How to keep your pets safe from coyotes
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
Wile E. Coyote, though entertaining as he may be, is nothing compared to the cunning real life predators that are decimating Southern California’s domestic pet population. Here’s some tips on how to keep your pets safe from coyotes, information on coyotes, and a fantastic new deterrent to help keep coyotes out and your pets in your yard.
Though some coyote are nomadic and travel over great distances, others occupy distinct territories which can be greater than 15 miles. Here in the Los Angeles suburbs, however, their territories can be as small as ¼ mile.
Since their dens are typically located less than 1 mile away from water, coyotes have found food and water in abundance in the So Cal neighborhoods. Household garbage, seeds and fruits from home gardens, and small pets have become standard fare for coyotes.
Coyotes have great physical endurance and can recover from great bodily injury. They’re also lightening fast, being clocked at speeds up to 40 miles an hour, and also able to maintain a slower speed over several miles. They rely on visual clues more than taste and smell. This accounts for a number of homeowners who have told me stories of their pets being snatch right in front of them, in their own back yards.
Coyotes have adapted to residential neighborhoods, and some are losing their fear of humans. They will stalk and even attack children or adults, or attack pets being walked on a leash by their owners.
Coyotes can climb fences, and they can dig under them. They’re opportunistic and will look for the weakest animals and the easiest kills.
Though there’s some great information on the net, here’s five simple tips to keeping coyotes out of your yard, and two retrofitting suggestions:
5 simple tips
1) Keep household garbage containers sealed tight and keep the area around them clean
2) Walk your fence line. Ensure that there are no branches leaning just above and over the fence that can be used as a bridge or ladder.
3) Look for holes in or under the fence where ground erosion has occurred.
4) Check that your gates are self closing and self locking
5) Fences and gates should be at least 6’ in height. Gates should be self closing and self locking.
Retrofitting suggestions
6) Install a small mesh screen apron to the bottom of the fence line and bury it. The coyotes usually will go elsewhere when they can’t dig through.
7) New fences should be 6’ high minimum, and if wire fencing, the mesh should be 1 ¼”
8) Install Coyote Rollers to the top of the fencing: A coyote jump is typically a two step process. Coyotes land on top of the fences with their front paws, and propel themselves over with their hind paws. The Coyote Roller can be installed at the top of almost any fence. It is a humane, non-lethal, no power needed aluminum tube. It is virtually impossible for almost any animal to gain enough traction to get over the coyote rollers.
These rollers have been installed with great success in neighborhoods where scores of neighborhood pets had been brutally eaten alive. They also are much more aesthetically pleasing than surrounding your house with barb wire topped fencing.
Information for purchasing coyote rollers can be found at www.a1steelfence.com, and a video can be found here: