Wednesday, November 28, 2012
A resident spotted coyotes near a Gulfport school during the early morning hours.
Special thanks to Gulfport resident Lori East for posting a "Coyote Alert" in our "Announcements" section of Gulfport Patch. Lori East stated she saw two very large coyotes at the end of a cul-de-sac on York St. S. around 6 a.m. Monday morning. In the "Coyote Alert" East posted: "This was pretty scary as they panicked realizing they were trapped on the other side of Gulfport Elementry's fence. One of them scurried by to the Greenway, while the other wasn't too concerned there was a human watching every move they made." Gulfport Patch checked with the Gulfport Police Department and they had not heard of any specific encounters in town. They are aware that coyotes have made Pinellas County their home and have been spotted in Gulfport. …
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
A veteran trapper said coyotes are no more dangerous than raccoons, contrary to 'hyped-up BS' coming from media and animal control officials.
An Estero woman claimed to be bitten in Lee County by what appeared to be a coyote in June 2008. That is the lone coyote attack on a human recorded in the state according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Otherwise, there are only a few confirmed attacks on humans reported anywhere else in North America. But, state biologists and local animal control officers warn, once acclimated to living among people - often subsisting unseen in greenbelts, watershed lands, vacant lots or parks - coyotes can be brazen. Clearwater Air Park general manager Barbara Cooper said coyotes would lounge in the sun on runway tarmacs on cold days in January and February. Planes couldn't land until the coyotes cleared off. "We'd have to take…
With ample shelter, forage - primarily your pets - the adaptive, tenacious predators are here to stay.
A pilot called the Clearwater Airpark terminal in February with an unusual problem: He couldn't land because coyotes were encamped on the runway. "He had to fly around until (workers) could go out there and run them off," said Gordon Wills, Marine and Aviation Department operations manager for Clearwater. That proved to be easier said than done, recalled Clearwater Airpark general manager Barbara Cooper. "I thought they would be skittish, but they just don't move," she said. "We had to take a pickup truck out there to run them off." Cooper, who has worked at the airport since 2004, starting noticing what appeared to be "big dogs - on the German Shepherd-looking side" - slinking about wooded areas north of the runway near The Landings golf …
Some say the Eastern coyote - a hybridized wolf - has arrived in the Tampa Bay area.
Coyote sightings have increased dramatically in Pasco, Pinellas, and Hillsborough counties in the last decade, but there is confusion about what animal, exactly, people are seeing. There are four possibilities: * The iconic balsa-boned songdog of the American West, usually tawny-brown solitary scavengers that rarely weigh more than 30 pounds. * "Coydogs," a one-generation hybrid, often sterile, of assorted colors and sizes that will "pack up" with other feral dogs. They are often the first indication that there are coyotes in an area, but rarely den with true coyotes. * The Eastern coyote, a pack-hunter of assorted colors that often resemble German Shepherds, can weigh up to 80 pounds, and, some biologists contend, is a hybridized wolf …
Inrchld
1:47 pm on Friday, November 30, 2012
I've seen them at morning and late evening twilight in Ted Phillips Park several times over the past month and my daughter saw one actually stand up against the chain link fence to our yard in the wee morning hours. more ›