It was an eerie sound. My husband heard it through our closed den window. "That's not a dog," he said. I went to the door and opened it in time to hear a small bit. It was a coyote, howling at that night's full moon.
A coyote? In a western suburb of New York City? We figured it was singing in the vicinity of our town's community garden and woods beyond the backyards of the homes across our street.
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| "Coyote (Canis latrans)" by Joshua Tree National Park is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0. |
(Well, maybe it's not so unusual considering coyotes have frequently been seen in the heart of New York City's Central Park and a pair have lived there for years.)
I have seen and heard some interesting things in my suburban town over the years, especially during the years when I'd be walking the streets at 5 a.m. to make a very early train. I've seen and heard owls - screech, great horned, barred, perhaps even a barn owl. I've seen foxes sitting in the middle of an intersection as I approached or trotting down the street.
I've seen raccoons the size of small dogs crossing what would otherwise be a busy street, heading from one backyard to another. I've also seen raccoons popping out of the sewer at the end of my property.
I've sidestepped skunks, including two baby skunks I barely saw. I've had to stop as a herd of 12 deer galloped across the road ahead of me.
And there was the bear I saw after it damaged the house feeder - and ripped off the pole arm - on a sunny late afternoon in October when there were plenty of people outside their homes. And there was the bear that damaged another feeder and the one that damaged my pear tree.
But a coyote howling at the moon? This was a first.
Like a lot of animals, coyotes, members of the dog family like your pet Bowser, have always been around in New Jersey and other eastern states, where some called them "brush wolves." Unlike wolves, coyotes don't hunt in packs. According to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, a coyote's diet "consists primarily of mammals, such as deer and rabbits, but may also include frogs, fish, and other prey, as well as fruits, grass, insects, and carrion."
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| "fox" by digitalprimate is licensed under CC BY 2.0. |
"Mammals" such as pet cats and dogs are also eaten, which is why some towns go berserk when a coyote is spotted. Usually they won't attack - the one time I saw one it quickly skittered away. But some will.
As for "carrion," I suspect overflowing garbage cans would attract a coyote the way they do skunks, raccoons, bears and crows, among others.
According to a group called Project Coyote, the United States Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services accounts for over 64,000 of the hundreds of thousands of coyotes killed each year through hunting bounties, poisoning and hunting, among other ways of death. Despite that, coyotes are not an endangered species. They’re classified as least concern with increasing populations.
If you provide coyotes with an increase in suburban garbage and deer, you'll see more coyotes. It's a wonder I've never heard one here in the neighborhood before.
I've seen a lot of changes in my suburb. When we moved in over 30 years ago you could often see rabbits and red squirrels. I once inadvertently uncovered, then quickly re-covered, a nest of baby bunnies under one of my shrubs. Rabbits used to eat my plants and occasionally would get behind the deer netting. Now I see rabbits only in wide-open areas, such as the Central Park of Morris County. I see more foxes there, too, as well as on my street and sometimes crossing my yard.
The red squirrels I would see were on one street where there was a large white pine. Between the larger and more numerous gray squirrels and the homeowner cutting down the pine the red squirrels disappeared. But they can easily be found in dense pine forests.
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| Another animal seen more often in the NJ suburbs, including my backyard. (RE Berg-Andersson) |
My point is the area has changed. More houses, less open land and trees. No hunting except at specified times and locations. The growth of suburbia has promoted the increase in deer and other animals as well as in the predators that eat them. The growth of suburban man-made garbage promotes an increase in animals, like bear, that have found rifling through a garbage can is an easy meal. So there are more human encounters with wild animals.
As encounters go I'd rather hear a coyote singing to the moon.
