By Hildur Palsdottir

Cunning and clever, coyotes star as main characters in many indigenous creation stories and folklores. Original people of the Great Plains revered their intelligence and celebrated coyotes as both creators and destroyers——shapeshifters endowing humans with fire, daylight, poetry and other cultural necessities.

While the colonial narrative now features this “trickster” as the constantly hungry Wile E. Coyote of Looney Tunes, their recent sightings here in western Nassau have given rise to negative urban myths I’d like to debunk here.

First, The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation did NOT bring coyotes here. Coyotes have been cautiously exploring Nassau as a potential home for at least a decade as part of their own expansion from Westchester and the Bronx.

Second, Eastern Coyotes are native, not invasive. Long Island is one of the last frontiers in their range expansion across the continent. Their remarkable adaptability is evident in that you can now find coyotes as far north as Canada, in Central America, in the wild and in most North American cities as well as in the suburbs.

Coyotes first colonized New York state in the 1930s, so it’s only been a matter of time that they’d find their way onto Long Island. In fact, Hawaii is the only state they haven’t yet colonized. Predators such as bobcats, bears and wolves used to live here on Long Island until European settlers extirpated them.

Wild coyotes keep to themselves and aren’t an immediate threat to you or your family. Coyote-human and coyote-pet conflicts are extremely rare and avoidable. The Humane Society claims that you’re more likely to get killed by flying golf balls than attacked by a coyote. Compared to a handful of coyote attacks per year nationwide, 650 people are hospitalized annually from dog bites in New York alone.

Wild coyotes are sometimes referred to as “ghost dogs” because they’ll do everything they can to avoid humans. Our relationship with coyotes is healthiest when we stay away from each other. The moment they’re fed by us coyotes are at risk of becoming habituated and that can lead to aggressive behaviors. Feeding of coyotes can be intentional as happened recently at LaGuardia Airport and resulted in authorities ordering their removal.

Systemic killings to eradicate coyotes haven’t worked as evident in their successful spread throughout this continent. For over a hundred years coyotes have been persecuted, hunted and poisoned, but to no avail. They are remarkably resilient and adaptable creatures.
According to National Geographic, humans kill about 400,000 coyotes a year. In 2020, the USDA’s Wildlife Services alone was reported to have killed 62,537 coyotes. Perhaps it is time we stop spending a fortune on killing them and instead explore ways to co-exist with coyotes as a strategy for population control.

It turns out coyote population sizes fluctuate according to food availability, and healthy, wild coyotes are territorial, which in turn reduces the number of animals in a region. If we kill the dominant animal, wandering coyotes may attempt to breed and claim the crown. The result is that when we attempt to reduce their numbers, coyotes may respond by breeding more.

At the Science Museum of Long Island, Plandome, we hosted an educational webinar titled “Coexist with Coyotes,” to promote healthy human-coyote relations, you can watch the recording on the SMLI YouTube channel, here https://youtu.be/82Md7Fxvmis.
In this webinar, expert panelists Professor Lisa Filippi, Ph.D., behavioral ecologist at Hofstra University; wildlife biologist Mike Bottini of Seatuck Environmental Association; and Frank Vincenti, founder of the Wild Dog Foundation, share how to keep our pets safe. They also clarify how coyotes got here and suggest that coyote-human relationships don’t have to be complicated.

There are many examples of model communities who co-exist successfully with these animals, but there can be a steep learning curve in terms of the behavioral changes we must make.

We must stop feeding wildlife. Coyotes are omnivores, meaning they’ll eat anything. The best way to co-exist with coyotes is to respect their wildness and leave them be. It’s the habituated coyotes that become problem animals. Our relationship with coyotes is best if we maintain a healthy distance.

Securing food sources will promote population control. We must never intentionally or inadvertently feed coyotes or other outdoor animals. We need to follow the same precautions as upstate New Yorkers and secure garbage, compost and other potential food sources. It’s good practice to keep your dog on a leash and stay on the trails if walking in natural settings. Little dogs need to be on a short leash.

Unfortunately, feeding stations for outdoor cat colonies on Long Island are to coyotes a free buffet, encouraging coyotes to consider cat food and cats as part of their foraging strategy. Coyotes will sniff out backyard food trays if you’re serving your pets outside. On that note, cats are best kept indoors and that may in turn help our songbird population recover as outdoor cats have a negative impact on bird life.

The best way to rewild habituated coyotes is by following established protocols for hazing. If you encounter a bold coyote, then make yourself as big and loud as possible. Wave and clap your hands, make noise and throw rocks and whatever you find in their direction (not directly at them, the intent is to scare – not hurt them) to signal that they should be afraid of you. You can learn more from the Humane Society https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/coyote-hazing
You can become a citizen scientist and help survey the movement of coyotes. Please visit the Coyote Tracker application here https://seatuck.org/coyote-tracker/ and join a community science project that engages Long Islanders in monitoring the colonization of our region by Eastern Coyotes.
You can learn more about Long Island coyote migration and how to co-exist with
coyotes here: http://www.seatuck.org/coyotes
Here’s a link to New York State Coyote Incident Standard Operating Procedures
https://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/wildlife_pdf/coyotesopfin2018.pdf
Here is a link to documents on coyote conflicts published by the DEC:
https://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/6971.html
Report aggressive or injured coyotes immediately to NYSDEC’s Wildlife Oce at (631) 444–0310. For emergencies call DEC Law Enforcement at (631) 444–0250.