Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Got Coyotes?

A couple of weeks ago, my daughters were having a front yard camp out party. About 11:30 pm they came tearing into the house shouting "Dad, there's a whole pack of coyotes out there - must be 50 of 'em".

I explained to them that they must be hearing foxes. We live between Winston-Salem and Greensboro, and although we are in the woods, there are no coyotes around here.

Next night, my wife wakes me up about 5 am and drags me out onto the screen porch. The sounds were hair raising. It sounded like someone was slaughtering puppies. I would estimate maybe 75 yards up into the woods was the distance. I could make out 5 or 6 different voices - not 50.

Later that morning when we had all gotten up for the day, one of my daughters found a youtube video of coyotes at a zoo in Texas that sounded just like what we had heard.

That night around 10 pm, we heard them again, slightly further away and in a different direction. This time in addition to the dying puppy sounds, we heard the more traditional "cowboy movie" howling.

I have an outdoor cat that I am pretty sure is on borrowed time. I bring her into the garage at night but......I also have a 50 lb German Short Haired Pointer and a 60 lb Black Lab mix that stay in a dog lot duirng the day but come in at night. The hope is that if one of the beasts gets into the pen, between the 2 dogs they can hold their own.

I hadn't heard the coyotes in 3 weeks, but last night around 10 the slaughtering puppies were back and close to the dog pen. I grabbed my turkey gun, loaded some #4's in, grabbed a light and went out to fetch the dogs and hope the cat was around. It is not unusal for the cat to have scaled the dog lot fence and be in the house with the dogs. She was not there but came running up a few moments later.

Some of you must have had experience with coyotes - anyone ever try shooting them? Any recomendations on a long gun? I have the Mossberg for turkey hunting and pistols for fun but no rifles............Rob

If you live near the Mexican border, might want to make sure what type of Coyotes they are before shooting!

That Mossburg will do the trick. You could buy a slug barrel for it and that would devastate those beasts. These Hornady slugs are awesome.

Here's a thought, don't shoot them.

Coyotes are found far and wide across North America, usually alone but sometimes gather in small packs (not nearly as large as wolf packs). They are typically scavengers and shy away from humans but do hunt small mammals (mice, young or cornered rabbits, whatever is easy).
Much like other scavengers, they will come for garbage and yes, those who think cats need to be outdoors may also lose such small creatures.

If your dogs bark and are of any size, it is unlikely the coyotes will bother them. If they have a pen/dog run, they are that much safer.

But for the sake of not being another human trying to define their idea of nature, leave the coyotes alone unless they pose an obvious threat directly to you or your family that cannot be deterred with something as simple as a fence.

An altenative is to contact a local conservation authority possibly to trap and relocate them.

They have a season for hunting them here in IL. You should check your local ordinances about taking coyotes.

They sure as heck aren't on the endangered species list here in IL, that's for sure.

Volvos are good for taking out foxes. My wife hit one in her S40 doing 60+ mph a couple of years ago. Nearly vaporized the fox. Didn't do anything to the car.

As wid says, we have a *lot* of coyotes in Illinois. A month or so ago, my wife had to catch a red-eye flight for a business trip. Since I live in the middle of nowhere, we had to leave home around 3am and drive for an hour or so to get her to the airport. We were *amazed* at the number of coyotes we saw on the road. In the 2+ hours of driving, there and back, I saw probably 15-20 coyotes along the road at that time of night. Some were tearing apart a freshly-killed deer carcasses (ones apparently hit by a car - not that the coyotes killed it), while others were just standing at the side of the road. Sometimes alone, sometimes in packs of 3-4. But they were just everywhere. Really bizzare. I've heard tales from folks that live outside of town that raise chickens/horses/cattle of problems with packs of coyotes. They are not considered a harmless nuisance around here.

We are glad that our two cats are strictly indoor pets.

There's coyotes scattered around here in Peel Region, I've never seen more than one at a time, but years ago, a man walking his dog on the biking paths here, had his pet attacked and killed by a pack of coyotes. I'm guessing it was a small pack but it's surprising they attacked with the owner there as generally they stay well away from people. Personally, I'd call up the town and have them remove/relocate them, but I live in semi-urban type area.

My suggestions would be not to kill them. What you heard sounds very normal. They are usually out at night/early monring so my suggestion to you is to keep your dogs indoor once it starts getting dark. Things that will attract them is other animals especially a female dog that is in heat and garbage. Keep your dogs inside once its dark, kids supervised and make sure the area around your house is free of any garbage.Surrounding farms with chickens and other animals will also more likely to attract them to your area. Those are some good preventative measures.

I hear coyotes all the time, I see them cutting out in the road in packs as well. This summer we even a single coyote that wanders our field in the day time (this is not usually a good sign). I have gone out there and the thing seemed very skidish and was aware of every little noise in the surroundings, I kept my distance of course and it just wandered off. It had a beautiful coat.

Did ya ever wonder what would happen if a NASCAR stock car hit a coyote at 130 mph?

Wiley couldn't run fast enough...

Beep, Beep!

I've heard of grilled chicken....I've heard of grilled salmon, pork, steak and a whole lot of other things, but never have I heard of grilled coyote.