Posted on 04/20/2005 10:07:31 AM PDT by LibWhacker
-- Cleveland Metroparks officials have closed part of the North Chagrin Reservation after a pair of aggressive female coyotes bit a bicyclist and a pet dog over the weekend.
Park officials said the wild animals are believed to be protecting their den -- and possibly a litter of coyote pups -- but park rangers shot and killed the older female Sunday and have taken the head to the Ohio Department of Health to be tested for rabies.
"It's just a precaution because we don't believe she was rabid, just that she was territorial," Cleveland Metroparks spokeswoman Jane Christyson said Tuesday. "But if it is rabies, we would be in a whole new situation."
The coyote attacks occurred in the A.B. Williams Memorial Woods area of the Chagrin Reservation, a 50-acre wedge off Ohio 91 in the southwest corner of the park known as the "Upper 40," Christyson said.
The area will remain closed for several weeks until the cubs are able to leave the den and the remaining younger female becomes less protective, Christyson said.
Wildlife experts report on the Metroparks Web site, www.clemetparks.com/updates/notices/, that coyotes are generally afraid of people, but "there have been occasional reports of females showing less fear of people while protecting a den or pups," especially in April.
Christyson said park officials didn't know whether the female was still pregnant or whether other coyotes were in the area.
"We've known about the increasing coyote population in Ohio and the parks for years, but we've never had a report of one biting someone," she said.
"It's of special concern now, of course, because of the rabies scare."
Northeast Ohio has been under an increasingly tense rabies watch for several years, after years of relative quiet. Health officials using vaccine-filled bait had been able to stop the disease at the Ashtabula County border. Since summer 2004, however, 45 rabid raccoons and one rabid skunk have been confirmed in Lake, Geauga and eastern Cuyahoga counties
Neither local nor state health officials have reported any rabid coyotes. Test results on the coyote killed at North Chagrin aren't expected for several weeks, officials said.
The 61-year-old Willoughby man bitten Saturday declined to comment Tuesday and resisted medical attention urged by park officials. A park police report said the man had "several distinct puncture wounds in a wide 'V' shape."
Christyson said a hiker's dog was "nipped at" Sunday, and police reported that another hiker had to club a coyote on the head with a stick to drive it away.
She said about 50 coyotes are believed to live in the Cleveland Metroparks' 21,000-acre holdings, a handful in the 2,000-acre North Chagrin Reservation, a park that straddles Lake and Cuyahoga counties and includes the Squires Castle site.
The Metroparks are seeking grant money to do a coyote census, Christyson said.
"Beep Beep"
But looking on the bright side, they have a lot fewer rats in the park.
I've run into coyotes in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and I can tell you that it would have to be something like a fear of rabies for them to take this many precautions, because coyotes are puny little things, certainly not able to endanger an adult human unless there were many of them attacking at once, which I have never heard of.
My buddy and I used to go night hiking north of Kernville, CA., near Horse Meadow, trying to sneak up on packs of coyotes, using only a full Moon for illumination. They never let us get close to them, though you could hear packs of them yipping much of the night. Those were fun times! A little scary, but fun.
BTW, in case we ran into a bear or mountain lion, we did carry a 1 million candle power spot light and a 6-cell mag light, and "equalization." Never needed any of it.
For whatever reason, the coyotes that are now repopulating the Eastern U.S. are apparently quite a bit larger than the usual Western coyotes - not known if it has to do with inbreeding with dogs, wolves or some other factor - but these are a more "substantial" animal than their Western cousins.
Much to my chagrin...
The local police shot a 85# coyote at the courthouse square downtown one quiet Sunday morning. It had been feeding well on local kitties, garbage and chihuahuas. They brought it to me calling it a wolf but it was just a large male coyote.
I guess coyotes are more dangerous than I thought. I've seen them so many times in Yosemite and elsewhere in the Siwrra Nevadas, but the ones I've seen are always scrawny, and high-tailing it in the other direction.
I remember walking my dog on the golf course in Yosemite and my daughter (10/yo) was scared because there was a coyote about 500 feet away on a golf green watching us. There was patchy snow on the ground. My dog is a female chocolate lab, about 75lbs, and in good shape. The daughter was afraid that the coyote was going to attack the dog. When we got closer the coyote skeedaddled, and I was able to reassure my daughter by showing her the huge difference in size of the coyote's footprints in the snow versus our dog's footprints. The difference was tremendous, and the coyote was rather a normal looking coyote. Ever since then my concern about them being harmful had waned, based on the tiny footprints, and how they always run.
I'll begrudgingly give them a little more respect based on your reports. :) Thanks!
We have coyotes on the lower end of our property (only 1.34 acres)which borders on wetlands. You can hear them. Now and then they attack the geese who are laying eggs near the creek below us. It's a horrid sound.
Well, they're here in my hometown. We can hear them sometimies at night attacking the geese by the creek. Scary.
The coyotes that I have seen here in Ohio are long legged and as big as German Shephards.
Did you use the Lights to illuminate your friend...? ;>
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