AUSTIN Wildlife biologists at Texas Cooperative Extension in Travis County receive calls about wild animal sightings and activities almost every day.
While most callers want advice on what to do about the random possum, skunk or other varmint’ wandering onto their property, the more serious calls relate to coyotes.
Or do they?
“Over the past year, there’s been a lot of coyote activity in the county, especially in the suburban areas to the north and west of Austin,” said Jeff Ripley, Extension director. “But recently, there have been a lot of 311 calls reporting coyote sightings that closer investigation has revealed were actually different wildlife.”
Extension has been working with the city, county and local agencies and the media to ask Travis county residents to call 311 to report coyote sightings. This enables Extension to keep track of the number and location of the calls, plus assess the seriousness of the behavior reported, Ripley said.
“Many people in suburban and urban areas are unfamiliar with wildlife and will sometimes misidentify an animal,” he said. “During the past few months, there have been several coyote calls, but site investigation by our biologist assigned to do direct control has found only grey foxes.”
Texas Wildlife Services biologists at Extension provide educational information on and technical assistance in resolving wildlife issues.
In January, Extension added direct control of coyotes to its wildlife damage management efforts. Direct control in designated areas of Travis County is carried out according to the terms of an agreement between Extension, the City of Austin and the county.
“When people call 311 to report a coyote sighting or any type of interaction with a coyote, the operator will ask the caller questions about the animal’s behavior,” said Randy Farrar, the Extension biologist responsible for coyote control. “The answers callers give help us evaluate the situation, determine how serious it is and decide what wildlife management may be needed.”
Farrar ranks the information from one to seven, based on the coyote’s behavior.
“The lowest rank is assigned to hearing or seeing a coyote at night, while the highest is assigned for aggressive behavior toward domestic animals or humans during the daytime,” he said. “So if we get reports of several sightings or of serious coyote behavior in areas covered by the agreement, we’ll usually take a first-hand look.”
Recently, Farrar has responded to calls from people in rural areas near Austin who have found fox dens on their property and thought they were coyote dens.
“In other cases, we’ve responded to people who said they saw small coyotes, but discovered they were just grey foxes,” he said.
Both coyotes and foxes are canids and have dog-like features, said Jacob Hetzel, an urban project biologist providing technical assistance for Extension in Travis County.
“A grey fox only grows to be about the size of a large domestic cat,” Hetzel said, “while a coyote usually grows to the size of a small collie and weighs from 25-45 pounds.”
Though both animals have brownish-grey fur, the adult grey fox has a smaller frame, shorter snout and bushier tail than an adult coyote, he said.
“The grey fox also has a little more red or rust color in its fur than a coyote,” he added.
People in suburban and urban areas tend to confuse coyotes and other wildlife due to lack of exposure to wildlife, said Gary McEwen, district supervisor for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services agency.
“It’s easy to see how some may mistake foxes for coyotes, especially when all they’ve seen is a photo of a coyote and don’t have a sense of the animal’s size,” McEwen said. “People have mistaken both grey and red foxes for coyotes. We’ve also had them confuse certain breeds of dogs for coyotes.”
Apart from the distant possibility of disease transmission from a fox to pet or person, foxes pose no real threat to domestic animals or humans, he added.
Large domestic cats have been mistakenly identified as bobcats, and bobcats have been identified as mountain lions, he added.
The recent 311 calls have stood partly because of the steady decline in these calls since direct control of coyotes began in January.
“Before we began direct control efforts, we determined that the main way to gauge our success would be if there was a reduction in the number and seriousness of 311 calls about coyotes,” Ripley said. “We’ve seen a strong reduction in both since we started.”
The 311 calls peaked January, when 90 coyote sightings or activities were reported. For June, the number of calls dropped to below 20, a more than 80 percent reduction.
“The level of seriousness of coyote behavior reported has also dropped,” Ripley said. “February had the highest average 2.8 on a scale of seven. But for June the average was 1.4, just half as high.”
In the past month, almost all 311 coyote calls were reports of hearing or seeing a coyote at night, dusk or dawn, which is when the animals are typically active. And May and June 311 calls showed little interaction between coyotes and domestic animals, as well as almost no interaction between coyotes and humans.
“While our direct control efforts have been successful, past experience tells us these numbers will likely go up again, probably starting in August,” Ripley said. “That’s when the coyote pups will be old enough to wander farther from their dens and start to claim their own territory.”
Ripley suggested Travis County residents continue to take the precautions to reduce the chances of a coyote encounter. Those precautions include covering trash cans and placing them in secure areas; keeping pet food indoors; feeding pets indoors, especially when coyotes have been heard or seen in the vicinity, and making noise or throwing rocks at coyotes to re-instill a fear of humans.
“We’re also asking people to be as accurate as possible when reporting what they think is a coyote sighting or activity,” he said. “That way we can be sure we’re using our resources to the best of our abilities and directing them where they’re truly needed.”
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