Hide your pets: Coyotes are here

Jim Williams didn’t want anyone thinking he’d been into the grape, so he began his letter with the qualifying statement, “I am a lifetime hunter and fisherman, as well as overall wildlife enthusiast so I am very confident that I know what I observed.”

Williams, who lives within 75 yards of Rock Creek Park, said he recently awoke at about 2a.m. to a series of high-pitched canine yips and howls. “They were steady and uninterrupted for at least five minutes,” he said. “They reminded me exactly of the coyotes I listened to in northeastern Maine while on fishing trips a few years ago. Nonetheless, I discounted this idea because of my location, and I forgot about the incident.

“[Later] while at the intersection of Oregon Avenue, Nebraska Avenue and Bingham Road NW, I watched a large adult coyote come out of the Rock Creek woods and hunt about the open space there. The color, size, appearance of the animal, as my niece and I watched it for 3-4 minutes under the street lights, left no doubt as to its identity. The coyote slipped back into the woods after a 30-second stare-down with us.”

Williams added that he carried a duck call in his car and when he blew it, the coyote bounded within 15 yards of the automobile, sniffed and stared, then loped off into the direction of the nearby Rock Creek Garden Association.

“Until this time I was unaware of coyotes in D.C.,” Williams wrote.

Williams also said a Virginia game warden told him coyotes have been shot by deer hunters at the Quantico Marine Base, and he’s heard of coyote sightings along the nearby Potomac in Maryland.

Now add Matt Hancock, who resides in the western Charles County community of Nanjemoy. During a black powder deer hunt, Hancock saw a coyote and shot it. Mind you, this is Southern Maryland — an area pretty much surrounded by tidal water. What in the world was a coyote doing in Nanjemoy, and how did it get there? Not only that, you can bet your last dime that it wasn’t the only one that made its home there.

Bob Duncan, the Wildlife Division Director for the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, agrees.

“It’s almost certain that this Charles County coyote didn’t live there all by himself,” he said, meaning, of course, that the chance of more coyotes making their home around Nanjemoy is practically assured.

“We’ve seen coyotes run through busy intersections in Hopewell, not far from Richmond. Coyotes are pretty much established all over the state,” said Duncan, a 27-year veteran of the VDGIF.

Duncan killed a coyote in Goochland County during last year’s deer season and recounts a story of a Virginia coyote going after a man who was mowing his lawn. The homeowner managed to elude the coyote, go inside to get a gun, then came back and killed it. The animal later was found to have rabies.

If you think such accounts and sightings are rare, consider the fact that, according to Duncan, roughly 8,000 coyotes are shot every year by Virginia hunters. That’s not counting coyotes killed by automobiles or by homeowners who don’t bother to report killings, fearful perhaps that they might have shot a pet dog and are afraid to report it. The animal, after all, doesn’t look all that much different than a scruffy, small German shepherd.

Because of the coyotes’ rapid proliferation, it is legal to shoot them year-round, lure them with electronic calling devices, and simply get rid of them because of the rabies threat and the ease with which they adapt to human surroundings, thus immediately posing a danger to small pet dogs, cats and whatever else is left unattended in a backyard or on a neighborhood street. These brazen, highly intelligent animals wouldn’t think twice about snacking on Fifi, the poodle, or Fluffy, the housecat.

In a special report concerning coyotes, Robert Colona, the Furbearer Project Leader of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, wrote, “Coyotes were historically a western species with core populations found west of the Mississippi River. Alterations and/or elimination of competing predators during the post-European colonization period facilitated rapid range expansion into eastern North America during the 20th century. Established populations now occur in every state and province in North America.

“Coyotes are a relatively new addition to local ecosystems and were first documented in Maryland during 1972. Initial sightings occurred in Cecil, Frederick and Washington counties. Since that time, population densities and occupied range have expanded incrementally, and coyotes now occur statewide. Current trends appear to display a declining distribution gradient when proceeding in a west to east direction across the state. Highest densities are witnessed in western Maryland, and the lowest occur on the Eastern Shore.”

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