For more information:
Living With Wildlife - Eastern Coyotes in Massachussetts - from the Massachussetts Division of Wildlife & Fisheries - original file at http://www.mass.gov/dfwele/dfw/dfwpdf/dfw_living_with_coyotes.pdf
(To read the Adobe Acrobat files, you need the Adobe Acrobat reader, available free at www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html)

Don't be virtually sure a coyote ate your cat.

Most cats are not eaten by coyote. Coyote do not climb trees. Fishers, not in our area (Alewife), do climb trees as do Gray fox.

The Alewife coyote are vital predators, and keep the lower level nuisance mammal populations down. Bird eggs are more protected with coyote (unless fledglings on the ground, etc) without overpopulation of possums, raccoons, etc. Too many mice without red-tailed and coyote, and other higher mammals, bring ticks of the kind most dreaded, etc. etc.

Be careful looking for scapegoats. We humans are good at that.

Although coyote might enjoy our plump, slower moving house cat, if they are accustomed to protecting themselves in the wild, they will avoid a coyote attack by going up a tree. Folks need to start documenting WHERE they see one and when. We have a very rich urban wild at Alewife because we have so many, and they use the woodchuck's holes, as well as the woodchuck's use theirs after one of the species leaves.

A treasure of bird and mammal life, and now our trails are accessible and easily found with our maps in the book, Biodiversity of the Alewife Reservation area - Species, Habitat and Ecosystems, published by Friends of Alewife Reservation.

Ellen Mass

added to website June 28, 2004