It appears that coyotes are getting more and more comfortable around people, apparently having attacked some more kids in California.
Coyotes are starting to turn into a problem out here in Indiana as well; in an odd coincidence I saw one loping through the woods behind my house just this morning. There are running trails in those woods, and a lot of kids play back there as well. The comfortable nature of coyotes with people is one of the reasons that I carry when I go for walks with Mrs. Ahab – while I’m concerned about 2 legged predators, the reality of the thing is that I’m much more likely to confront a dangerous animal than I am a dangerous person.
I do agree with Uncle though; a 40 grain .22 in the head of a coyote is a lot less likely to upset the neighbors than a .204 Ruger or a .223 Remington R-15 VTR. If you’re really cool, you could use a suppressed 9mm AR at short ranges to do the same job.
One of the biggest reasons I started carrying was big dogs. I’ve seen enough pit bulls, rottweilers, and dobermans around in nice neighborhoods that I figured if I ever did have to use my gun in self defense, it would probably be against one of those and not a person. Coyotes aren’t much danger to adults (unless they’re rabid), but little kids are another story.
We had 3 coyote attacks on young children in 5 days here in SoCal. There are a couple of things that are making these coyotes brave. In big cities, like most of them in SoCal, we can’t shoot or hunt coyotes so they’ve lost their fear of man. This is also the time of year when the coyotes are rearing pups. As the pups begin to eat meat the parents are forced to go after animals, and people, they wouldn’t normally consider game in order to provide for their pups.
If you’ve got small dogs, pets and even small children you need to keep your eyes on them this time of the year.