Coyotes in Metro

[Gilgamesh]

Are there a lot of coyotes in the metro or are they pretty rare? I was bowhunting today and saw 2 coyotes in the southeast metro. Before this I had never seen one in the metro area. Anyone else see any?

[Morneau132]

Ive seen a population within the city limits of lakeville

[croixflats]

With urban sprawl its becoming more comman to see coyotes. On the east side the poulation is growing. I here them yipping and howling often at night, man that is an eary sound when they do that.

[DonBo]

Oh yea, getting to be more and more all the time.

[muskyhunter57]

I am in Farmington and walk early AM and often stumble these guys working the neighborhood.

[blackdog1101]

I've seen them a couple times in Mound in the early AM.

[mnmuzzleloader]

we have start to see more fox around the farm so that would mean the yote's might be down a little bit. You still hear them, but we have donkey's at the farm so they don't come up the farm as much. But every once in a while a cat or two will disappear. A couple years back when they were alot more around the neighbor down the road lost a colt one year to some yotes.

[The Grebe]

Coyotes been around the metro for a long time....When I used to trap and thats been awhile back, I caught them all over the place, the farm fields of Brooklyn Park, Champlin, etc. to the adjoining areas out by the sand pits in Maple Grove and all the other western metro areas I used to trap....they were everywhere then and I believe even moreso now. A few of the other trappers that I knew back then caught just as many and more then I did, working like areas.

Years ago I seen one taking garbage out of a dumpster behind a sorority house over on the U of M campus. I parked and watched it. It got what it wanted, walked right by a bunch of people I'm sure that thought it was a dog, went out on the railroad tracks and away it went.....nobody except the yote and I being any the wiser!

Lately I have seen them up by Coon Rapids dam and out by the grass dump west of Osseo. In more wooded and wilder areas, especially adjacent to the rivers and railroad tracks, where they can find safe denning area, I'm sure there are alot of em, at least to the area carrying capacities.

[The Grebe]

You know, since we are on the subject of wild animals in the metro area, here's one for ya....I couldn't swear that it is true, but I have no reason at all to doubt what my great nephew told me about a month or so ago.

He lives out in Brooklyn Park, in an area adjacent to Palmer Lake Park.  He regularly see's deer, fox, coon and possum, sometimes right in his yard.

Well, as he told me, it was early in the a.m., he couldn't sleep, so he thought he would step outside and have a smoke.He said he seen a couple of deer standing over next to the park, under the street light. 

As he watched them, he said he heard like a chainlink fence rattle across the street.  He said he really didn't pay much attention to it, thinking it was probably a raccoon.

Next, he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and said there was something moving in the dark shadows across the street...right away he knew it wasn't a deer...but he didn't know what it was and the way it moved, he said it kinda gave him the willies and he moved closer to the door of his house.

As he stood there watching, he said a cougar came out from behind the house.  I quizzed him on it and asked him if maybe it was a bobcat, or even a lynx maybe, or a dog in a cougar costume, but he was adament that it was a cougar. 

He described what it looked like and how it crept across the ground toward the deer....the deer ran off, the cat stood up, took a look in my nephews direction and trotted off into the park. 

True?  I don't know?  Sounded true to me!  A week or so later, some horses were attacked by a cougar near Fergus Falls.  It doesn't seem so strange to me that a passing feline could, or would use the park while traveling through....alot better then ambling down University ave I would think.

I mean all kinds of wild life pass through the metro...even had a moose west of here a few year back.... a wolverine got killed by a truck on the freeway over in St. Paul a number of years ago.  Coyotes?  They are here to stay!  

[elkrivermn]

I do not live in the cities, even though we had lots of them in Sherburne county until the Cougars started showing up. Now we very seldom see the Coyotes anymore.That make me happy, a few years ago in Alberta a group of trout fisherman were atacked by a pack of Coyotes. ( Yikes )

[The Grebe]

We had a bunch of em approach us one night while we were ice fishing up in the Little falls area. Sounded like a bunch of lunatics on shore! I told my sons and my nephews, "Ahh it just sounds spooky, they won't bother anyone...watch, when I walk at em with the lantern, they'll take off!"

Well, it didn't quite happen that way! I walked at em and the more agitated they became and it frikken sounded like they were even movin closer! Descretion being the better part of valor, I says to myself, "Well alrighty then!" and I made my way back to the group.

"Well boys, the fish quit bitin anyways, what say we get outta here?" Man, it looked like someone threw a bag of flour into a fan! I mean, that snow was just a churnin and they were winding those lines up so fast they were buzzing...sounded like a swarm of bees! I mean it was like mach 5 speed!

Four seconds after "get outta here" left my mouth, the ice was clean and everyone was in the truck waiting to go! Of course I had beat em all by 2 seconds and I already had my stuff in the truck and the motor running! We booked off that lake, up the hill and down that snowy old logging road about 237 miles an hour!

We weren't spooked by the coyotes or anything like that, but we all had to get up for church the next morning and wanted to get to bed early!

[tanman]

a friend of mine had a cow die so he burried it in his pasture... the next morning the cow was dug up and parts were eaten so he covered it up again ... same thing happened the next night so he had some guys come out and call while sittin in a bail feeded... it was to dark to see be the time they were expecting to be done when they flipped there flashlights on they found to be surrounded by 15...15 coyotes one behind them charged them they shot that one and ran inside. that would be a rush

[DuckDog]

A coyote charged them? Hum' that would be rare.

[blk94fiveoh]

I have seen a couple in the metro area. The first one was near Harriet Island just south of downtown St. Paul. The second one was just south of Lake Vadnais in Vadnais Heights.

[fishermusk]

I picked up a road kill last year off of hwy 36 and 35W in roseville, it was one of my best skins. Coyotes are in the metro, and every suburb.

[McGurk]

I've seen plenty of wildlife in Bloomington, and this year I saw my 2nd coyote in city limits. The funny thing about this one, was that I saw it out of my living room window midday in the middle of rambler heaven at 94th St S between Nicollet and Portland Aves. I thought at first that it has to be a stray dog, but it was definitely a coyote from movement, size, and coat. It was walking down the middle of the street, from east to west, and I have no idea where it was headed to as there aren't any wooded parks real closeby.

We are close enough to the river bluffs that I am never suprised at seeing raccoons, possums, deer, different birds of prey, fox, turkeys, and now coyotes. I haven't seen a cougar yet, but have talked to plenty of eyewitness neighbors and the police dept about them, and they were around in city limits. Some still say that they see them, and I wouldn't disagree with them, but I have never seen one myself.

Frankly, with the amount of garbage and constantly-filled birdfeeders that attract prey (possums, raccoons, songbirds, turkeys, deer, etc.) I am not at all suprised that the predators would follow the abundant prey. Easy pickings, in my opinion.

[Gissert]

I see 'yote tracks up to the airport boundary fence all the time, and on occasions, on the inside of the fence as well.

[shirts]

To back The Grebe. I to live in Brooklyn Park. By Brookdale park. My neighbor has seen several bobcats over the years. I've seen the tracks. They walk on the rails of fences. Brookdale connects to the Palmer Lake slough through bike trails. I've seen a pair of coyotes by the Edinborough golf course and several by oakgrove park. A cougar you never know.

Have a great day

Shirts

[The Grebe]

I used to trap out there before that was a golf course. There used to be no development above 85th and that used to be my starting point for my long line...well, maybe no so long, about 70-80 miles round trip.

There used to be potato farms, pig farms, all kinds of wild area out there. People used to bowhunt on a regular basis, I took my first deer with a bow up there.

Trapped it for years and years and then when the development started it seemed to whisk everything away in what seemed like just a few months? I know it was longer then that but it seemed to be gone in a twinkling?

I have a picture in my album of a coyote in one trap and a red fox in the other about 8 feet away and in the background, you can see the new houses being built across what is now 610 heading toward Osseo. I caught a young of the year bobcat out toward Corcoran and let it go...Elwell Turkey Farms to be exact. Cougars being around don't surprise me.

Those were always travelways for wildlife and they still are where they can get through....all kinds of different wildlife. The Mississippi river and the parks give em a place to hide out on their way through to who knows where?

[Jakesbuds]

I've seen a few at my parents house in Dayton. When I lived there they would howl all night during full moons. I know for a fact there's babies too cause you can hear them yelping while the parents are wailing. Their howls sure carry for a ways.

[Here-Kitty-Kitty]

well when it comes to jordan I think I've pretty much cleared them out lol. I've got a pack left out at my buddies place in jordan, but I've been doing very well out there. Lakeville has been ok for me. I just need to spend a little more time out there. I was just reading the paper yesterday and the yotes were on the front page. They were talking about how the are everywhere. Even in the cities, like downtown st.paul and minneapolis.

[Here-Kitty-Kitty]

I was fishing out behind valley fair with a buddy. Well we were hiking back there when it happened. It was probably around 10am we were hiking the path back when we came up to a baby goose with its head chewed off. We ended up finding four of them like this about fifteen yards apart. We ended up finding the adult dead like that also. As we were walking up to the dead adult we found one baby still alive. I couldn't think of what would kill that way. My buddy picked up the baby and as he was doing so a yote came out of the tall grass from the side about 15ft from us. He charged up on us and at the last second about five feet from us jumped into the grass. The yote ended up walking about ten feet into the grass and followed us for about 20 yards and disappeared. That thing had to be rabid or something. I have never seen a yote act that way before. So I wouldn't doubt that those guys got charged by one. If one was brave enough to do that to us , I can only imagine what a full pack would do.

[icehousebob]

I live in Minnetonka with a pond in my back yard and trees and brush covering a bunch of the opposite hillside. We try to manage the area for wildlife;ducks, geese, deer, turkeys,etc. Coyote sightings have been getting more common and for the last week, there have been a pair, looking like they were going to set up housekeeping. They pulled a Romeo and Juliet this morning and both commited suicide. Is it worth my time to skin them? I have no idea whether the hides are worth anything. The fur looks really prime.

[The Grebe]

Skinning a coyote is no easy job! The older they are and the colder they get, the harder it becomes to remove the coat... it's like trying to skin out a recapped tire. If they are younger animals and if they are still kind of warm, it's not to bad.

They are also full of bugs, different kinds of parasites fleas mostly. You can put em in a plastic bag, spray some bug spray in there and seal it up. Leave em sit for awhile and it takes care of alot of em.

For 2 critters, I don't think it would do much for you financially. By the time you were done putting in the work of skinning them, disposal of carcasses, putting em up, or hauling them to a buyer green (You might even need a trapping lic. and/or a small game lic. to sell em?) you'd probably be better off financially saving aluminum cans!

There is another option....skin em out, have em tanned and present them to someone as a unique gift, a throw, or something for the wall. I've done this on a number of occassions in the past....even gave a big one I got to a fella for a wedding gift, he and his bride loved it and I heard about that pelt for years after!

[iceman1212]

I work in Chaska/victoria area and see one every once in a while, supposibly they are all over the grounds I work at, I remember last year a car hit a small deer on a road right by my work after the cop came he gave us the deer and we threw it behind a big pile of wood chips... lets just say there was a long blood trail back into the woods the next morning!