Coyotes are 'everywhere' in Michigan, say experts. Here's what you need to know about them - Lansing State Journal

When Adam Bump was growing up in rural Shiawassee County, coyote sightings were rare.

"We didn't have coyotes in the 1980s," he said. "Very, very rarely, only in pockets, at very low densities. People would talk with some skepticism about people having seen them."

Four decades later, coyotes and coyote sightings have become commonplace.

The wild canines are "everywhere in Michigan," said Bump, a furbearer and upland game bird specialist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources.

They live in urban areas, including Lansing, Battle Creek and Detroit, in suburban areas like East Lansing and Brighton, and in rural communities across the state.

Coyotes are smart, perceptive, highly adaptive to their surroundings and, more than likely, living closer than you might think, said experts and others who have rescued or trapped them.

People regularly report seeing live coyotes statewide as well as the animals dead along roadsides.

These days, if you see one in your neighborhood, it might simply be because that coyote doesn't mind being seen.

"There might be just as many as there were 15 years ago in the county you live in, but now you have a population that is in an urban area and they know that as long as you're just going from your car, or you're on your porch or you're taking out your trash, you don't really pose a risk, so they don't hide as much as they would have before," Bump said.

Other than the late winter and spring, when coyotes typically breed, early fall is when phone calls and complaints tick upward, he said. That's when coyote pups are leaving their dens and seeking out new habitats.

The DNR doesn't track their population, Bump said, or record the number of complaints or calls they get about them "statewide or consistently by office." Unlike wolves, which are an endangered species and exist in much lower numbers, coyotes are "not endangered, are abundant and widespread," Bump said in an email.

"There is less need to expend the time and effort we expend to gather population estimates for wolves," he said. "Tracking broad trends in populations of coyotes is sufficient to manage the species."

As the fall season approaches, here's what you need to know about coyotes in Michigan.

Coyote basics

Coyotes, in Michigan for more than a century, are members of the same family of animals as domestic dogs. They typically grow to be 20 to 35 pounds, but can be as big as 45 to 50 pounds. Their dense, thick hair can make them appear to be larger than they are.

Coyotes in rural areas usually roam an 8- to 12-square-mile area, but those living in urban areas will occupy 2- to 5-square-mile areas. They move around at all times, but are more active in the morning and at dusk.

Coyote litters usually include four to seven pups.

They eat mice, voles, shrews, rabbits, hares and squirrels, but experts say they will attack cats, sheep, deer and small dogs as well. They also eat insects, fruits, berries, birds, frogs, snakes, plants and seeds.

Coyotes don't have many natural predators in the lower half of the state, Bump said. "Humans, cars, disease are probably some of the more significant causes of death for adults."

In the Upper Peninsula, wolves are territorial and are predators for coyotes, he said. Mountain lions are also predators but there are only a handful of sightings of the lions in the UP each year, he said.

Coyotes have adapted to live where we do

Before Russ Mason became the DNR's executive in residence at Michigan State University's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, he helped run a large coyote research facility in Utah for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services.

He studied them for years and said they can live anywhere.

"The size of the territory is determined by the food resource rather than something else," Mason said, and urban areas offer lots of options, like abandoned houses for use as dens and trash as a food source.

Researchers with the Urban Coyote Research Program have been studying coyotes that live in Chicago for two decades. That and other efforts to study coyotes living near lots of people have shed light on how observant coyotes are of their surroundings, he said, and how good they can be at staying out of people's way.

"What they really are is very good at understanding the parameters and their territory," Mason said.

Coyotes recognize even the smallest of changes in an area, he said, "and they are really good at finding their way around any kind of non-lethal control."

Yes, they can be dangerous but you can minimize the risks

Coyotes are predators, experts say, and human-coyote interactions can be dangerous. Still, fewer than 20 coyote attacks are reported each year in the U.S., Mason said.

"Coyote nuisance calls in Michigan are few and far between," Tanya Espinosa, public affairs specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said in an email. "For instance, we have received two nuisance coyote calls in the last two years for Detroit."

People who observe coyotes in their neighborhood or near their homes should keep dog and cat food inside, and consider removing bird feeders and brush piles from their yards. The birds and mice they attract will, in turn, attract coyotes, said DNR wildlife biologist Chad Fedewa.

"We try to encourage people to do what they can to discourage that coyote from coming in close proximity to people," he said. "Typically, coyotes have a natural fear of people so they don't tend to come in close proximity to people but it does happen on occasion."

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Coyotes are trapped and hunted throughout the state

While it's not common, coyotes can become enough of a nuisance that the animal needs to be removed, Fedewa said.

"Once in a while you'll get an animal that does get habituated enough where removal probably is the best option," he said.

Coyotes can be hunted year-round, he said, and trapped from mid-October through the end of February. If coyotes are doing or about to do damage to private property, pets, livestock or people, a property owner can hire a licensed nuisance company to trap and remove coyotes from an area, he said. Most are then euthanized.

Roland Peacock has been trapping nuisance wildlife for a decade. For most of that time, about seven years, Peaks Animal Control, his business, was based in Eaton Rapids. Last year he moved to Grayling.

Peacock charges $65 dollars for each day traps are set and $70 for each animal caught. Coyotes can be dangerous to pets and livestock, he said.

"If you go out west, coyotes are a real issue with cattle," Peacock said. Coyotes are always looking for their next meal, he said, "and they'll figure the same thing out with dogs, cats and livestock."

Coyotes are very observant and can be hard to trap, he said. The number he traps each year varies.

But Laura Butler, director of wildlife and education at Howell Nature Center, which recently debuted a new 3,000-square-foot coyote habitat, said it's rare that coyotes will attack anything "larger than a chicken."

The center's staff fields phone calls from people with concerns about coyotes on a regular basis, she said, and they discourage relocating or hunting them. Coyotes often help control an area's rodent population, Butler said, and removing one from a neighborhood they frequent doesn't always solve the problem. Another will often take its place, she said.

"We're more than happy to talk it through with them and give them options of how they can coexist with the coyote," Butler said. "There's a lot of different things they can do."

Appreciate them, but keep your distance

In the last year, Wildside Rehabilitation and Education Center in Eaton Rapids, a nonprofit animal rescue, took in one badly injured coyote after it was struck by a car.

The animal had broken bones and internal injuries, said its founder Louise Sagaert, and ultimately couldn't be saved.

The center's encounters with coyotes are rare, she said, but do happen. Ten years ago, volunteers cared for a litter of coyote pups, eventually transferring them to a rescue facility further north, Sagaert said.

Their presence in populated areas is often due to the shrinking of natural habitat, she said. When Eastwood Towne Center was constructed in Lansing Township more than a decade ago, Sagaert remembers fielding phone calls from residents who lived in the area reporting coyote sightings.

"I think they are misunderstood," she said. "I think everything has a place in the ecosystem and without them, I think other things would be a problem or more of a problem."

Her advice? Appreciate them from a distance and don't try to interact with or feed them.

"I do believe that there is a place for them in the ecosystem," she said.

Contact Rachel Greco at rgreco@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @GrecoatLSJ .

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