Archive for April 24th, 2007

Urban Coyotes: Understanding Why They Stay

Tuesday, April 24th, 2007

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Sport fish and Wildlife Restoration Program

When a coyote visits your neighborhood, don’t put out the welcome mat.

If the coyotes are coming into a residential area, and you see one, first off – try to scare it.

Brett Johnson is an urban wildlife biologist in Dallas County.

They’re not these frightening animals that are out to hurt you. So, if you see one, yell at it and either hit it with water from a water hose, or the other option is to throw something in its general direction. Be it a small stick, in some cases if you have to, even a small rock. Not something that’s going to hurt the animal…but just something where that animal feels a physical contact in addition to your yelling.

After creating this negative association with humans, try and figure out why they’re attracted to the neighborhood.

If they’re coming through a neighborhood and they’ve decided to stay there, usually that means they’ve found an abundant food source of some variety. And in an urban area, that usually means they’re going after pet food. So, there, the simple thing is, we have to change some of our human behavior and not leave a constant source of pet food outside all the time.

Tomorrow: protecting pets from visiting coyotes.

That’s our show…we had help today from Sarah Bibbs… the Sport Fish and Wildlife Restoration program supports our show…and is funded by your purchase of fishing and hunting equipment and motor boat fuels…

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti