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Originally Posted by Ginger
They will definitely eat the cats if they can, but it's cat or dog food left outside or open garbage that might have attracted them in the first place (I'm not saying in your mom's place, just in areas of human habitat in general), or the smell of fast food deep fat fryers, or the dumpsters behind restaurants, etc.
If you google coyote and fast food restaurant, tons of stuff will come up. They've been videoed going into fast food restaurants and snatching food from tables without the patrons even noticing. The "wily" coyote nickname is apt.
My friend in L.A. lost her cat to a coyote. They come down from Griffith Park and the canyons around Santa Monica.
They're hungry and their habitat is shrinking. They eat, then go back to their pups and regurgitate the food for the litter to eat.
The animals that survive our destruction of the earth the longest will be the ones who can adapt to eating our garbage—or eating our pets.
House cats are the safest of course, but I think indoor/outdoor cats have more interesting lives. The best of both worlds, and the worst. And feral cats really have it hard, I guess.
Toddlers left alone in backyards are also not so safe from coyotes, though they aren't the most aggressive canines out there.
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When I lived in MN on five acres, I had a coyote problem. Saw two at the most but usually just one. There was a pond with ducks, geese, and various little offspring out in the front of the house. I also had dogs and no fenced yard.
Two experiences come to mind.
The first was in the middle of the night. I got up to let the dogs out and it was pitch dark aside from the light on the house. I let the dogs out and they stayed close to the deck and I could see them. All of a sudden, a coyote howled. It was extremely close and very loud. Scared the hell out of me because of course, I couldn't see if there was more than one. So I got the dogs in quickly.
Another time, I was out on the riding mower and as I came around the side of the house, it was creeping down to the pond. Well, I turned off the blades and hit the gas and took off after it and chased it to the back woods. Went about my business and came back around and it was there again! I went and got a shovel out of the shed, got back on my lawn mower and chased it again, screaming at it to get. The lawn mower was really old and really loud so I doubt it could hear me but still. So it went into the brush of the property line where I couldn't go and turned around and looked at me. We had a staring contest and then it took off.
A few days later, I was working in my office and heard the geese squawking. I jumped up and went to the front door and saw the coyote had something in its mouth. I took off out the door towards it and as I got closer, it dropped it and went off a little ways. I stopped, looked to see if the animal was alive and it wasn't. I thought it was a rabbit. So I left because it shouldn't die in vain. The coyote needed to eat. Later I learned it was one of the goslings. I was upset already but that just upset me even more as the parents came back every year to have their young.
I know that animals of prey need to eat other animals to survive and I'm sure she was feeding young, but that didn't need to happen to my wildlife! Anyway, I asked the landlord for a BB gun to scare it away with the noise and he gave me this rifle that shot pellets. I had no idea how to use it, never shot a gun before so watched YouTube and learned how to load it. Went out side to load it and shoot a can and as I was loading it, the coyote came out of the woods right by me. It saw me with the rifle and took off. I never saw it again. I would have never shot it but it must have thought I was going to.
They are definitely smart and cunning animals and how stupid was I to chase after the damn thing? lol. Oh well.