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Coyote chomps little kid in Arlington yard
By adamg on Mon, 08/16/2021 - 5:27pm
Arlington Police report on the attack yesterday afternoon on Cutter Hill Road:
At about 5:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 15, Arlington Police responded to Cutter Hill Road for a report of a child bitten by a coyote. The 5-year-old male had been playing in a sandbox when he was approached and bitten on the leg by a coyote. The boy suffered injuries that are not believed to be life-threatening.
He was later taken by family to an area hospital for evaluation.
Police say they and officers from state Environmental Police searched the area to no avail.
Police offered some tips, including not leaving food - and that includes small pets - outside but actually spending more time outside, at least for adults:
Coyotes generally try to avoid humans, and their natural fear is reinforced when play areas, back yards and trails are actively used by people. The regular presence of people is a deterrent for coyotes to visit.
Should one show up anyway, police say, haze the beast: Approach it while making loud noises - but take care to give it a way to escape.
Hazing should be exaggerated, assertive and consistent.
But lay off the hazing during breeding season:
Hazing should be avoided in the months of March through July, as well as if the coyote is a comfortable distance away, or if you encounter a coyote in an open area where a den may be nearby. You should haze a coyote if it approaches you, or if you see it comfortably walking in a neighborhood or park.
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Comments
This raises two questions:
This raises two questions:
Kill them all
These coyotes are invasive vermin that need to be eradicated.
Put...
...the roadrunner on the job.
And make sure he has an open account with Acme.
You are clearly unacquainted
with The Laws. It is the coyote who has the account with Acme, and the roadrunner never does anything to harm him; he is entirely responsible for all of his own misfortunes.
They are not invasive
And they kill vermin.
I'm sorry that you are phobic and murderously aggressive about this. Have you considered therapy? You sound pretty effed up in addition to being entirely wrong.
Wrong as can be = you
Bullshit. My yard is overrun with chipmunks and rabbits. All these vermin eat are cats and small dogs. And coming soon, small children if the likes of you get their way to keep the poor coyote safe. The first toddler that gets killed is on you guys.
Nonsense
>> All these vermin eat are cats and small dogs.
While coyotes MAY eat cats and small dogs, their normal diet consists of "small mammals such as mice, voles and rabbits".
https://www.humanesociety.org/resources/coyotes-pets-and-community-cats
How do I encourage
coyotes to patrol my garden?
True men don't kill coyotes
"I hate coyotes" in your case is a aggro fear-covering face-saving way of saying "I'm scared of coyotes".
"Kill them all" is a manifestation of toxic masculinity as a cultural coping mechanism (and you don't have to be male to resort to this - just look at MTG).
We don't need to kill coyotes and they are not going to just start eating kids when they have not done so before. Certainly not when there are so many goddamn rabbits around that are far easier food.
I live next to a woodland and my kid was attacked by a doe (accidently cornered her going out the back door during snowmageddon), but never a coyote. Our biggest issue with aggressive canines is off leash dogs who are "under voice command" and 1/4 mile from their stewards.
You need therapy for your phobias.
Whoa
There's a song I haven't thought about in 30+ years...
confirmed number of humans killed by coyotes...
in North America since the 1980's: two.
Number of humans killed by dogs in the United States every single year: between thirty and fifty.
Perspective for the fearful.
Neither number comes close to the number of humans and other animals killed by humans.
...
where do feral hogs fit into all of this?
Humans are invasive, dumbass.
Humans are invasive, dumbass.
Neither or both
I agree that the original post was idiotic, but if humans are invasive in this region, then coyotes are more so. Though we're an African species, and they probably evolved in the Western Hemisphere, humans have been in New England for at least 12 thousand years, and coyotes for only a century or so.
One invasive species killed off the wolves
The rest is migration into an existing niche.
We don't know that coyotes weren't here before Europeans became invasive - just that they were gone by the 18th century.
In any case, they are mixed with the wolf populations that have been here for a very long time: http://archive.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/02/17/f...
Migration and invasion
Humans are also a species that has migrated into an existing niche, one that consists of the entire planet. Does that mean they can't be considered invasive anywhere?
Work has certainly been done on identifying the prehistoric distribution of coyotes by analyzing fossils and other remains, and it strongly suggests that they were confined to western North and Central America. The range was large, but did not include the northeast. https://zookeys.pensoft.net/article/15149/
As for mixing with wolves, hybridizing invasive species are often considered the most damaging of all. The new hybrid can expand into territories to which neither of the original species was adapted, and it can lead to replacement of the original population. If coyote-wolf hybrids thrive, will wolves disappear?
Seniority versus the amount
Seniority versus the amount of damage caused ….. I’m gonna go with humans being the most invasive. Plus, what do we even know about coyote populations before humans arrived?
Should one show up anyway, police say, haze the beast
Make it drink too much and wake up with a banana in its butt?
More cowbell.
More cowbell.
Rabies
Has anyone heard of rabies carried by wild animals!! May not eat your young child but rabies treatment is no joke?!
Lots of people in these
Lots of people in these comments who apparently haven't ever lived in a rural area. Coyotes are generally only going to attack a person if they're rabid or cornered. The old adage of "they're more scared of you than you are of them" is applicable here. Calling for the eradication of coyotes makes you sound like a dumbass and a coward.
Not true of many urban/suburban coyotes
Like the local wild turkeys, many local coyotes have become used to humans and are no longer scared of us. Look at today's UHub story about the dog killed while being walked by its owner.
That doesn't mean they should be eradicated. It does mean we have to figure out ways to make coexistence work safely for all.
The poor dog
I wonder if it was it walking with its owner on a leash (or otherwise at/near the owner's side) -- or was it running well ahead of the owner (albeit within sight)? I would be very worried if the coyotes snatched a dog right out of its owner's grasp (figuratively speaking) -- but much less surprised if it happened to a dog that was not very near its human companion.