Marietta Provides Information for Residents Regarding Coyotes

Due to development around metro Atlanta that shifts coyotes out of their natural habitat, Marietta residents have reported more sightings of coyotes in the city limits. Below residents will find helpful tips if they come across a coyote.

Prevention is the best defense against coyotes. If a coyote is suspected in an area where domestic animals are roaming free, several precautions can be made to ensure their safety:

• Take pets indoors during the night, as this is the coyote's primary hunting time.
• If the pet must be kept outside, put up fencing to discourage coyotes.
• Small livestock or poultry should be kept in an enclosed or sheltered area.

Most conflicts between humans and coyotes are easily avoided by following these simple suggestions, most of which will help to prevent conflicts with other wild species, as well:

• Keep bowls of pet food or water inside overnight.
• Keep garbage in a sturdy container with a tight-fitting lid.
• Place garbage cans out at the curb the morning of your scheduled pickup day.
• Compost in enclosed bins instead of exposed piles.
• Clean up around bird feeders.
• Keep all pets inside at night and watch small dogs while outside, even during daylight hours.
• Keep cats indoors.
• Spay or neuter your dogs.
• Ensure fences are more than six feet high with no gaps at ground level-coyotes are good diggers.

While there aren't any repellants registered for use on coyotes, aversion agents used for dogs and cats have been used with some success.

While at first glance removal seems to be a quick and easy solution, this approach is likely to have the opposite effect. Coyotes seemed to have developed a unique survival strategy. When individual coyotes are removed from a population, there is some evidence that next year's litter will be larger than normal, so over time there might be more coyotes than before. 

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