Cool critters: A trickster comes to town, equal parts savvy and cautious

Our new city slickers have yellow eyes, long furry snouts and pointy ears that stand up. And boy, are they clever.

Coyotes. A growing number of these wild creatures have been slinking into cities and suburbs in recent years, including Spokane, Cheney and the Tri-Cities – and even densely populated areas like Seattle and San Francisco.

If you’ve never seen one in a residential area, this doesn’t mean they’re not around. Coyotes are able to move across roads, lawns, parks and golf courses like wisps of smoke, calmly avoiding traffic, people and barking dogs.

“Coyotes are more frequently heard than seen,” according to the National Park Service.

What’s the appeal of our urban digs? Research shows coyotes are drawn here by a lack of natural predators and plenty of food sources, including rodents and rabbits, human garbage and pet food left outside.

In Washington state, “these intelligent and adaptable animals now manage to occupy almost every conceivable habitat type,” the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife states on its website, ranging from urban areas and forests to arid grasslands covered with sagebrush.

Coyotes sometimes attack small, unattended pets as prey. Despite a recent rash of coyotes biting people on the West Side, attacks on people are extremely rare, according to coyote experts. In fact, there’s only one documented case of a coyote killing a person in the United States, compared to 30-50 fatalities from dog attacks each year, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

People sometimes confuse coyotes for wolves, but they are smaller and sleeker than their wolf cousin. They also have a narrower snout, more pointed ears and a long bushy tail that droops.

In Native American folklore, the coyote is known as the Trickster – smart, evasive and clever enough to survive anywhere. And guess what? The same can be said of the real-life coyote.

Found in every state except Hawaii, they have learned to survive in almost every kind of environment and climate, according to the National Wildlife Federation. Moreover, coyotes have become “a fact of life in American cities” over the past few decades, expanding their range to include densely populated areas such as Chicago, Detroit and Washington, D.C., the agency states. They even inhabit Key Largo in the Florida Keys.

Despite being harassed and hunted for hundreds of years, the coyote continues to thrive, said Stan Gehrt, director of Ohio State University’s Urban Coyote Research Project and author of the book “Coyotes Among Us.” (By contrast, the wolf is listed as endangered in 44 states after being nearly wiped out a century ago.)

“This is the one animal that has been able to expand its range and increase its numbers despite a tremendous amount of persecution by humans,” said Gehrt, adding that an estimated 4,000 coyotes live in Chicago, the third-largest city in the U.S.

Not only are coyotes “extremely smart” and adaptable, they’re also adept at assessing risks, according to University of Washington wildlife ecologist Laura Prugh. Prugh led a five-year study of coyotes in northern Washington state that was published in the journal Science in 2023.

“They have a unique combination of intense wariness and curiosity that seems contradictory but somehow works for them,” she said.

At times, trying to survey their populations was akin to researching a ghost species, Prugh said. Coyotes rarely allow themselves to be seen, much less be captured in box traps.

“To a coyote, the slightest hint of human activity is like putting a blinking neon sign up that says, ‘TRAP RIGHT HERE!’ They rarely enter box traps,” she said.

In tracking the coyotes’ movements, Prugh discovered just how crafty they are. Following their footprints in the snow, she learned to stop and closely investigate whenever their tracks would suddenly change direction.

“In the snow, they will bury food nuggets and then smooth over their tracks with their muzzle while walking backward in their exact tracks,” Prugh said.

“Then they’ll go forward again in a new direction so their detour to bury food will be hard to detect by any animal that trailed them.”

What to do if a coyote comes calling in the city? Observe it from a distance and do not feed it, the WDFW advises. If one approaches you, “never run away,” the agency urges on its website. Instead, make loud noises and wave your arms to make yourself look bigger. Additionally, coyotes are most active at night, so bring small pets and pet kibble indoors.

The coyote hasn’t just survived great odds, it has flourished to the point where we humans are figuring out how to co-exist with them.

Which means the Trickster scores another win.