We have always had coyotes in our neighborhood, but this spring and summer they are much more of a problem. In the past I would have coyote encounters maybe a few times a year. In the last few years that increased to about a dozen, but this year it seems that it is everyday - sometimes multiple times a day. And they are far less afraid or wary of humans now. Previously, the main issue with coyotes is that they would kill pet cats. The granddogs and I routinely encounter remains (mainly fur and skin) of cats, squirrels, and rabbits. And there are frequently posters of missing cats.
Until this year the closest that I've been to a coyote is about 10 feet and that was in July of last year (shown below). I think we were too close to his den but he was not aggressive. There is a house in the background, but I think his den was in the greenspace about 20 yards behind me.
This year a mating pair built their den under a shed about 50 feet away from my friend's backyard (which is not fenced). Here is the male in the backyard and then further up the street with a squirrel he killed in his mouth.
Here is video of the pups exploring my friend's backyard:
Last week I was walking with my wife, grandson, and one of the granddogs in a park about a mile from my house. My wife and grandson were about 30 yards ahead of me and the dog when a coyote came running out of the forested area right at us. I yelled at it and it dropped a dead fairly large cat within 5 feet of us as it ran past. It turns out that there was a man chasing the coyote because he had seen it attack his neighbor's cat. Luckily, my wife and grandson were up the pathway and did not see what happened.
Two days ago we were again out for a walk, this time my wife had my grandson in a stroller about 10 yards ahead on the sidewalk and I had both granddogs on leash next to me - the larger younger male on my left and the female on my right. I felt the female tug on the leash and looked down to my right and saw a coyote right next to her about to attack. I was just able to pull her away and yelled at the coyote and it backed off about 10 feet. The dogs then started barking and I charged at the coyote and it ran back another 20 or 30 feet but did not leave. The coyote followed us a couple of blocks before it turned away. It was somewhat unnerving to me that the coyote was able to come up from behind without the dogs detecting it or reacting to it earlier. I am usually very cautious but I guess I let my guard down because I was on a residential street with good visibility. I will remember to look behind more often.
Both these encounters occurred around midday, so it appears that the coyotes seem to be hunting more frequently because they have pups to feed. No one wants to harm these animals, but they may have become a danger to young children and certainly pets. There was recently a 4 year old girl attacked in Washington State when she mistook a coyote to be a dog.
I have started to think about what things I might do improve our safety. My neighbors have started using air horns and they have proved effective, so I bought a couple of those. I can't figure out why the dogs didn't bark until I engaged the coyote. I thought that I would be able to depend on them to warn me.
Since coyotes can jump fences, I'm a bit concerned about having the dogs out alone in the backyard. I have an older IP camera (720p) in the front of the house that we use to watch for deliveries and visitors and it works well for that but I've started using it with Frigate to detect people, cars, and dogs and it does not reliably detect dogs. I have noticed that coyotes are frequently on my street early in the morning (6-7am), but I don't get detection alerts - here's a recent video playback from my NVR. It would be nice to have alerts when coyotes are nearby.
I've recently started using a 2K AI IP camera in the backyard, but it also has issues detecting dogs using its local AI capability. My other issue in the backyard is that because of the shape of the house I couldn't cover the area with a single wide angle camera. In the meantime, I'm working on getting a better detection model on Frigate and adding hardware acceleration. If I could reliably detect a coyote I could implement a deterrent (sound and light).
Not sure if there is any good solution to this problem. The city and state do not trap animals on public property unless they are deemed dangerous. And they do not trap on private property - that is the owner's responsibility. And unfortunately trapping these animals is basically a death sentence... And these particular coyotes are on the verge of crossing into the dangerous category.
