The central Iowa city of Urbandale is asking residents to look at its coyote management plan to help keep the animals from causing problems. The DNR’s Andy Kellner helped the leaders of the Des Moines suburb put together the plan after increased contact with coyotes.
“Predominantly in the winter, but a few in kind of off times. Unfortunately, a couple of years back, there was at least one dog fatality in the mix,” Kellner says, “and so over the last few years we’ve been working with them with supplying information that they can give to citizens.” Kellner says one of the key points is to make sure there are no easy food sources around homes. “Just like my dogs at home will occasionally snatch something off the counter, it doesn’t matter if it’s a vegetable or a fruit or a piece of meat. Coyotes will take advantage of a wide range of diet items too,” he says. “So while they predominantly are going to feed or prey on smaller mammals, things like mice, rats, rabbits, if there’s easy access to food, something like pet food left out something like trash left out, they’ll take advantage of it. But it could even be something as simple as leftover fruit from your fruit tree.” Birdseed is another food source that could attract the coyotes.
Kellner says the plan also give tips for keeping pets from becoming prey. “The coyote breeding season in January and February is a time where we see coyote activity increase and kind of the boldness of coyotes increase,” Kellner says. “So it’s certainly a time we really want pet owners to be acting responsibly keeping your pets on a leash and supervised not just letting them go out by themselves at night.” Kellner says cities like Urbandale that have greenways and river corridors provide the habitat where coyotes can live. He says he hasn’t had calls about coyote populations in other Iowa cities, but says it’s likely there are coyote populations in many other urban areas.
Kellner says people can make the problem worse by treating the coyotes like they are pets. “There’s not a ton of coyote attacks on people throughout the year in the United States, it’s pretty rare. But the ones that do occur, a high percentage of them are things where people are trying to feed these animals a sandwich, or something like that. This is not natural, this is not how this should be happening,” Kellner says.
The depredation biologist says people should do the opposite and take actions that make the coyotes fear being around humans. “It’s natural and good to have that fear. And so by doing hazing, like yelling at it, making yourself look big, spraying it with a hose, throwing things at it, you know, shouting at it, loud noises,” he says. “Those sorts of things are good to remind the coyote of its place, remind them that we’re a little bit crazy too and maybe they don’t want to be that close to us. And we’re just maintaining the training of them being wild.”
Kellner says it’s also important to appreciate the good things coyotes provide to keep our ecosystem balanced. “They’re natural native component to Iowa wildlife and it’s a good and just viable part of how that system works. And they’re gonna have an impact on rabbits and mice and critters like that,” he says. Kellner says some wildlife species adjust a little bit better than others to the humans who have moved into their territories. He says coyotes, deer, turkeys, foxes, rabbits, and squirrels are among those that have found ways to adapt.