Love is in the air out in the woodlands.
It’s mating season, and that means we’ll be hearing, and possibly seeing, more coyotes near us, since they’re all over the state of Connecticut. But there won’t be too much of a reason to be concerned about aggressive behavior until the pups arrive in the spring.
“They’re moving around a little bit more on the landscape,” said Jenny Dickson, acting bureau chief for natural resources at the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
“Certainly the males are setting up territories. They’re looking for females, they’re having conversations with each other, having conversations with females,” she said.
“There’s some territorial interaction with other coyotes, but they’re not really showing that territorial behavior to people or pets or things like that right now,” she said. “Valentine’s Day (this time of year). They’re looking for love.”
Also at this time of year, coyotes are moving through their home ranges, Dickson said, announcing their presence, “just trying to find the right females.”
It’s not just coyotes keeping people awake.
“I know just in the last couple of nights, I’ve heard owls around my house,” Dickson said. “I’ve heard raccoons having conversations with each other. I’ve heard the occasional coyote, so a lot of things are having nighttime conversations right now as we get into spring.”
It doesn’t matter where you live, either. Coyotes have taken over the state.
“They’re completely everywhere,” Dickson said.
“And I think that is one of the things that surprises people a lot because we can find them in urban areas. We can find them in rural areas,” she said. “They really are ubiquitous throughout the state. And that has surprised people a lot.”
She said she’ll get calls from New Haven or West Hartford. “Oh my gosh, I just saw a coyote. … Something must be wrong. Come address it right away,” she said. “And they don’t understand that they’re incredibly adaptable and they make use of whatever green space they can find. It might be a cemetery, might be a park.”
Cities serve up plenty of “good eatin’,” Dickson said: rats, chipmunks. squirrels.
While coyotes are primarily nocturnal, it’s not unusual for them to be out in the daytime, Dickson said. It doesn’t mean they’re rabid.
“Once the pups are born, they have to feed a lot more frequently so they’re a lot more active when they hunt,” she said. “They’ll do a lot more hunting during the daytime.” A coyote’s litter will total two to four pups, she said.
It’s best to keep cats indoors and dogs on non-retractable leashes, in order to keep them in control, she said. They’re most in danger, though, if they get too close to the coyote’s den or their pups. That’s “likely to provoke a response in them because they’re defending their young,” she said.
“Certainly with our dogs, they’re just seeing another canine come into their territory,” Dickson said.
“They’re not saying, Oh, it’s not a coyote; it’s a dog. … They’re saying another canine has just entered my canine territory, so it prompts a very different response,” she said. “And, it’s usually during denning season when we’ll sometimes get calls from people saying they’ve had a close encounter with a coyote or they tried to scare a coyote off and it wouldn’t leave.”
Cats just look like prey to a coyote, she said.
Coyotes have been known to attack dogs in Connecticut.
Denning season will start in mid-March and last through April. If February is warm, it will begin sooner. This time of year, making a loud noise will usually scare the coyote away, she said.
Dickson said the usual warnings about wildlife, such as bears, apply: “Manage your trash and don’t leave food outdoors,” she said.
“If you’ve got other attractions that might attract a coyote in, say you’re feeding the birds this time of year and you’ve had a lot of bird activity, you’ve had a lot of squirrels visiting the feeder, well that squirrel might be a prey item for that coyote,” she said.
“So if you’re seeing those smaller animals, you might be attracting larger animals that you don’t know about,” she said.”So just be mindful of that if you’re going out in the yard with the dog at night.”
Eastern coyotes tend to be larger than Western coyotes, partly because they have mated with Canadian gray wolves, according to DEEP. Also, “they tend to be bigger because they can put on more body weight, Dickson said. “They can survive cold weather better. They just do better in their environment.”
Ed Stannard can be reached at [email protected].