crowded world. Coyotes are usually very wary. I don’t see them, or wolves, as a threat. I do have a different opinion about people who let their dogs run loose. I once lived in a neighborhood where I had to carry a dandilion picker on a 5’ pole in order to take a walk in the evening. When I used to go fishing at night I had to carry a nasty hooked gaff. I almost had to use it to take out someone’s “friendly” German sheppard. Somehow he thought it was reasonable to let the dog run loose on the beach. He told me the dog did not bite. I told him if the dog did bite it would only happen one time. </p>
<p>We would need to be overrun with large numbers of coyotes before they would come anywhere close to the risks of our household pets.</p>
<p>“Here they are apparently a cross between a coyote and wolf. Apparently they are interbreeding.”</p>
<p>Easy to understand. It’s 2 a.m. in the woods, and a male wolf ain’t gettin’ no wolf action. He hears a female coyote’s sultry howl in the distance, and silently slips away from the pack. He wishes the other wolves weren’t so judgemental about his lover being so damn…coyote ugly.</p>
<p>Schmaltz,</p>
<p>Ah…er…umm…what did you put in your tea cup this morning?</p>
<p>Until recently, I’d never really heard anything about them (except when I was a child and grew up in a rural area…but I’ve lived in a city or suburb all my adult life).</p>
<p>I lived in a suburb in the Midwest for about 10 years. Only within the past 5 have I seen them there. This was once a rural area, though now very developed, and I’ve seen them in well populated areas that still have a tiny bit of trees/underbrush.</p>
<p>My daughter rides horses at a nearby farm, and they started coming very close to the barn/farm dogs over the past few years too.</p>
<p>I now live IN a major metropolitan city, and I can hear them at night. I’ve seen one…just hanging out on some train tracks (but very NEAR a “forested” area…our neighborhodd, though in a big city, still has some lovely undisturbed mature tree areas). </p>
<p>I just saw on CC recently that they’ve been seen on the Campus of Columbia University in the middle of Manhattan. </p>
<p>Poor silly canines. I think they’re GORGEOUS. I would not be fearful of them. They’re usually quite timid of humans. </p>
<p>True that I would be MUCH more worried about mountain lions.</p>
<p>“what did you put in your tea cup this morning?” </p>
<p>Wolfsbane.</p>
<p>Just to bring us back to colleges, last time I walked the dish at Stanford (a walk through fields in the foothills up to their giant, but retired, satellite dish) there were signs everywhere about coyotes that were no longer afraid of humans, and might attack, especially small children. People were instructed to not let toddlers walk on their own, and to carry things to throw at the coyotes. The thought was someone had been feeding the coyotes…</p>
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<p>That’s easy enough to believe. The coyotes we see all the time here in San Diego are not that big. They are usually skinny and mangy-looking for the most part and about as tall as a small-medium to medium sized dog. But I have heard of them attacking and killing dogs that are larger than themselves.</p>
<p>A debate rages in the animal kingdom about whether the coyotes in the Northeast are eating better than their peers in other parts of the country. The Columbia article indicates that they are getting plenty of individual attention in the Ivy League, while their counterparts in Berkeley and Ann Arbor can reportedly get by, but they have to be aggressive to get even table scraps in cafeteria dumpsters that just about any animal can get into. Seems clear to me that it’s worth the effort for coyotes to hang around colleges in the Northeast. Except, of course, for Cornell.</p>
<p>Anyway, I’m sure when the Field & Stream rankings of coyote foraging sites come out in August, the debate will end…or WILL it?</p>
<p>Schmaltz, you’re on a roll!</p>
<p>Hilarious. Thanks, Schmaltz.</p>
<p>I live in the same general area as the OP (hi, there!), and I’ve seen a veritable coyote explosion here over the past 5 years. I frequently see them trotting along the side of the road, especially early in the morning. I kind of like it (the call of the wild and all that, the adaptability of nature, etc.), but then I don’t have dogs.</p>
<p>There’s a persistant urban myth here about the presence of a large black cat - a panther? - in the suburbs of Detroit. Now THAT seems a little hard to believe. And did you know that there are very very few wolverines left in the Wolverine State?</p>
<p>I live around 9 Mile, and have yet to see a coyote, but have seen lots of deer and foxes. Apparently within the Detroit city limits the pheasants are abundant…but with the amount of firearms around here, they better keep their heads down. Some nice shots of pheasant country: <a href=“http://www.rwnaturenotes.net/?p=552[/url]”>http://www.rwnaturenotes.net/?p=552</a></p>
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<p>Well, at least you have a few. Here in California, the California Grizzly Bear exists only on the state flag. Our native subspecies was hunted into extinction more than a hundred years ago.</p>