In a milestone for Manhattan, a pair of coyotes has made Central Park their home
85 comments
·July 1, 2025thePhytochemist
mikestew
I take care of an outdoor cat in the neighborhood, and yes it's possible that a coyote will eat a cat or small dog.
I live near a trail which also serves as a wildlife corridor, including coyotes that we regularly see on our dog walks. Years ago, we had a feral cat that we would feed and care for (including neutering). He remained outside because he refused to even be brought inside, let alone live with us. This guy was huge, and looked like he had won his share of fights with the scars to prove it. If a cat would survive in the wild, it would be this guy. But even he wasn’t tough enough to hold off (what I assume were) coyotes forever, and one day he just quit coming around.
After that I’ve noticed that we just don’t have outdoor cats in our neighborhood.
(And for context, we aren't out in the boonies; this is within the city limits of Redmond, WA, where the local elementary gets locked down about once a year because mama bear and her cubs showed up off that same trail.)
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jhide
On the topic of rat control, your comment interleaves two diametrically opposed approaches in the biological solutions space. Providing calorie input to a feral (invasive, nonnative) cat as opposed to merely recognizing the beauty and effectiveness of a species which is native to this continent (although maybe not Vancouver before 1900, TIL). I have an indoor cat so I understand the caretaking instinct. But the consequences for our urban ecosystems of artificially supporting feral cats are severe. They rarely kill rats, especially not when they have easier options like our birds and native small mammals. And with the surplus calorie supply that so many concerned city dwellers give them, they often fall back to their kill and play instincts instead of actually hunting for food, which leads to even less of the desperate “I shall attack a 12 ounce demon with buck teeth” behavior that we fantasize about.
I live in Chicago and had a coyote briefly staying under my deck last autumn when the juveniles leave their dens. They regularly prowl through my neighborhood, traveling north and south on the commuter rail line tracks and ducking off into parks and backyards for hunting. Such a magnificent creature to see up close. That experience motivated me to kill the ornamental boxwood that was in my backyard and start planting native plants which can support native birds, pollinators and small mammals and in turn provide a food supply all the way up the food chain to that coyote. I wish more people in my city spent their money and time on that food chain instead of one that begins and ends at PetSmart.
ilamont
In our neighborhood near Boston, coyotes have become very active at night and trot in the middle of roads and between houses. Several times in the morning I have found absolutely shredded carcasses of squirrels and rabbits on our property in locations which are not likely to be attributed to other predators such as owls.
We have also noticed fewer raccoons on our security camera, which we used to see several times per week at night around our fishpond (see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33952437) but now only once or twice per month.
Neighbors have also reported missing outdoor cats, which I believe are probably coyote kills (we live on a small peninsula ~1 km^2 so cats are unlikely to wander far from home). About 10 years ago, a nearby relative found the carcass of a cat on his front lawn, which he believes was a coyote. All that was left was the skin/fur and the intestines.
southernplaces7
>I love to hang out with them in the park and garden,
It's good fun to watch and listen to the coyotes until one of them steals a beloved pet away right before your eyes. My family has lost a total of three cats to these things and I know people who've lost smaller dogs. Cases of them attacking kids aren't unheard of either, and the risk isn't something to laugh at when it comes to unsupervised small kids.
As far as i'm concerned, when coyotes reach the population levels that it's easy to see in metro Vancouver, it's a good time to start a culling campaign. This is not an endangered animal.
soulofmischief
Were they indoor cats?
southernplaces7
one was, but liked to sit in the front patio, where the coyote literally grabbed it right in front of my mother, just a foot from the door. The other two were younger and outdoor cats. The dogs I know of having been killed were no more outdoor dogs than any dog is while being walked, sometimes briefly off-leash, in a park or wood, by its owner.
Implying blame on the owners of these pets for a plague of predators way outside the scope of any natural population they would have in an area is also just off the rocker. We live in a modified environment largely of our creation, where many wild animal populations have long since slid from whatever would have in some distant past been natural. Culling coyotes in urban areas, where they can be a real danger to both pets and kids, is not some sort of grotesque ecological sin.
thaumasiotes
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/05/opinion/in-zimbabwe-we-do...
People love to celebrate when the population of large predators near other people increases.
jhide
Coyotes do not deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as a lion. And people should celebrate anytime a native predator is able to carve out a niche in an urban environment as long as it doesn’t involve murdering children. Which coyotes don’t do. They eat small mammals and also sometimes invasive feral cats.
qoez
This being a positive thing in the sense of managing the rodent population feels like in the simpsons when they introduce snakes to eat lizards and then gorillas to take care of the snake overpopulation.
thePhytochemist
There have been some hilarious and unfortunate disasters using introduced populations for pest control. But coyotes are not introduced. They are native to the area which means there are many checks and balances in place.
Rat control is not just a nice bonus option to reduce an irritation - we need to take it seriously in light of the Black Death. The fact of the matter is I see people having trouble with rat control in my area and we could use help to manage something that is potentially a lot more dangerous than coyotes.
dylan604
How effective will a pair of coyotes hanging out in Central Park be for rodent control in the city? It's the rats running in the drains, streets, buildings that are the problem. Rats living in the park are not what the people living in the city care about
tastyfreeze
Give it time. Predators breed until prey numbers are diminished enough that they start starving.
rufus_foreman
Coyotes are not native to the eastern US. The eastern US was mostly forest and coyotes don't typically hunt in forested areas. Coyotes only spread to the eastern US after 1900.
Also, eastern coyotes typically also have wolf and dog DNA. Coyotes, wolves, and dogs can and do interbreed. This has resulted in some places in the eastern US in a subspecies that isn't afraid of humans due to the dog DNA, that can hunt in open areas due to the coyote DNA, and can also hunt in forested areas due to the wolf DNA.
metabagel
Like the introduction of mongooses on some Hawaiian islands to control rats. The mongooses then became a pest.
exegete
In this case humans didn’t introduce the coyotes. We’ve diminished the populations of most predators like coyotes such that other animals’ populations grow out of control without human intervention. So in this case humans intervened by displacing coyotes previously not by introducing them now.
fluorinerocket
But the gorillas freeze in the winter. That's the beauty of it
delichon
> Coyotes can also help manage the city’s rodent problem and keep other wildlife populations, like Canada geese and raccoons, in check.
Not just wildlife. A pack tracked my wily cat for months. I saw a couple of close calls. They learned that the cat liked to leave the house for a stroll a little before dawn. One morning they waited for him and took him right outside the cat door. It was pretty amazing that he lived nine years as thick as coyotes are around here. I can't bear to keep a cat locked in the house, so haven't had the nerve to get another since then.
I previously lost a cat to a pack of raccoons. But my cats collectively are way ahead of the game in terms of animal biomass harvested.
noelwelsh
Our cats go into cat jail in the evening, and don't get released until we wake up. Keeping them inside during the night means fewer fights, less risk from cars, and reduced chance of encounters with wildlife.
hungmung
Coyotes are small but dangerous. I wouldn't even let a 100lb dog outside off-leash if I've seen coyotes in the area, they just go right for the belly and rip out the innards.
rasz
How many birds did the free roaming house cat kill over the years?
adzm
I train my cats to not predate birds.
dang
I do understand the strong feelings around this but let's not go into that flamewar please.
(Cat and dog flamewars are surprisingly vicious, as are bike vs. car flamewars.)
rescripting
Probably best to keep your cats inside even if you do get another one, considering the devastating effect they have as an invasive species on local wildlife. [1]
Tade0
You can always walk your cat on a leash. It's a unique experience and very different from walking a dog.
My SO would occasionally unleash our cat and run alongside it.
southernplaces7
This gets trotted right out every time someone mentions their cat being let outside, as if it were some sort of awful sin and thus makes the cat's owner totally wrong in any worry or complaint they have about their cat's safety outdoors. It's ridiculous, particularly when there's a very easy solution to cats hunting local birds: a collar with a little bell. It's nearly guaranteed to ruin their hunting.
That aside, you yourself, as a human, are an invasive species that kills tons of animals indirectly through your habits each year, should you thus be enclosed 24 hours a day? Cats killing off random birds. The ship of human intervention in the ecosystem has long since sailed, and blaming cat owners for a relatively tiny part of it is an absurdity in badly applied blame.
jhide
While the misanthropy is compelling, and bell collars slightly reduce hunting success for (invasive, feral) cats, literally nothing else in your comment correct.
Concern for native birds and small mammals which are a keystone part of our ecosystems is not futile. They support literally everything required for human survival (carbon cycle, water, cycle, nitrogen cycle, pollination, sea dispersal, pollution control, etc) directly, and indirectly by their behaviors which have coevolved for millions of years. Invasive, feral cats, just like humans have only been here for a very short window of time, and while there are still native birds and mammals and plants left to care for, we can and should support them by minimizing the wonton carnage and death which we unleash each year. You’re probably aware that in North America alone feral cats kill between 10 and 30 billion native birds and small mammals a year. Euthanasia instead of trap neuter release is not a sailed ship. Planting native (human intervention) and undoing the lawns (human intervention) that have destroyed our native ecosystems is not a sailed ship. There is hope and it is exciting to work towards this in your own community and I hope you come to see that. The results (insects return, the soil enriches and traps carbon, and birds you've never seen before sing on your back porch in the morning) are nearly immediate and heartwarming
Edit: typo
eszed
> a collar with a little bell. It's nearly guaranteed to ruin their hunting.
Unfortunately, that's not true. There was a study by some academics in Britain a few years° ago that showed effectively no difference in hunting success rates between belled and un-belled cats. The explanation is that cats are ambush predators, so once they (very quickly) learn how to stalk (they're moving slowly, anyway) without ringing the bell, their quarry doesn't hear the bell until they pounce, when it's (mostly) too late.
They were specifically looking at songbirds, as I recall. Maybe success rates for rodents are different - though that'd hardly be a good thing, because we generally want cats to kill mice and rats!
---
[On reflection]: Based on where I remember I was living when I read it, this was over a decade ago. (Where does time go?) There may have been updates since.
dmonitor
You're allowed to let your cat outside and kill nature, but you aren't allowed to be mad when nature fights back. The double standard with which people treat feral dogs/cats (treating kill shelters for overpopulation as an awful sin) versus how they treat snakes and alligators (go into the woods and kill them on sight just for existing) makes me nauseous.
chomp
Bad take. Letting your cat experience nature means you need to be ok with nature experiencing your cat.
trhway
>Probably best to keep your cats inside even if you do get another one, considering the devastating effect they have as an invasive species on local wildlife. [1]
>[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380
You're posting an article by the Smithsonian department employing that felon convicted for animal cruelty toward cats.
Wrt. the article itself - it has pretty much no scientific merits as, not surprisingly given the authors' agenda, the article has an obvious fundamental flaw disqualifying it from science - it doesn't specify how many of that wildlife killed by cats were old/ill who would be anyway killed by other predators if it were a natural setting and not a developed area where the only predators left are cats.
If we to believe the article's total numbers then it would really mean what the cats are just doing the job of other predators pushed out by humans. Killing the old/ill birds, reptiles, mammals by predators is good for those birds, reptiles, mammals species. (and around humans say an old/ill bird not killed by cats would become a dead bird and a food for rats or something like this)
bpodgursky
If your cat actually eats what they kill (ours did) it's not nicer for the environment to turn forest into farmland to grow corn to feed chickens to turn into cat food. You're just pushing the environmental impact somewhere you can't see it.
tristan957
From the abstract of the article:
> We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually.
I don't understand how to marry the point you're trying to make to this. Cats are an invasive species to most small animals, and should be kept from accessing them.
In addition to the havoc they wreak on local small animal populations, outdoor cats live shorter lives than their indoor counterparts.
https://www.vetinfo.com/indoor-outdoor-cat-life-expectancy.h...
sdwr
Coyotes are adorable!
srean
Given all the news about elevated levels of human Coyote interactions over the last 10 ~ 15 years, I wonder whether we are witnessing the beginnings of another domestication/speciation event -- new "dogs".
I just wish this does not turn adversarial.
gotoeleven
That we should be overprotective of dangerous animals--in this case celebrating that they are living in the middle of a very dense city--is a luxury belief. It makes dumb rich people feel good and the costs are borne by others. For another example see the reintroduction of wolves in Colorado.
doug-moen
If the coyotes breed, then attacks on humans will begin as the coyotes will instinctively defend their cubs from humans who get too close to the den, even unwittingly. It would be better to remove the coyotes before this happens.
cowmoo728
I've seen this exact pair of coyotes three times now. I have a few blurry photos of them. They're about the size of my dog, who is roughly 60 pounds, so they are sizable and could hunt a small dog or child. However, they're very cautious around people still, and appear well fed. The wildlife in central park is highly adapted to the presence of people and stays away, except to dig through the park trash.
VTimofeenko
IME(living in almost rural area, coyotes live in/near stormwater ponds and are abundant) they will follow you if you get too close to the den to try to drive you away, but won't engage.
Coyote pups are adorable though. A couple of them made a lair in a drain about a month ago but have relocated since. Still see one of them around the neighborhood with his distinctive tail.
IG_Semmelweiss
If you have plentiful prey (rats outnumber humans in NYC) , this is not likely to happen
lawlessone
As the other post mentioned they can be aggressive to protect cubs then it is not about hunger..
steveBK123
Probably biggest human coyote interaction risks in Central Park will be the bikers and dog walkers.
bell-cot
Coyotes have been breeding near human settlements, at scale, for thousands of years. Attacks happen, but are very rare.
I'd speculate that there has been considerable selective pressure against the "not highly avoidant of attacking humans" trait in coyotes.
kjkjadksj
Coyotes are all over socal and they really don’t go for people at all. Small dogs maybe.
otoburb
>>Small dogs maybe.
A judge in Brooklyn recently ruled[1] that dogs are (now) classified as "immediate family members". I wonder if the this might push the Central Park Conservancy to step up considerations for eradication of the coyotes to avoid potential emotional damages in light of the ruling if such a situation were to occur.
[1] https://www.nonhumanrights.org/blog/dogs-family-members/
metabagel
Small pets and small children are at risk.
throw0101d
> Coyotes are all over socal and they really don’t go for people at all.
From four days ago:
* https://globalnews.ca/news/11267424/nobelton-coyote-attack/
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
mikestew
No one is saying that it doesn’t happen. One-off stories don’t prove anything one way or the other.
giantg2
Generally true but there are exceptions.
slwvx
Humans are a bigger risk to coyotes than coyotes to humans.
> It would be better to remove the coyotes before this happens.
following this logic, we should just kill all coyotes. We did this to lotsa other species, I hope we've stopped that.
triceratops
> we should just kill all coyotes
At least relocate them out of cities. Why would you ever want a predator that large living inside a city?
Let a dog, a domesticated animal that we trust to live in our homes with our children and babies, off-leash in a city and people lose their minds. But coyotes move in and everyone's chill? Wtf
rufus_foreman
Where I live you can shoot coyotes in any season with a hunting permit. That's chill? OK then, let's be chill about off-leash dogs and apply the same rules to them.
southernplaces7
Coyotes are already slaughtering pets in places where their population reaches saturation levels thanks to access to so much easy food. It's not a hypothetical, it's something that actively happens and in such places, attacks on little kids are not a miniscule risk.
No, you don't have to kill all coyotes to control a specific population of them in a particular place in way that actually re-balances a completely unnatural saturation in their numbers.
There's nothing grotesque about recognizing the reality of these being urban spaces in which it might just not be a good idea to have many thousands more 40-kilo predators wandering around than would ever be natural even if the area were totally uninhabited by humans.
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bpodgursky
In cities where parks are the few places kids can play outdoors yes that is a reasonable idea.
fmbb
Coyotes are tiny critters. Surely they don’t attack humans?
throw0101d
> Coyotes are tiny critters. Surely they don’t attack humans?
Perhaps adult humans are less likely, but child humans the risk could be higher as a coyote may think they can 'take' them; from a few days ago:
* https://globalnews.ca/news/11267424/nobelton-coyote-attack/
triceratops
They're the size of a medium size dog, only not friendly. If we don't accept off-leash dogs in public I don't understand why coyotes are tolerated in human cities.
amanaplanacanal
They are tolerated because there is no human you can yell at to keep them on a leash.
vunderba
The ones I've come across in the southwest portion of the U.S. are pretty small, and from Wikipedia: "The average male weighs 8 to 20 kg (18 to 44 lb) and the average female 7 to 18 kg (15 to 40 lb).".
My Pyrenees/husky mix absolutely dwarfs them and they give her a WIDE berth the few times I've seen them while hiking.
billfor
On the east coast the coyotes interbreed with wolves and form coywolves which are really huge and can be nasty. Look at the picture on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_coyote. It's only a matter of time before something bad happens to a small child. They've already killed a lot of small dogs.
pfdietz
They're expanding/evolving into the niche that wolves occupied. The superabundance of deer is facilitating that.
pinkmuffinere
They do on occasion, and there have even been a couple of deaths. But to your point, the rate is very very low.
GauntletWizard
Dingoes are a good percentage smaller than Coyotes on average and maximum (Dingoes 22 – 33 lbs, Coyotes 20 – 46 lbs). Dingoes are small, to the point where "Dingoes ate my baby" was a common and sarcastic joke after a reported attack - And yet that attack was extensively proven[1].
Yes, a small group of Coyotes could easily corner or snatch a small child and pose a danger to such. Is it likely? No. Is it reasonable to relocate the coyotes? Absolutely. It might also be reasonable to manage and not relocate the coyotes.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_Chamberlain-Creighton#Ev...
southernplaces7
At least when it comes to coyotes on the Pacific Northwest, they're not tiny at all. I've seen specimens that easily had the size of a largish German shepherd, many times. 30 to 40 kilos isn't rare, and that's not a tiny critter at all. It's definitely a threat to a kid or nearly any dog and could give even an adult male human a run for their money if the coyote actually got aggressive enough to lunge (that at least isn't likely, since they're fantastically cowardly when confronted by any aggression from adult humans, at least in my experience)
kibwen
It sounds like you're on the west coast, where coyotes are tiny. East coast coyotes are much larger, on the order of a good-sized dog.
That said, I welcome coyotes in urban spaces, and have admired from afar the few bold urban coyotes I've come across. Humans need reminders that they're a part of nature and not apart from nature, especially in the city. In terms of actual danger, coyotes kill approximately infinity times fewer people than cars do, so let's focus infinity times more energy on solving that problem first.
throwaway984393
[dead]
Thanks for posting this, such a nice story and writeup!
Where I live in Vancouver the coyotes have been very noticeable this year. I love to hang out with them in the park and garden, and hear them howl with the cop cars at night. They are not pets though - I always keep my distance and keep aware of the possibility that they might sneak up on me.
I take care of an outdoor cat in the neighborhood, and yes it's possible that a coyote will eat a cat or small dog. I worry about her but there are many fences, she is smart as well as a good climber. There are many hazards in the city that don't have the positive sides that coyotes do, and I think it's important that we learn to live with them and honour what they bring to our lives. That includes rat control, which we rather need here.