The key to stopping problem coyotes is to haze them heartily — and keep hazing them until the problem behavior stops, a wildlife consultant told Geneva residents Monday night.
The city brought Lynsey White Dasher, the director of humane wildlife conflict resolution for the Humane Society of the United States, to Geneva to help residents who complain that coyotes have become all too comfortable in their residential neighborhoods.
Coyotes are a part of rural, suburban, even urban life, Dasher told the crowd of about 50. They’ve been seen on cameras crossing the street in the middle of the night in Chicago, she said. Seeing a coyote running through a field isn’t an indicator of a problem, she reinforced.
“It’s not a cause for concern to just see them,” she said.
She spent a significant portion of her 90-minute presentation explaining coyote habits and behavior.
“We have to learn to think like a coyote,” Dasher said.
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She shared facts about them, including that small rodents and fruit make up about 65 percent of their diets, according to a longtime study by the Cook County Coyote Project. About 2 percent of their diet was human food, such as cat food or garbage, while 1 percent was the remains of a cat.
They will behave territorially to defend their pups or mate, and might be more active during the mating season from December to March, she said. They might also be more active while their pups are small and in their den, and hunt “double time,” she said. A small cat or dog out in the yard is indistinguishable to a coyote from any other small animal, she said.
Dasher stressed prevention to keep coyotes from yards and sidewalks – don’t leave garbage or pet food out, clean up messy bird feeders and always keep pets leashed or be outside with them.
But if one or two coyotes become problems – and she said it’s often a few who cause problems and then the others follow their lead – the best way to change behavior is to raise your arms, blow an air horn, run toward it, shake a can of pennies, or anything else that will scare it.
Audience members questioned why, when they’ve tried hazing, the coyote just stares back insolently.
Dasher said repetition is key, as is neighbors banding together to haze a coyote, so they associate the loud noises and aggressive yelling with all humans. She shared examples from a few Colorado communities that implemented aggressive hazing and successfully scared coyotes away from school yards, neighborhoods and parks.
She also said that killing coyotes ultimately doesn’t work. Besides disturbing family structures, another coyote will simply move into the dead coyote’s territory, she said.
One study showed that a coyote group that had 75 percent of its members killed returned to its pre-kill numbers within eight months, she said.
Angela Maslanka, of Elgin, attended the training in hopes of learning some strategies. She moved to her house near Tyler Creek a year ago, and has had multiple encounters with coyotes while her small dogs have been outside.
“It’s a natural habitat, I get that,” she said. “But I also don’t want them to eat my dogs for dinner.”
She said after Monday’s training, that she’s going to put her dogs inside, then return to haze the coyotes, a suggestion Dasher said might help.
“That is something I will try now,” she said.
The presentation also can be found on Geneva’s website.
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