Here's how to keep you and your pets safe during coyote mating season

Arun Rath: This is GBH’s All Things Considered. I’m Arun Rath.

[coyote calls]

Rath: If you feel like you’ve been hearing a lot more of this lately — I know I have — you are not alone. It is coyote mating season here in Massachusetts, and that means that you’re more likely to see — and hear — these wild canines out and about, especially at dawn and dusk. While coyotes are a natural and important part of our ecosystem, this time of year will bring increased sightings and potential conflicts, particularly for pet owners and those who live near wooded areas.

Joining us today is Meghan Crawford, community engagement biologist with MassWildlife, to talk about coyote behavior during mating season and how best to keep yourself and your pets safe. Meghan, thanks for joining us.

Meghan Crawford: Thanks for having me.

Rath: Before we talk about safety, give us a natural overview of coyote mating season. When does it start, how long does it last, and how does their behavior change during this time?

Crawford: Coyote mating season starts in late January and runs through early March. So right now, in mid-February, we’re right in the middle of it. It can certainly be a time when coyotes are more active — they can be more vocal and more visible to the public — and it is a time when we do get reports of increased aggression from coyotes toward pets.

Year-round, coyotes will view unsupervised small dogs and cats as potential food sources, as they can’t tell the difference between those small, unsupervised pets and the other natural sources of their diet. But this time of year, when it comes to medium and large-sized dogs, coyotes will view them as potential threats to mates or territory. That’s where those increased aggressive encounters can occur.

The best thing that people can do to prevent that conflict is to directly supervise their pets when they’re outside, ideally on a six-foot or shorter leash.

Rath: I know that interbreeding happens with dogs and coyotes. For people who have female dogs, are they attracted for other reasons other than aggression?

Crawford: That’s a good question. I think the main piece is really just those family units defending their territory, making sure they have access to those breeding individuals. It’s really more about just protecting our pets to make sure that they don’t have any sort of negative encounter with wildlife.

Rath: Aside from — if you do have a smaller dog — not leaving them outside unattended, when you’re out with your dog, what should you do if you see a coyote? Because that’s happening a lot, I hear it happening from friends all the time now.

Crawford: Sure. So, if you see a coyote, say, in your backyard — if you’re out there with your pet or you’re just inside and you see a coyote out your window, we recommend that people “haze” that coyote, which is really just the way that we can speak coyote.

The way that coyotes communicate with each other is they chase each other out of their territories and defend their territory. That’s just what we need to do. We can step outside, walk towards that coyote, wave our arms above our head, throw things like rocks, tennis balls and sticks — really reminding them to be cautious in our backyards, and do that until they fully leave the area.

When people do that every time they see a coyote in their backyard, and their neighbors do that, it’s good for people and pets, and it’s good for the coyotes to remain wary and cautious in our backyards and in our neighborhoods.

Rath: Hazing sounds like sort of making yourself as big, large, unpleasant and loud as possible — just come across as unfriendly as far as it goes.

Crawford: Exactly, yeah. Or, what we say is just dominance. That’s how a lot of wildlife will communicate, including coyotes. There’s just this dominant behavior, so they can get a little comfortable when we show that we’re almost submissive to them or sort of on the same level. It’s just a matter of showing that dominant behavior to remind them to be cautious.

Rath: If someone faces a particularly bold or aggressive coyote or encounters one that isn’t intimidated by hazing, is there anything they should do? Should they call someone?

Crawford: One thing is making sure that you’re effectively hazing. You know, we’ll get reports from people saying [they] tried to haze. Then, when you ask them questions, they’re saying, “Yeah, I shouted at the coyote from my back door,” and “I did it from inside through the window,” or “I did it kind of quickly for like 30 seconds and then went back inside.”

Those are steps that are in the right direction, but they’re not what we would describe as effective hazing. Really making sure that you’re going 110% with that hazing technique can be really, really effective.

Now, if you ever feel like you are having a pretty bold encounter with a coyote and you’re concerned for your immediate safety, we always recommend that you call your local police department so that they can respond and ensure human health and safety.

Rath: On the other side of things, I guess we should probably point out — this didn’t happen to me in Massachusetts, but out west — I’ve had coyotes come up begging to me, and they’re awfully cute. But we should never, ever feed them, right?

Crawford: Correct, yes. Intentional feeding is bad for wildlife, bad for coyotes, so never intentionally feed wildlife. What it can lead to is coyotes really associating people with food and approaching people for food, and that can lead to coyote bites.

Coyotes attacking people is an exceptionally rare event and really only occurs when people intentionally feed them, so it’s super essential that people do not purposely feed wildlife like coyotes.

And then, sort of secondary to that, is making sure that we’re not accidentally feeding them either. Coyotes are opportunistic omnivores — they eat a whole lot of anything — and we as people are unfortunately good at providing coyotes food in our backyard with things like unsecured trash, bird seed, open compost, outdoor pet food or unprotected backyard chickens.

These are all foods that the coyotes will take advantage of and all the reasons why they might spend time in our backyards and grow to be less cautious around people. A really important step is to make sure that we secure all the food sources on our property so that we’re not attracting coyotes there in the first place.

Rath: Before we let you go, we’ve been talking about dealing with aggressive coyotes, but do you want to talk about any misconceptions about coyotes that you’d like to clear up?

Crawford: Yeah. I think starting with the howling of coyotes, like at the beginning of this segment. A lot of people think that coyotes howl to announce that they’ve killed something. That’s a common misunderstanding. Coyotes usually are just howling like that because they’re communicating with one another. Many of them live in family units, and they might be spread across their home range. That howling might just be the call to say, “Hey, let’s come on back together. Let’s rejoin up.”

Or, it could be that they’re communicating with other intruding coyotes that are coming onto their territory, and they’re vocalizing for that reason. Or, during the summer, you might hear coyotes howling because they’re teaching their pups how to howl and how to be a successful coyote who’s able to communicate. That’s one common misconception about coyote communication.