Coyote Country: myth vs fact

Kairo country miss versus fact I'm going to put a statement up here and you guys can tell me whether you think it is a myth or a fact are you ready here we go coyotes are easy to identify mr. fact coyotes are actually pretty hard to identify how to resident in Aurora call me and tell me he had four wolves on his front porch Wow okay so coyotes are often mistaken for wolves foxes and domestic dogs and their actual weight is often overstated females in Colorado average about twenty two pounds males average about 33 pounds okay so not as big as you why do we why do we think they're bigger why do people tell us that I saw coyote was 85 pounds it's a predator right and what does your brain do I'm a scuba diver and every time I see a barracuda it's got to be nine feet right because it's just that that's the thing that they're just our eyes want to make the bigger but also somebody mentioned their their Pelt and they have this luxurious pout that adds a lot of weight onto that little tiny coyote body okay but there are legs that's really it there's not much else to them they're pretty scrawny if you take all that fur off all right coyotes were here first and what I mean by this statement we see this all the time when there's a coyote conflict story someone inevitably will chime in and say well the coyote were here first so we should let them do their thing how many do you think that's a myth or that's a fact what do you think the Coyotes were here in numbers in the suburban area before we came in and built our houses yes okay so this one's kind of a tough one all right we don't have numbers of how many coyotes were in the Jefferson County area before Jefferson County was built up okay but let's just think about it for a second humans did a few things that made life as a coyote really awesome what did we do we removed walls and without the pressure from wolves which wolves do not tolerate competition from coyote so they will kill them they will chase them off they don't tolerate coyote kyles are carnivores myth or fact this is a trick question so by dentition they are a carnivores eye by their teeth okay they are defined as a carnivore but in practice what do coyote eat anything right okay so I patrol at Crown Hill quite a bit and what's interesting is to watch coyote who through the seasons all right so it's kind of fun it's like the seasonality of Kyoto and and in the fall when all those beautiful neighborhoods around Crown Hills are all mature they have beautiful fruit trees that have been there for twenty years what are those producing things coyotes love plums mock apples all that kind of stuff so coyote who at Crown Hill in the fall is this purple mess that looks almost like bear poop in fact every every fall we have people call in and saw a bear scat at Crown Hill I'm like well that would be weird but it's usually coyote and then in the fall in in like August when it's really hot and dry and the grasses are drying up we get a lot of coyotes cat with just straight-up grasshopper exoskeletons in it so they're eating a lot of insects because how many of you see a ton of grasshoppers in August you can't throw you can't throw an old shoe without hitting a grasshopper so what's great about coyotes and what's dexing about them is they are extremely adaptable they are the ultimate flexitarian they will shift their diet based on local conditions if you have a crazy cat lady who's feeding feral cats from the backyard and there's like 50 cats around guess what the coyote to Ollie cats that's good I can do that so they shift their diet based on local availability and they shift it throughout the year so it's not just that they become a cat specialist but as the fruit falls they'll shift the fruit does that make sense to everybody all right the cut-out Center to dog next it will be a child is that a myth or a fact the people are shaking their heads no so why is that a mess because piles perceived pets when they look at a dog what is a coyote yes competition yes generally competition unless it's a really toy breed then they might be seeing food but for the most part think about it they're canid they look out they see this dog you're walking your dog the Coyotes thinking whoops that's cool this is my area I've got to defend my food resources I don't want that dog in my community so they're seeing those dogs of competition how Kyle perceives human so if you if you say okay the coyote attacks a dog and if it's still safe for my child to play in the backyard so that's an interesting question first is how old is that child so we have some people like well if they come and steal a baby I'm like well your baby shouldn't be alone in the backyard that's that's that's a parenting issue that's not a coyote issue okay so so there's that but a 12 year old or an 8 year old child is not the same to a coyote as a dog does everybody understand that very different pressures there now we do have some anomalies so we had the coyote in Broomfield that was attacking toddlers does everyone remember that it was a few years ago it was little kids would be running long you know in front of their parents and here we come this coyote and it would take a bite sort of on their back buttock or the back of their leg that's an anomaly that's not normal coyote behavior and that coyote was removed so so this is really not true just because the coyote goes after a dog it doesn't mean children are next coyotes are naturally wary of humans myth or fact this is part of our research is how many of you have seen coyotes in rural areas how do they behave usually only see their fanny right or they're way far away and they're kind of watching but they're very skittish in urban areas how many of you have seen an urban coyotes pretty much dismissive of your presence how many of you have one in your neighborhood right now okay so urban chaos there is this notable difference in some urban coyotes where the presence of a human doesn't doesn't faze them at all and you go to rural areas and all you do is just open your car door and they're gone and so is that a learned behavior because rural coyote what would make a real coyote runs from humans yes in rural environments people can manage coyotes using guns that's okay that's okay as long as humans they can demonstrate that they have some sort of loss it's coming from the coyote in urban environments let's hope your neighbors are not clinking coyotes with guns from their back porch because that is not all right and usually in most cases it's not legal either most most local municipalities have laws against discharging a firearm so so one of the things we're trying to look at is is that sort of bold I'm going to stand here and look at people and not let them you know they don't bother me is that learned or is that something that comes with certain coyotes and their behavior syndrome or is it something that we just it just depends on each coyote we don't know that's something we'd love to figure out through research if I see a car in my neighborhood I should leave it alone and that is a myth why if you see a coyote in your community what's the appropriate response so and you're like what we need iLike the guy want to get a picture for my Facebook page okay right that's what you're thinking but is that the appropriate response to stop and take a photo of it and the reason is you are training that animal okay you're training that animal to understand that humans are sort of an on thing that it's okay to walk down a sidewalk in the middle of the day in a suburban neighborhood and what does that look like to scare a coyote off what are some things you can do make yourselves look big yo I take a couple steps out of put your arms up okay you know we'll talk more about hazing when we get to our study findings but a lot of people are funny about that they're like I don't want to look funny in front of my neighbors really so you want to have a problem coyote so again think about what you're training when you decide I'm not going to I'm not going to haze that coyote there are other situations where you don't need to haze a coyote say you're hiking at a Jefferson County open space park and the coyote is over you know 30 feet away in a field hunting mice do you need to run over and scare it no because it's doing what coyote do that's okay and we don't want you to haze that coyote it's behaving normally it's doing what coyotes do and we actually want coyotes to do that right kind of a nocturnal mr. Jack before suburban life and everything coyotes are day active or crepuscular dawn and dusk active in urban and suburban environments we actually create a terrifying world as we get up and start moving around what's terrifying about the human world cars cars are the number one cause of adult coyote fatalities in super areas hands down so vehicle collisions but also we're loud we have dogs some of the dogs are very aggressive towards coyotes so coyotes tend to in urban and suburban areas kind of hide out during the day but what do you want to be aware of is that in urban environments if you see a coyote the day is it necessarily sick or injured or something like that no so urban coyotes will come out during the day particularly during popping season because they need to be out hunting food for pups so here's a couple of coyotes on a very busy urban you know ten-foot wide sidewalk trail a few hours from now this trail will be packed but at 4:04 in the morning this couple can walk down this trail and just enjoy each other's company that's fine this is the same trail and this is 10:45 a.m. so this is a little different this guy's out in the middle of the day again on a busy suburban trail but this is snow so again this may not have been is busy this day but this coyote behavior is a little bit more concerning than these two coyotes rive in urban environments myth or fact yeah so it's a myth and a fact so Kyle's driving urban environment and they tend to rely on the undeveloped patches within those urban environments so again if you've got a coyote and you're in a very urban area what do they need in that urban area so you needed it perfect answer yes they need a ditch or they need a park or they need a woodland or they need some sort of an undeveloped brownfield they need some sort of undeveloped area where they can conduct their business okay and preferably if those are connected by a ditch or some sort of we had one in the north part that was using a culvert to go underneath a major highway all right cause they're passive creatures mr. fact so this is where Kyle can get into conflict with humans and with our pets particularly so Kyle's defend territories and food resources from each other and from other species so they don't tolerate foxes for example if there are foxes in an area and coyotes colonized that area a lot of times people say I never saw the foxes again once the coyote show up two reasons for that one is a savvy Fox is going to keep a lower profile the Coyotes move in also if it doesn't choose to do that the coyote may actually kill the foxes so so they don't tolerate other middle-management predators like those so kind of interesting stuff if you think about that that's how coyotes get into trouble with domestic dogs because they see that domestic dog as competition and want to remove it and the way they do that is through killing we can get rid of the coyotes myth or fact so if you see this a lot every time there's a story about a coyote kills a dog in someone's backyard someone writes in and says just get rid of them okay well there's some trouble with that so the myth is you can't get rid of them because there will always be a replacement coyote so you remove a coyote and you don't change anything about habitat or human behavior what will you get in its place another coyote why because remember that lifestyle we have resident coyotes and then who's out there cruising around sometimes 364 miles of cruising around looking for a habitat the transient coyote so when you remove a coyote and actually one situation in Utah a male was killed by a rancher and the female actually left her territory found a male and brought him back like you're coming with me buddy and brought him back and they lived happily ever after as coyote do so so the thing is the important thing to remember when you're talking about coyotes it's very simple mass one minus one equals one okay so when you have a well-behaved coyote in a community it behooves you to leave that coyote there because if you remove it it might be replaced by a coyote that's bolder maybe dog aggressive maybe all kinds of things that aren't going to work in that community so we always say if you have a well-behaved coyote leave it there keep it trained you know hazing do all the things right but don't remove it because the coyote that comes in after it could have a different behavior syndrome and could be more problematic to the community or in general people love coyotes is that a myth or effect it's a myth so one of the things that's interesting is a lot of folks are sort of indifferent to coyotes until they have some sort of conflict with a coyote and then all of a sudden they change to whoa they're bad all right so it's interesting too a lot of people really love coyotes they think they're fantastic and they think they're a great part of the ecosystem again I'm not here tonight to tell you how you should feel about coyotes I'm here tonight to help you understand how you can mitigate conflict with coyotes

Channel: Jeffco Open Space

Views: 1,540,022

Keywords: coyote, Jeffco Open Space, Colorado, education, wildlife, myth, facts, Jeffco Trails, Jeffco parks, Mary Ann Bonnell, Colorado Wildlife, behavior

Id: kjkq_ex0zmw

Length: 13min 24sec (804 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 20 2017