Are urban coyotes a danger to small children?
I live in a city in Ontario, Canada. If city coyotes are not showing signs of aggressive behaviour the city does not normally do anything.
My concern in my area is that this is a pack of at least 5 coyotes, near an active play park. I have seen them active during the day while small children are playing close by (20 to 40 yards away).
What can be done in order to ensure a child or anyone else doesn't get hurt?
This post was sourced from https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/q/21199. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1 answer
Stay away from them, don't let your kids play outside after dusk by themselves and make sure they are being kids (i.e.- being loud and obnoxious) and keep all food near and around your home inaccessible (including trash cans- use bear country discipline to reduce food reward associated with people smell). Generally, Coyotes are cowards and will avoid humans (your dog is most likely to be a target). That said...
City Coyotes are sill a wild (vs domestic) animal and, like any animal in the wild, they have three goals, and three goals only:
- Eat
- Don't get eaten
- Make more of themselves
Anything which doesn't further one of those three goals they do not put energy toward (if you think about it, all animals do that, even humans...we just tend to complicate matters). Likewise, anything which threatens their ability to facilitate or maintain these three things will be protected against. Coyotes, while not the bottom of the food chain, are by no means apex predators and so are on constant watch and protect themselves at all cost. They don't even hunt like other predators- one will either act injured to lure prey to them, or playfull to get prey (such as a domesticated dog) to give chase then the pack pounces to make the kill.
Humans, while a source of food for "City Coyotes", are also a threat to them, and will generally tend to avoid humans. So do your best to limit how much they associate people with food to keep them from wanting to be around people and you increase safety.
Additionally, coyotes are a known carrier of rabies, a disease spread through contact with saliva (not a bite, simply saliva coming into contact with the skin and finding a portal of entry to the body- cut, pimple, scab, etc). It is a neurological disease which, upon entering the body, travels through the nervous system to the brain. Symptoms develop once it reaches the brain and, once the virus reaches the brain, it has a 100% mortality rate. DON'T ATTEMPT TO FEED OR PET THEM AND SEE A DOCTOR FOR A RABIES SHOT IF ONE LICKS YOU. Rabies can be transmitted in the saliva of an animal for several weeks postmortem depending on decay rate.
This post was sourced from https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/a/21261. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
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