Grex Nature Conference

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Grex Nature Item 41: Displaced Coyotes
Entered by katie on Tue Mar 21 20:15:17 UTC 1995:

 In the last week I've spotted two dead coyotes along M-14, between 
Ann Arbor and Plymouth. Coyotes are very shy animals that make themselves
very scarce even where they are plentiful. It must be all the huge homes
and office buildings going up in the area that is causing the coyotes to
flee the erstwhile fields and get hit by cars on the freeway. Very sad.

8 responses total.

#1 of 8 by rcurl on Tue Mar 21 21:09:36 1995:

I've only seen one live coyote in MIchigan, and that was in the UP, on a
nature preserve where trapping is not permitted. It probably doesn't know
where the boundary lines are, though.

#2 of 8 by katie on Tue Mar 21 22:33:26 1995:

I have seen them on on my property (Grass Lake Twp) on two occasions. They
are plentiful in the Grass Lake and Manchester areas. Very fast runners,
very shy, and smaller than you might think.

#3 of 8 by scg on Wed Mar 22 00:10:25 1995:

I drive that stretch of M-14 at least weekly, and I haven't been noticing
roadkill animals along the road.  Maybe I should watch for them more
carefully.  Then again, I'm not sure if I'd recognize a Cyote if I saw one.

#4 of 8 by mwarner on Wed Mar 22 01:20:19 1995:

I was once confronted by Coyote pups on a trail through wooded land in a
rural farm area in New York.  The pups were playfully bounding over each
other as they jogged down the trail.  Everyone in both parties stopped in
their tracks upon recognizing the encounter.  As I thought "puppies" as in
dogs they thought "yikes yikes" and did pratfall zooms into the shrubs,
where inquisitive little eyes soon appeared. 

Generally, a coyote's posture will give it away.  A coyote will often be
crouched, or will dart away.  This is pretty distinctive from the behavior
of a domestic dog, even a frightened one.  I've seen adults a number of
times in the u.p.

#5 of 8 by bmoran on Thu Mar 23 05:33:06 1995:

"They" say they are found in every county in the state of Michigan. Must
be some pretty mean ones from Wayne!     B-)

#6 of 8 by mcpoz on Sun Apr 2 15:08:22 1995:

A friend of mine has a farm near Tecumseh and he has seen quite a few 
Coyotes.  

In February, I was playing with a CB radio and I heard a team of hunters
in pickups talking to each other during a Coyote hunt in the area of 
Island Lake Road to North Territorial Road.  The hunters were in at least 
3, maybe 4 trucks and they had dogs.  They were chasing a group of Coyotes
who were running basically southward.  They would cruise an East-West road 
until they picked up the trail, then hit the next E-W road until they 
did not see a trail exit.  They were getting some visual sightings and
were trying to get a shot at them, away from houses.

Didn't seem like the odds were even.

#7 of 8 by mwarner on Mon Apr 3 21:07:27 1995:

I saw a pretty decent show on Coyotes on PBS last night.  The
dogs-trucks-radios method is the way they hunt bears in northern Mich., as
well.   I didn't know that the "sport" had other practicioners.

#8 of 8 by mcpoz on Tue Apr 4 01:25:31 1995:

Neither did I, but  the friend I mentioned hunts bear with radio tracked
dogs in the West.  They use 4-wheel ATV's , plenty of dogs, and a directional
radio finder to track the dogs.

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