Or a small pet dog is missing. Poultry, sheep, and cattle-raisers are increasingly aware of coyote depredations. We provide numerous food sources for coyotes our pets, garbage, road kill, gardens, farm animals. They are effective killers, hunting in pairs or packs, killing more livestock or wildlife than they can eat. Coyotes, being canines, can carry and spread rabies and can have distemper, mange, ticks and internal parasites.
Coyotes can interbreed with dogs to produce coydogs, larger, smarter and more dangerous.
Coyotes are among us and are thriving on local food sources, foraging around our homes and businesses with little fear of humans. Hunters killed 3,739 coyotes in 1998, up from 2,717 in 1997. It is imperative that our county officials take action soon to help control a predator that is dangerous to us as a rabies carrier as well as a menace to domestic animals and wildlife. Experts say it is too late to eliminate the coyote, however, they can be effectively controlled. Many jurisdictions have found a bounty program, properly administered, to be a practical control method.