How Coyotes Work

They've always been kind to us, but we are performing in larger venues this time, so we need you to come out and support us so we don't feel like dumb dumbs. And you can find out all the information, including where to buy tickets at s y s K live dot com. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's your other host, Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There, there's Jerry Roland

and our producer. This is Stuff you Should Know Coyote edition. So how are we going to pronounce it? I mean, it's coyote, but coyote's kind of fun, but you could also pronounce it coyote coyote. There's a lot of ways. Yeah, so I say coyote, but I don't think that that's technically correct eating it's coyote. Maybe yet I think it's just swallowed my tongue. Uh. There's a lot of good band names in here, by the way, I noticed. Oh yeah, i'll call them all out. Well, I'll call out the

first one right away. Genus Canus. It's pretty good, okay. Uh, that is the where coyotes are members of the genus Canus. Yeah, and Canus includes all dogs, Yeah, jackals, dogs, wolves, uh, and dogs. That's why I said dogs. I know, but there's so many great dogs that you just gotta say it twice. Well, I don't want to short change the jackals of the world. Who likes jackals? Nobody likes jackals. That's right, you know, screw them right, say them once. As a matter of fact, let's go back and beep

out the second time we said that name. But hey, one thing about this about family candidate, which all dogs belong to. It's a really old um family and it's native to North America. So like all those jackals, if you want to talk about them some more, that made it outside of North America. They started here they didn't come from anywhere else, started in North America. Coyotes as North American as apple Pie and Granny and Baseball and

dogs and Dogs. We've done a lot of episodes that are dog related over the years, and I still haven't knocked out the one that I really want to do, which is the the first Dog, like the first domesticated dog. That'd be a good one. They made that movie, but I'm not sure if it had any truth to it whatsoever. Train Spotty. When that stuff happens, do you just say the first thing that came into your head? No, the first thing that came into my head was never cry Wolf.

But I was like, that makes too much. I remember that movie that, Yeah, that was a good one. That was when we were kids, right Disney. It was a Disney jam, but I think it was like a little but it's scarier. Is there's something about it that made it like groundbreaking for Disney. I don't remember what it was, Yeah, I remember too. Uh. And then that that terrible looking Call of the Wild Thing is out? Now, why can't anybody stuff? Man? It's driving me crazy. Have you seen

these spectrum ads with Ellen degenerous on them? Apparently they're just using c G I, Ellen, Because Ellen, if if it's not, I was making a joke. It's the weirdest makeup I've ever seen that actually makes her look c G I. But it looks so much like that, it's it seems likelier to me that it's a c G I. Ellen,

And I don't understand why. Surely not proved me wrong? World. Well, I'm thinking now, if I'm Ellen and they say, hey, we want to choot a bunch of spots with you, we'll pay five million dollars, or we'll pay you three and a half million for your image likeness, you could stay at home. I would stay at home. I would travel, you would, sure, that's true? A million a half bucks? Yeah,

it's a lot of dough how would travel? Plus? Also, I mean, like curse spots in these spectrum commercials are so small and limited that it couldn't possibly take more than half of a day per spot. Yeah, and they and when you're a big star like that, you can dictate it. You can be like, sure, I'll do it. You've got me for two hours, right, you have to pay for the teleportation, that's right, you know, But it's so Yes, they called the wild thing to stop. Stop,

everybody stop. Yeah. Of course maybe Harrison Ford was so stoned he didn't even realize it wasn't a real dog. God bless him. All right, So back to coyotes. There are they are. The scientific name is Canis Latran's barking dog. Sure, boy, they make a lot of noise. We'll get to at their nineteen. Subspecies generally has to do with their range, but sometimes it can be bigger or smaller, different kind

of coats um and they. One thing we will learn throughout this whole thing is and we need a T shirt that says this is dang it to the coyote cannot be stopped. Boy do they persevere. There's probably no greater survivor maybe currently alive on Earth that's a mammal at least than a coyote. Yeah, I mean we will see. There have been efforts over the years to extinct them on purpose, like a coyote holocaust. Yeah. And the and the coyote just trots away with that signature bounce and

gives the finger and and it's actually good luck. Yeah, and has actually expanded the range and swollen in population despite an effort to to drive them purposefully to extinction a well funded really yeah at different times. Yeah, it's pretty amazing, Yeah, it really is. I mean I feel very bad for coyotes. I do to Um. One reason I wanted to do this one is because there's coyotes in in Atlanta, is in every major city in America

almost yea. And there's coyotes around humans in my neighborhood and that means it's Momo's neighborhood too, And so you me went off on this, like she found out about that and just started learning everything she could about coyotes, Like, we need a new fence. We got to get a coyote vest for Momo, which she now has. Yeah, she looks adorable in it. They work for hawks and things too, right, Yeah, it's I think they're one and the same predate predator vest.

But I think it's called like the brand name as a coyote vest. I think I think, Um, like, we know a lot about coyotes because they're in our neighborhood, and like the more we learn about it, the more it's like I hate them in that they would take Momo if they had a chance. Um, but I also do feel bad for them too, because they are uh, just trying to make their own way and live there.

You know, they're just being a coyote, right exactly. I mean Emily and I saw coyotes in our neighborhood in l a and Igorrock on walks and we saw, uh, we've seen them in Atlanta. We saw one a few months ago at night that looks very sick and was alone. Um. But we will dispel some myths. Not every coyote you see alone as rabid. Not every coyote see during the day as rabid um. And we'll get more into this, but they if it weren't for people, coyotes would be

out all the time during the day. Yeah. They're not nocturnal by nature. No, they're not. They're diurnal and the naught by nature. And well, they may be the ones that, um, that that live closest to humans and urban areas or suburban areas have actually adapted their behavior and become I don't know what you call it. I guess they are nocturnal, but they're most active at dawn and dusk. But they're definitely not diurnal where they're active during the day and

sleep at night like they normally are. They've actually altered their behavior, and it's just one of the many coyotes are like, fine, that's that's fine, will change, will change to stay alive. That's right. Uh. I think another Urban County was another band name I thought was good and I actually looked that up and of course there's an urban County band. Uh. Speaking of urban counties, they actually caught one in at Metro Atlanta recently, very very rare,

all black coyote named Carmine. They trapped the big reggoo. Interesting, but I mentioned that trot. That's how you like if you're out walking at night or walking your dogs and you see what you think is a dog and it's got this there's this little signature bouncy trot. You're like, oh no, no, no no, that's no dog. All right. So back to counties in general, Uh, they are wolf like, but they have narrow, more narrow snouts. Uh, they're not

quite as muscular. Um Ed Grabanowski helped us put this together. He wanted to point out that they're bigger than foxes, which I thought was funny. It seemed obvious to me that they're bigger than foxes, but maybe not everyone knows that. Well. The first Uh, coyote that was spotted by Anglo Americans, which was the Lewis and Clark expedition. Um, they thought it was a fox from Afar, and then when they shot one and got up close, they're like, oh, it's

kind of wolfe. They don't look like foxes at all to me. No, but I guess it was like staying far enough away that I couldn't tell. Who knows. People were much dumber back then. They were all smoking opium on that trip. I also like, I would like to acknowledge a stuff you should know. First, we had a mid show producer change. Jerry started out the show about eight nine minutes ago. She said, to heck with this, She's had it. Jerry had to go. Jerry had to go do a call and said Josh, Josh, Josh. He

stepped in. Welcome Josh. Never happened before. Thanks for doing that. I wonder who's going to finish up the show. I don't know, our little pecking bird perhaps. Yeah, okay, you acted like you didn't get the reference the dipping bird. Theah, the dipping bird. Uh. So coyotes bigger than a fox, smaller than an elephant. Uh, their tip nose to tail,

body length usually about two to five ft. Yeah. They basically looked like somebody took a shrink ray on a wolf and just dropped it by like, yeah, fifty pounds. Their fur brown tan, kind of gray, kind of modeled. Uh, and you know that's a coyote. Yeah. They eat mammals mostly, but well also there are omnivores el eat berries. If there's a lot of berries, Oh yeah, they'll eat They love fruit. They love figs apparently, but they're diet as

mammals supposedly. Here's the thing. If you're just kind of like coyotes, cool, whatever, they're related to dogs in there, you know, all over the place. I want you to just, first of all, listen to this episode. But things just start like researching kyotes. You will be astounded and amazed at every turn. Coyotes like fruit. So do you know what coyotes do. They climb trees and balance on branches so that they can get all the fruit that they want.

Look it up. Look up pictures of coyotes climbing trees. They take small animals like dogs out of the backyard, so coyotes can jump over fences six ft are under and squeeze through slats of pickets three inches or wider. They also dig under if they need to do all sorts of crazy stuff. Coyote will say, hey, lizard, come here your lunch. Yeah, they'll eat lizards, will so they'll eat just about lead, insects, Yeah, they'll lead insects, they'll um.

They specialize in rodents, small mammals, rabbits, that kind of thing, but they will eat just about anything. And one of the things that its sounded me the most is um. And I know we're hopping all over the place here, that's right, And I want this to just evolve into like, here's a cool coyote effect, but it may That's all right.

They engage in the social behavior called fission fusion, where they can be they're totally fine hunting alone, living alone, but they're also totally fine hunting and packs living in packs depending on the kinds of resources available. So if there's like deer in an area, coyote can't take a deer down on their own, but at coyote, if there's deer available in the area, they'll get with other coyotes

in the area and hunt in a pack. But normally they just hunt by themselves when there's like say, lots of rabbits, because all it takes is one. But depending on the food available and the resources available, and how many other coyotes are in the area, they'll come into and out of these fluid packs, depending on basically the situation.

Like what you uh. Here's another thing, Like we said, they small rodents and mammals usually, But if you're an elk, like with a head cold, watch your back because that coyote knows it, and he knows that you're not feeling well, and he might come at you with a buddy or two and feast on you for a few days because of that fusion. They've entered that fusion mode and now they're hunting impacts. Here's one thing you don't really need to worry about, is coyote attack on yourself. It has happened,

but it's very rare. One of the most astounding things I've ever seen is a coyote that was sneaking up on a little kid playing in their driveway, must have been in California or something like that, and the family cat comes tearing around the side of the house as at the moment the coyote is about a pounce on the kid and jumps onto the coyote. That one pushes off of the coyote, the coyote takes off. The cat saved the little kid's life. Yeah, the most amazing thing

I've ever seen. I saw him just from last night. Uh, a group of a pack of coyotes was fended off by a cat and they caught up. Someone caught it all on their house camera. You don't mess with cats, man, No, I know they're they're vicious. Yeah so so yeah in that one, if you watch closely, you can show me that one that one of the coyotes all over the caches. She's basically watching animal snuff movies for a while. Researcher, I'm like, you have to stop. This can't be healthy

for you. But um, but like should just be sitting in bed with her knees pull chest Like they're not going to give home off, they're not gonna get up. But one of those coyotes to get out of the way, the cat just jumped right up on like this five foot wall right next to it, like a vertical leap up onto the wall. It's not even like it's nothing, but but yes, cats still mess around. With coyotes, it's pretty amazing. So uh, they live usually only about six

to eight years in the wild. Um, they have seen them a oldest ten or fifteen. But I kind of wondered about dogs and like just a dog in the woods that never a feral dog that never was claimed, Like if that really was a short lifespan as well, probably kind of curious compared to a domestic dog for sure. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Uh. If you are a coyote, you will choose your mate for life, which is very very sweet. Yeah, unless that mate dies and then they are allowed to go out

and find a new mate. Socially it's okay, yeah, but yeah, they they mate for life. They raised their young together. Um, and the the young grow up really quick. They usually have about litters of I think I saw six on average, but it can be as low as three. I'm sure you can go even lower than that, but it can get up into the teens. They need them. And this

is why coyotes have proven utterly impossible to exterminate. Thankfully, we stopped trying to do that, but for a very long time we tried to and we'll talk about more later. But the reason why it proved impossible is because coyote mothers basically change the number of coyotes they have in their litter depending on how the population is expanding or contracts. Amazing,

and they do this. One of the ways that they figured out they do this is that coyote howell where you hear coyote howling nearby, and then some other one is often the distance and another one even further off. They figured out that they are basically taking a census how many of you got, and the last response will actually trigger a hormonal change in female coyotes who are a reproductive age, and they will have more pups than they would have if they got in a response to

their call. Unbelievable. Uh. They have their well talk about their families in a sect, but they raise their young in dens. Uh. Sometimes they will make their own den, but a lot of times they will take over the den of another animal and uh renovate it, make it their own, usually expand it a little bigger, but a little macromay. Yeah, maybe at a steam shower perhaps, Oh nice,

You never know. Uh. They returned to their dens if they can, uh, year after year, if it's available, and sometimes you will find them in weird places though, like a drainage tunnel or in the cross space of a house or something. But those are obviously urban coyotes. Yeah, and so they're their territory actually is. It can be really big, it can be really small. It depends on

how dense their food sources are. Yeah, they're really uh flexible yep, with with how they live their lives, like in every single way, shape or form, so so much so. I mean we talked about the fission and the fusion um social structure. It's just this fluid social structure um

in the pack. The basic unit of of coyote society is the family, the mother and the father, the two alpha's and then their offspring or betas this gets really interesting, and their offspring again, depending on the resources, they may stick around and help raise another litter. Those are called helpers. They may stick around and basically just mooch. They call those slouches. Yes, slouches are the ones who come home from Appalachian State spend a lot of time on the couch.

But they're they're they're in the pack. But it just says here they're not contributing in any way basically. Yeah, um, and then so some some beata's depending like if food starts to get scarce or whatever, some alphaals will be like you, you need to go. It's time for you to go find your own territory, of your own range. Go be a loner, Go find a mate, just get out of the basement basically. Um. But other times they might be allowed to stay, depending on the food sources.

And and that's where that fusion and fission kicks in. That's right. Uh, all right, maybe we should take a break here and we'll talk about loner coyotes right after this. M alright, we're back, and we were talking about the pack size, how it can shift depending on the resources. Uh, there are also lone or coyotes. Maybe their beta they get kicked off the couch finally, or maybe they are

an aged out alpha. Um. And like I said, if you see a coyote by him or herself, that doesn't mean maybe I should say itself doesn't necessarily mean they're rabid. Because you get on these Facebook neighborhood pages and there's coyote sites sightings, and people lose their minds and give out a lot of bad information. It goes both ways. People are either like say kill them, kill it, kill it with fire as fast as you can, or else. Other people are like, well, I've been feeding it for

the last couple of weeks. It's nice. It likes to come play with my dogs, right, Or it's out during the day it's so it's rabid for sure, or it was by itself, so it was rabid. There aren't There haven't been big outbreaks of rabid cavities and many many, many years. Yeah, apparently they made a concerted effort to eradicate rabies among coyotes and so not just coyotes, but I think mammals in the wild in general. And so they started basically dropping vaccines bait basically but vaccinated. Would

you say wolf bait? I don't think that's a widely known term that My buddy Eddie, he's just say that for farting, he's dropping wolf baite. He might have made that up. So imagine if that was vaccinated, that's what they were doing, and um, dropping wolf baite, that's that's good stuff. I gotta say, it's nice, haven't Josh t laughing over there? Not? Jerry's just permanent lack of care, no idea, no idea. Um. So they actually managed to

largely get rid of rabies among coyotes from what we understand. Yeah, so maybe we should talk about the beginnings. Go ahead, I was gonna say, but they do finally carry distemper, and they can carry rabies. Is not to say like there are rabbid coyotes. It's just not a big problem. And one of those Facebook commenters I quoted saying that it likes to come play with my dogs. That actually happens. Coyotes are known to play with dogs. That's how Carmine,

the rare black um coyote was trapped. He made friends with a Great Pyrenees in Smyrna and was playing around and like they finally set up some traps in the yard and he fell for one of them. Um. Those Pyrenees are beautiful dogs, they really are. But um, that pyrenees hopefully had distemper vaccine because just playing with the coyote, it can be it can it can get distemper and that's something you want your dog to have. No, not at all. So uh, let's talk a little bit about

the beginnings of the coyotes. They were, or at least what we think is that coyotes and wolves and then now extinct. Uh, other kind of dog basically were around, and they were sort of the starting point for what are counties and wolves, but they were apparently much more like coyotes and wolves. So they generally think that counties were sort of the the o G evolutionarily speaking, right right.

I saw also that, um, there's a line of thinking that they descended from red wolves whose range still is over the southeast in Texas. I think there's still a few around today. Um. But the the however they started it happened anywhere from I think two million years ago to three hundred thousand years ago. Coyotes evolved, and again here in North America. This is there there um home continent.

But as they started to evolve, the ones that first came along were bigger and um, heavier than the coyotes we know today. But the problem is is they were in direct competition be based on their size with wolves, and wolves are and have always been much more aggressive hunters. They don't tolerate other aggressive predators in their range, so they'll go after a coyote. And so this is really interesting.

Over over the years, um, just from living with wolves, coyotes apparently started to shrink down in size so that they could fill an ecological niche that had been left open rodents and rabbits, which wolves don't care that much about. Wolves want to take down like caribo and elk, and they hunt in packs exclusively. They don't care about rabbits, right, So that that left the rabbits to the coyotes and kyotes kind of shrunk in size and started going after that.

And then one other thing that happened to Chuck was that meant that because they were confronting wolves, the coyotes that were more aggressive and went after wolves or went to go fight wolves when wolves are around, they died out, which left just the timid ones, right. Yeah, so coyotes. That's why you won't fighting coyotes that are super rest of these days, because in order to survive the wolf Challenge. Uh, there's another good band name. The Challenge is an amazing

band that's not bad. There's a lot of wolf band zoh Will Parade and wolf Mother other Wolves. That's not the name of the band of other wolves. There might be it could be. Um. Yeah, so those those are the ones that stuck around. Uh. And like we said, cooties are that's just another example of how bad they want to survive. UM. These days, they are listed as a species of Least concern, which means don't we don't

have to do anything nothing, no conservation efforts whatsoever. The only conservation effort that has been uh hung on coyotes is that there's a law that says we we are not allowed to drive them to extinction, which is a reversal of original policies. We'll see, should we go ahead

and talk about that. So, yeah, there was a policy, uh when was it in the nineteen thirties, starting in the nineteenth century, I think, okay, where they basically said, I mean a lot of it was sensationalist journalism, but that basically that coyotes were the scourge of the earth and they will kill every chicken and every sheep on your and every cow and your property and your horses,

and we gotta get rid of them all. Yeah. So basically it was a response to um Anglo American ranchers, well actually any American ranchers moving westward, UM farming cattle and sheep and all that um. And they were just

being predated on by wolves. So really they went after wolves first, and they were really successful at almost driving all wolves to extinction because wolves hunting packs, and so if you kill enough wolves, they don't have enough wolves to hunt in that pack any longer, and the remaining survivors starved to death. Right, So they really worked at

getting rid of wolves, and it was really effective. Coyotes were less effective, but they started the coyotes started preying on the um the prey that the wolves were no longer around to prey on. So they went after coyotes and they went after him big time. They killed hundreds of thousands, millions and millions and millions of coyotes over the years with like sponsored I think they uh, they said, Congress, give us ten million dollars for the next ten years

and we'll take care of them all right. And about the same time, so that was the Biological Survey the Eradication Methods Laboratory of the Bureau of Biological Survey. Um. They basically said, we're going to start coming up with strict nine pills and like um little misters that shoot

um cyanide in the coyotes face. And they were lacing carcasses with all this poison and they were killing off all sorts of other animals too, but no one cared because everyone hated the coyotes so much that that they just didn't care how many other animals died, just as

long as we were getting rid of the coyotes. But around that time biologists started to be like, wait a minute, I'm not entirely certain it's a good idea to get rid of predators or any kind of animal that we find a nuisance, Like, that's probably not the way we should be doing things. Yeah. And it also coincided with um sort of an anti poison movement where people were like, wait a minute, maybe we shouldn't be putting poison all over our forests for just any old animal to die

if it comes near it. Yeah, And that was the around the thirties, at the beginning of the thirties. But the the the government said no, we're getting rid of We're getting rid of coyotes. The ranchers interests are above the coyotes interests. Yeah, big money, you know, talking right. So not only did they poison them, they would shoot them from airplanes and helicopters and still today apparently killed tens of thousands of coyotes by shooting at them from

helicopters like taxpayer funded programs do that. Yeah, they they definitely are still culling coyotes and cooties are still giving them a little skinny paw middle finger. Right. So I have the seventies Richard Nixon apparently banned the use of poisons, had no idea about that, signed the Endangered Species Act of nineteen seventy three, and that gave the coyotes enough breathing room to basically say, Okay, we're not going to

go extinct. But here's the thing. Because we were so successful at wiping out wolves, the coyotes, which have been limited almost exclusively to the southwestern United States sir to spread and where the wolves had once been, Coyotes started popping up in places they had never been seen before, southeastern United States. There, They've been spotted in Central America

at this point. They were found in nineteen forty on the Apostle Islands in Wisconsin, which is, at least from what I could tell, half a mile swim from the mainland. And apparently they're pretty good swimmers too. Um. And then they started to move into the suburbs, and then they started to move into the cities, and now today, there's a guy at Ohio State named Stanley Girt who specializes

in studying coyotes in Chicago. Downtown Chicago has hundreds of coyotes living in alleyways and crevasses and all sorts of places right out of sight of human beings. And they just come out at night and they've learned how to navigate traffic and just basically stay out of side. Oh, if you look, if you just type in urban cooties to your favorite search engine and looked under images, there are pictures of coyotes like in the middle of like strip malls and with you know, casinos behind them, and

like they're just everywhere. Like I'm surprised I haven't seen one in Times Square at this point. Wasn't it in Heat where they show that coyote like crossing the street or crossing the highway? I haven't seen that so long. I'm pretty sure it's in Heat. Good movie. Should we take another break, Let's do it all right? More coy

out speak right after this. So just just to point this out one more time, if you remember from our Lyme Disease episode, we've concluded that if we had no wiped out wolves, ticks, wouldn't have been able to take over and expand because the dear population wouldn't have exploded. There would not be coyotes in Chicago right now if the wolf population was stable in the United States or North America. Yeah, and coyotes also, we're able to live in and are able to live in urban environments, whereas

wolves could not. Oh no way. So they really were basically like, hey, we'll we'll go where the wolves won't go. We'll eat what the wolves won't eat. We'll hunt by ourselves because the wolves can't and uh, look at us, we're gonna we're gonna thrive. Yeah. And without wolves, there's nothing to to keep them in check, to keep their population in check. Angry facebookers. That's it basically, So that whole eradication campaign has been put to the side. There's

definitely still lots of coyotes that are killed every year. Yeah. I think between two thousand and six and two thousand eleven they killed more than half a million coyotes legally. I saw that there's a half a million that are killed a year still, Yeah, like one a minute every year. I've also seen thirty five thousand. I don't know if it's just certain divisions are responsible for like half a million or maybe certain years they ramp up the efforts

more than others. I don't know, but they're there are definitely still a tremendous amount of coyote deaths. But as we've seen, coyotes have been um extremely successful in the face of this extermination campaign. Um, just by by reproducing depending on the local population. Yeah. Yeah, And if you're a rancher, you you don't have to be a part of some program like you're you're taking care of things in the rancher way, which is traps, guns, yeah, poison. Yeah.

There's no laws protecting coyotes whatsover. Again, the only law as far as I know, I think it's part of the Endangered Species Act that says we're not allowed to drive coyotes to extinction. But that's it. You can kill a coyote. The only things keeping you from shooting a coyote like in city limits or gun ordinances. Basically, you can kill a coyote anyway you want. Um. But here's

the thing, go visit in the hospital. Um. But the thing is is what they're starting to figure out now is because they're so successful that you don't actually want to kill them. Killing them has this ripple effect through their society where they start reproducing more. And here's the

other thing. If the coyote is still not if it's not acting aggressively towards humans, if it hasn't started to take pets, if you just know it's in the area but it's trying to keep its distance, you may actually be better off with that coyote because if you get rid of that coyote, another coyote is going to move in, and that coyote might be much more aggressive than the last one you just got rid of. Like, if you've

got a decent neighbor, maybe that's good enough. So that's kind of like the idea that's dawning over people with coyote management is coyotes aren't going anywhere. They're staying put, and the best you can hope for is one that keeps this distance and is afraid of humans. Yeah, which is generally what's going on in urban areas. Uh, when

we're talking about ranchers. The reason they're doing this is not just because they hate coyotes, is that they lose a lot of um animals due to uh, these predators they that just sounded so mean. These predators. Uh, there's it's hard to get good stats. But the US d d A said in two thousand fifteen there was self reporting, which you always got to kind of wonder of thirty three thousand a little more in change of adult sheep, four thousand lambs lost to coyotes, and again that self reported,

So take it with a grain of salt. But there they do lose a lot of animals and chickens and things like that. I've gone on my soapbox before about keeping your cats inside. I'm not gonna do that again except to say keep your cats inside. Yeah, if you have, like you know, you're on the fence about keeping your cats inside, you just watch some of the videos that you be seen, yeah, or just cats being taken. Do

I want my cat to live several years longer? Because the statistics show that outdoor cats don't live as long. And not just that, um, not just with cats too, but also with dogs if you if they're coyotes in the area, and there's a really good chance there are no matter where you live in the US, you um do not You should not leave your small dog, in particular outside unattended. You basically let them out, hang out

with them, and then let them back in. You definitely don't leave them out at dusk or at dawn by themselves or overnight. That's right. Uh, we said that you don't need to worry too much about being attacked as a human. There were a couple of kind of grizzly cases. One that's just very difficult to even talk about, frankly. In nine, little three year old girl was dragged from her driveway in California and the dad did rescue her, but she died as a result of her injuries from

that fracas. In two thousand nine, there was a really strange thing in Canada where a nineteen year old woman was stalked and killed by at least two coyotes while hiking in the middle of the day. And this is apparently the only, like only adult human killed by coyotes on record. So yeah, and the only explanation for that that I could possibly come up with is that she was around their den. It was around their pup raising time, right say, spring and summer is a pretty bad time

to be around, getting real defensive of their turf. And then thirdly that those were um mated with wolves. Uh. Interesting because when the coyotes will mate with dogs, they will mate with wolves. It's not like super widespread, but it does happen in producing coy dogs and coy wolves. But the coy wolves in particular can be much more aggressive than your standard coyote. Yeah, so I wonder if those three factors played a role in it. Probably it

was definitely an outlier. It's it's very I mean, it's sad no matter what did that girl also, she was like an up and coming country singer, like on the verge of breaking out and Taylor Mitchell. Yeah yeah. So um they say, like we said that these kill couty programs don't even work that well and that there is uh their statistics to back up the fact that, um, non lethal methods of county control or more effective, which we're talking about scaring them, like wind chimes and air horns.

They're really skitty and jumpy, So if you make a lot of noise in front of a county they're probably gonna bolt. Yeah, it's called hazing. Yeah, and you don't like anytime you see a coyote around your area really anywhere, just be a good neighbor. You want to haze them, do you not just let it happen? Don't just let it pass by? Like, you need to take that opportunity

to haze them, to keep them feeling insecure, more secure. Right, The more secure uh a coyote feels, the more the more um audacious, embrazen, they're going to become coming into your yard trying to take your your dog or your cat. So you want to haze them every chance you get so that they know to stay over there. This is their turf, this is your turf. Right, So if you have an umbrella, you want to open the umbrella. This

says to pick up your small dog. Um, I've also read right, I've also read you don't want to do that because you make yourself small when you do that, and you when when when you're hazing a kyote, you want to make yourself as big as possible. What do you mean yourself? When you squat down to pick up your dog, you seem smaller than you do standing up with your arms spread, but do it very quickly. Well, But the better thing to do is keep your dog on a non flexi lead, like a straight leash. It's

no more than like six ft and things. Just keep it, just pull it back close to you while you're like waving your arm and shouting at the kyote to go away. Yeah. And I also thought it was funny that Ed pointed out that like even if you have a big dog that could like kill a coyote, Like, is someone gonna say, like, oh, I think you can take them, go get him zeus? Yeah maybe not, some people would know. You never know. Have you seen those Irish wolfhounds. M sure they're like

the largest, the largest dogs. Yeah, wolfhounds. They're like bread to take on wolves, So they could take on a coyote. I could see that having that temptation be like, yeah, my dog really could take on this coyote. Maybe what did I? Oh? No, that was dingoes that petted in Australia. Of course, that they were coyotes is not North America.

But dingoes were a little they weren't dogs either, And and it was like foxes No, I mean they look like dogs, but when you're around them, and this was at a place where you can hold koalas and stuff like that, it was obvious that it's not a dog. No, they're wild dogs right, Well not I don't even think they're wild dogs. Um or maybe I mean they're they're

totally related. But I just remember getting the sense um Scotty and I both did my friend that was with me, um whom you know, they just there was a certain the way they carried themselves. And I'm just like, you're not a dog. It literally is a dog Canus lupus dingo. So it's a subspecies of like dogs. Yeah, but what I was saying, not a dog, like not a domesticated dog, wild dog. Yeah, you could just tell the difference. And I'm sure the same is true with coyotes because coit dogs,

like you said, are things. Look at that cute little dingo. Um. Coit dogs are in kit puppies are super adorable and technically you can raise one and even a full county if you get it as a puppy, you could have it as a pet. It's not a good idea because they are coyotes and the cody's gonna coyote. H it has happened there or you know, you see those eccentric people out there that have like a pet coyote. It's

the thing, but it's just not a good idea. They're unpredictable. Yeah, you don't want to like get a cat companion for him. Um in the United States. So uh, the coyotes image has really gone through some weird transitions. Early on had a really bad reputation UM and apparently was made way worse by Mark Twain when he wrote rough in It in seventy two. There were a few pages dedicated to how lowly a coyote is, and everybody was like, yeah,

we hate coyotes from that point on. But that actually followed in partially this view that had been around for ages that Native Americans had of coyotes, not necessarily that it was a lowly animal, but that it was a trickster, kind of like a brare rabbit type. UM. But then he was also in some with some some groups like the Creator God, the Creator Deity. There's all sorts of different roles that the coyote played in Native American mythologies,

because there were so many different Native American mythologies. But it was very prominent in Southwestern tribes UM mythologies, and very frequently as a trickster, very frequently. Yeah, good stuff. Yeah, I don't have anything else. I don't believe I do either. If you see a coyote, Hayes, it really shouldn't kill it, like, make sure that it's kept on its feet and insecure your Petzil. Thank you. If you want to know more about coyotes, go look up a coyote standing in a

tree and that will really set you off. Since I said that it's time for listener mail, I'm gonna call this grizzly trigger warning email. Has to do with our body under the Bed episode, So you know, if you're not into listening to this kind of stuff, tune it out. Hey, guys listening to the body into the Bed episode, and was reminded of a similar awful case in Jacksonville, Florida,

where I live. In my neighborhood, an eight year old girl, Maddie, disappeared while playing outside one afternoon and year yard her yard. Long story short. Her neighbor Josh Phillips, who was fourteen at the time, was playing with her and accidentally hit her in the head, she said, with a baseball bat injuring her. I looked into this. Apparently the story was she threw the ball, he hit the ball, and the ball hit her in the face. She started bleeding and crying.

He and this is me talking now, not the email. He freaked out because his dad was an abusive alcoholic and he was afraid his dad was gonna come home and see what he'd done, so he panicked back to the email. He ended up killing her to keep her quiet and stashing her body in the cavern beneath his water bed on the second floor of his house, and the eight days that follow, a massive community effort ensued to locate her, and Josh, her murderer, even participated in this,

handing out flyers. He slept in that bed for seven nights over her body. Police had even searched the home several times, and the odor in his room was attributed to many pet birds and cages he had and a typical fourteen year old boy funk. Uh not a bad band name either. She was discovered when they searched a terrible four general boyfunk. Typical fourteen year old boyfunk. Well, no, I just think boyfunk. Maybe none of that's good. I'd

take it all back. She was discovered when they searched the home again and noticed a stain on the ceiling on the floor below his room. Um, I thought it was a blood stain. But I looked it up. I think it was a leak from the waterbed and stained and that fortuitously led to finding her. He remains in prison, which has always been a big debate here when it comes up for parole um. Just reason happened, m I looked it up. I think this was in ninety eight

and he was fourteen. Wow. Wow, he's been in prison the whole time. Huh. Yeah, and it was. It's a very tough thing because you know, his father was an abuse of alcohol. Like he reacted because he was afraid that he was going to come home and find him out, and freaked out and hit this girl with a baseball bat, put her under the bed, and when he found that she was still making noise, this gets really bad. He

stabbed her like eleven times and killed her. So it is just a sad, sad, tragic case all the way around. That is from Mary. She said, I love the show and have my husband hooked now too. She said, the trauma then emotions of those eight days is something I will never ever forget. Yeah, very tough case. I don't know if thanks as appropriate, Mary, but I can't think of anything else to say. Yeah, I don't even know why I decided to read that. That was really sort

of caught me, caught my attention. Yeah, I can see how Chuck. Well, if you want to get in touch with us like Mary did, don't. If you want to anyway, you can send us an email to Stuff podcast did i heeart radio dot com. Stuff You Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M m hm hm