Coyotes in your Backyard: Ghosts of the Cities

A coyote’s distinctive howl may seem out of place in Atlanta’s urban environment.

Yet the wild canines prowl almost every urban neighborhood in metro Atlanta, according to wildlife officials and trappers, and have been blamed for eating pet cats and small dogs. Alpharetta residents with problem coyotes often call Don McGowan, a wildlife biologist with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Resources Division.

"We get a lot of calls from North Fulton," says McGowan. "The Chattahoochee River has something to do with it. It's a pretty undeveloped habitat, and the coyotes have radiated out from there.

“Teddy” Kubiak, a licensed DeKalb County wildlife trapper with Trutech Inc., says there isn’t an Atlanta zip code he hasn’t worked in to trap coyotes, including Alpharetta.

 “They’ll eat your garbage, eat your cats, eat your Pomeranian,” said Kubiak. “They don’t care.”

Under Georgia law, wild coyotes must be euthanized and may not be released into the wild, because they carry rabies and other diseases. But trapping wild coyotes is unlikely to rid a neighborhood of the animals, whose  pointed ears, slender muzzles, and drooping bushy tails often resemble German shepherds or collies, says Stephanie Philippo, a wildlife rehabilitator with Animal Wild Animal Rescue Effort, or  AWARE, based at DeKalb County’s Arabia Mountain National Heritage Area.

“We are not going to get rid of them,” says Philippo. “They are here to stay. They are in every neighborhood.”

Relocating a coyote would likely result in its death anyway, because animals removed from their home range have a “low likelihood of surviving,” says Philippo.

“Coyotes are very prevalent in every county in Georgia, and in every neighborhood in metro Atlanta” says Philippo, who says there are coyotes in her Buckhead neighborhood.  As slabs replaced trees, wooded areas shrank and coyotes, normally very shy animals who hang out in shadows, have become more visible, says Philippo.

Coyotes generate a lot of hysteria and misinformation, such as that urban coyotes are a hybrid with red wolves, says Philippo. “Coyotes do not interbreed with wolves.”

As omnivores, coyotes will eat anything, including your garbage, small rodents, rates, mice, chipmunks and squirrels. The wild animals will eat cats, says Philippo, but she thinks that coyotes have been unfairly blamed for the disappearances of many urban cats.

The Ohio State University studied urban coyotes in Chicago starting in 2000 by trapping them, putting radio-controlled collars on them and studying their movements. They discovered that the canines with striking yellow eyes were far more prevalent than they’d previously thought, and suspected what was true of coyotes in Chicago would be true of the animals in other big eastern cities.

 “Originally known as ghosts of the plains, coyotes have now become ghosts of the cities, occasionally heard but rarely seen,” began the study report, led by Stanley D. Gehrt of the School of Environment and Natural Resources.

They found that some urban coyotes in the study howled, others didn’t. One pack regularly howled in response to sirens from a nearby fire station. Most of the coyotes were killed by vehicles, while others died from shootings, malnutrition, and disease such as sarcoptic mange and parvo virus.

Although the Chicago coyotes did eat cats, they didn’t eat many. A graduate student, Paul Morey, analyzed coyote droppings and concluded that domestic cats comprised just 1.3 percent of the coyote diet, and human-related food, such as garbage or pet food, about 2 percent of their diet. Urban coyotes appeared to be feeding on small rodents (42 percent), fruit (23 percent), deer (22 percent) and rabbit (18 percent), according to the study.

Coyote removal has often been accompanied by an increase in an area’s rat population; they’re also credited with controlling deer and Canadian geese, often overabundant and a nuisance in urban areas.

Chip Elliott of Atlanta Wildlife Relocator specializes in trapping coyotes throughout metro Atlanta. In 2010, he trapped more than 70 coyotes, and it was an off year. He recently trapped two coyotes near W. Paces Ferry Road, and has trapped the animals near Lenox Mall.

Neighborhood associations will often band together to pay Elliott’s $1,000 fee for two weeks of trapping, including daily monitoring of the traps.

“It’s an animal of opportunity,” says Elliott. “He’ll take the neighborhood cat standing there if it doesn’t run away. It takes the easiest thing he can find.”

Trappers use modern leghold traps, fitted with thick rubber instead of iron teeth, from which coyotes and pet animals can be removed, usually unharmed. Elliott either shoots trapped coyotes, or gives them to equestrian centers who use them for fox-hunting in fenced areas. Shooting the coyotes is considered an authorized and humane way of euthanizing them, said McGowan.

But when trapped coyotes are removed from an area, other animals will breed and fill in the area, says McGowan. Trapping can rid an area of nuisance coyotes, those who have been known to attack pets, McGowan said. In fact, the state maintains a list of currently licensed Georgia nuisance wildlife trappers.

“It’s not totally fruitless to trap,” said McGowan. “You can have individual coyotes who are more brazen than others.”

Although there have been reports in other states of urban coyotes attacking people, McGowan says he’s not heard any confirmed reports of such attacks in  Georgia. Most coyotes are wary of people and will quickly run away if encountered. But coyotes “get accustomed to people,” says McGowan. “The only time I see a coyote in a rural area, it’s always running away from me. In urban and suburban areas, they’re not as skittish.”

Residents of a Decatur neighborhood are trying to get their city to help them with a coyote infestation.

“Wild animals that can actually hurt people have no place in in-town neighborhoods,” wrote Laura Paul in a blog for the Lenox Place neighborhood. “What are we supposed to do--stay up all nite and beat pans and whistle until the sun comes up?”

Paul works with the Dearborn Animal Hospital to rescue and rehabilitate stray cats. One friend found a pet cat on his doorstep, dead with his belly eaten out, apparently by a coyote. Another couple had a small pet dog taken in front of them while still on his leash, Paul said.

"Everyone I have spoken to on Drexel is against the idea of letting coyotes stay in the neighborhood,” posted Eric Blue on the Lenox Place neighborhood blog.

Barbara Belcore said that “because of human behavior (ie development) these animals have had to adapt, therefore so do we.” Belcore noted, “When people go out into nature, we are going to meet mad dogs, coyotes, possums, bats, mosquitoes, flies and whatever else that is a part of nature."

“I don’t like killing anything,” says Paul. “I put bugs and spiders outside. But if it comes down to animals we love and nurture and make part of our families, yeah, I’m going to chose them over predators.” 

Residents of neighborhoods with coyotes “shouldn’t be scared,” said McGown. “But they need to be be respectful.”

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Wildlife Resources Division recommends that urban residents take these steps to protect pets and small children from harm by coyotes:

• Take pets indoors during the night, as this is the coyote’s primary hunting time. (In addition to coyotes, small pets may fall prey to free-roaming dogs and great horned owls.)
• If the pet must be kept outside, install fencing and motion-activated flood lights to discourage predators.
• Small livestock or poultry should be kept in an enclosed or sheltered area. Coyotes rarely bother larger livestock although they are often blamed for such nuisance instances.
• NEVER, under any circumstances, feed a coyote.
• Keep items, such as grills, pet food or bird feeders off-limits.
• Make trash cans inaccessible, keep lids securely fastened or store trash cans in a secured location until trash pick-up.