Predators Vs. Pets

By Rinker Buck, The Hartford Courant, Conn.

Aug. 7–A month ago, when Bianca LaPorta’s silver-gray cat, Timmi, went missing, LaPorta blamed it on the full moon.

In a rural neighborhood where encounters between pets and an expanding wild predator population — bobcats, coyotes and foxes — are becoming commonplace, people are increasingly attuned to the cycles of nature.

“It is certainly conceivable that Timmi was hit by a car, but I walked up and down the road for days and searched all of the places she likes to roam,” LaPorta said. “So I have to think that she was eaten by a bobcat or coyote. The night she disappeared, there was a full moon. It’s much lighter out on nights like that, predators can spot a cat much more easily, and we’re all used to the increase in animal activity on bright nights.”

Although wildlife biologists generally dismiss the notion that an exploding predator base is feeding heavily on house pets, it’s hard to convince LaPorta and her neighbors that their cats and dogs are safe outdoors. Within 10 days of the LaPortas losing their cat, four other cats within a 1-mile radius also disappeared. (The town librarian found one decapitated on her lawn.) A Cornwall neighbor, Bill Gold, has watched a bobcat confront his cat in his front yard and, in January, a 19-year-old college student was bitten by a fox while hiking on a mountain trail above the village. During the spring calving and lambing season, local dairies and sheep farms have often lost newborns to coyote packs.

“The coyote population is now so large you can see them walking right through Simsbury,” says Dr. Eva Ceranowicz, a Bloomfield veterinarian who is president of the Connecticut Veterinary Medical Association. Ceranowicz says she has treated cats that were attacked by foxes, and that last February two coyotes who attacked one of her dogs in her backyard ran away only after she started screaming at them. Her dog suffered puncture wounds and was treated with a rabies booster shot.

Among her pet-owning clients, Ceranowicz says, conversations about conflicts with wildlife are now routine and, she says, “veterinarians talk about this all the time.”

“The most common thing I hear from clients is that their cats disappeared and that they believe a coyote or fox got it,” Ceranowicz says. “I have been practicing for 17 years and, at first, when you heard someone way out in Litchfield County say that a coyote attacked their sheep, it sounded rare. But attacks by wildlife on domestic animals is not at all rare now.”

Coyotes, Foxes, Fishers

Experts insist that fears of coyotes and foxes attacking pets are exaggerated, but there’s no question that the wild predator population has increased. As farming is abandoned, reforestation of vast areas of the New England countryside has created a favorable habitat for hunting species. And animals like foxes and coyotes are increasingly comfortable around man and have come to rely on the garbage cans and bird feeders of suburban subdivisions as steadily replenished sources of food.

Paul Rego, wildlife biologist for the state Department of Environmental Protection, says that, at best, wildlife counts are “extrapolated guesstimates.” But he has concluded that since coyotes colonized in Connecticut in the 1950s, their population in the state has grown to about 4,000.

The elusive fisher, a member of the weasel and mink family, is also known to occasionally kill domestic cats, and this summer there have been several incidents in western Rhode Island in which fishers reportedly attacked dogs. Fishers are particularly active in eastern Connecticut and began wandering down from Massachusetts in the 1980s. Rego says that there are probably 1,500 fishers in the state today.

Accurate estimates of the fox population are hard to obtain, Rego says, but there is some evidence that the expanding coyote population has pushed foxes into more residential areas, where they were already comfortable.

“Red foxes have always done well around people — that goes all the way back to Aesop’s Fables,” Rego says. “Red foxes have never liked deep woods, and prefer open, cut meadows. That means man-made environments and residential areas, and this species is habituated very well to humans.”

Indeed, the very design of the typical American property today — meticulously mowed open spaces adjacent to the protective cover of woods — creates an ideal “edge terrain” where coyotes and foxes can comfortably hide, hunt and raise their young.

A Bum Rap?

State DEP wildlife biologist Chris Vann has maintained for several years an informal log of phone calls to the DEP’s complaint line. In 2005, Vann says, the majority of calls to the state complaint line were reports of “first sightings” of coyotes in neighborhoods where they hadn’t been seen before. Vann has not tabulated statistics for more recent years, but between October 2004 and September 2005, he received 32 calls reporting attacks or attempted attacks on dogs by coyotes. During the same period, Vann says, he received 12 reports of cats being attacked by coyotes, and he assumes that there are many more instances that go unreported.

“A lot of times, if a fox or coyote has been seen in a neighborhood, they will automatically be blamed if a cat is missing, even though it’s more likely the pet was hit by a car,” Vann says. “But the number of incidents of coyotes attacking dogs is clearly on the increase, and there’s a lot more happening than gets recorded.”

Vann’s call logs throw doubt on another popular conception: that wildlife-human conflicts are the result of new subdivisions and country estates invading natural space already occupied by wildlife.

“A lot of the complaints we receive are from established neighborhoods where people have been living for decades,” Vann says. “Now those areas are suddenly having coyote problems. This tells me that the wild population is increasing, and these animals don’t hesitate now to take advantage of quiet neighborhoods to raise their young. These are very adaptable species increasingly comfortable with man.”

Vann has also seen an increase in what he labels “denning calls,” in which homeowners report that foxes are making their dens and raising their young underneath porches or in backyards.

Here again, man has become an ideal habitat creator for wild animals. One particular suburban craze — outfitting backyards with gazebos, metal equipment sheds and large screen tents — virtually invites foxes in to den. Other popular denning spots for foxes, Vann says, include public parks and golf courses, and both Hartford and West Hartford have seen large increases in fox populations in recent years. Along the Connecticut coast, in towns like Old Saybrook and Guilford, foxes routinely den underneath the porches and outbuildings of beach houses, conveniently unoccupied during the spring birthing season.

But the perception of coyotes and foxes being a threat to domestic pets may be larger than reality. Jason Hawley, a wildlife specialist based at the Sessions Woods Wildlife Management Area in Burlington, examined the stomach contents of 144 coyotes between 1993 and 2006 while performing necropsies on roadkill or trapped animals.

Fifty-four percent had the remnants of white tail deer or vegetation in their stomachs, but only 3 percent showed evidence of cat hair.

Hawley also examined the stomach contents of 70 bobcats and found no evidence of cats. But Hawley says his sampling method may not be gathering enough information on the small percentage of predators who regularly feed on domestic animals and could be responsible for most of the kills.

Advice: Keep Pets Indoors

“Cats do disappear, and a certain percentage are being taken by coyotes,” Hawley says. “The only way to assure that your cat or dog is safe is to keep them indoors.”

Wildlife ecologist Laura Simon of New Haven is field director for the urban wildlife program of the Humane Society of the United States. She has extensively studied wildlife in urban and suburban environments and says that most scientific studies conclude that even in highly settled areas, coyotes continue to rely on their natural prey: mice, chipmunks, squirrels and berries. Simon says that a hot line, 203-389-4411, and website, wildlifehotline.org, maintained by the Humane Society show a large increase in recent years of complaints about foxes and coyotes attacking pets, but that few callers can document their assertions and most did not witness an attack.

“People see a coyote or fox in the neighborhood and immediately assume it will attack cats or children,” Simon says. “What’s fascinating to me is that, nationwide, there are only a handful of documented cases of coyotes attacking people. Meanwhile, over 300,000 people visit hospital emergency rooms a year for dog bites. But we just don’t fear dogs the same way.”

Virtually all of the experts agree on one thing. Cats and small dogs should be kept indoors except when directly supervised in the yard. Simon says indoor cats are healthier and won’t bring wildlife diseases into the house. Also, she says, keeping them inside prevents them from killing young birds and other valuable wildlife.

“We have clear lifespan evidence that the typical cat will live 10 to 15 years longer if kept indoors,” Simon says. “So, if you’re worried about coyotes killing your cat, just keep it in, and everyone will be happier and healthier.”

Contact Rinker Buck at rbuck@courant.com.

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