What to Do With Pesky Coyotes

December 23, 2010

Question: For the past 10 months, our neighborhood in Encinitas has been overrun by coyotes. Who can we work with to mitigate the situation before someone gets hurt? (Ken S.)

Answer: Coyotes and other wildlife cannot and should not be removed just because there may appear to be too many in a community. If they are congregating, the problem may be that your neighbors are being careless with food and garbage, which serve as attractants. Coyotes play an important role in the ecosystem by helping to keep rodent populations under control. They are by nature fearful of humans.

Coyotes primarily hunt rodents and rabbits for food but will take advantage of whatever is available, including garbage, pet food and domestic animals. If coyotes are given access to human food and garbage, their behavior changes. They lose caution and fear and may cause property damage or threaten human safety. When this happens and they threaten humans or begin preying on domestic livestock or pets, they may be killed.

Relocating a problem coyote is not an option because it only moves the problem to someone else’s neighborhood.

The best thing you can do as an individual is to make sure that you remove pet food and water containers at night, secure your garbage and don’t provide any areas of shelter. Try to educate your neighbors about this, too. Without food, water and shelter, your property will be less appealing and the coyotes may move on.

Here’s the bottom line … coyotes may appear to reside and be prevalent in your area, but this isn’t a crime as they are natural predators. The problem occurs when people don’t follow the suggestions above and the animals lose their fear of humans and begin threatening people and their pets and livestock. When that happens, the animals may need to be destroyed and we want to avoid that situation.

If all else fails and the animals become a threat, contact the wildlife biologist in your local area (through DFG’s San Diego office, in your case) to discuss your options.

For more information on living with coyotes and other wildlife without conflicts, please check out our Keep Me Wild campaign at http://www.dfg.ca.gov/keepmewild/.