Literally someone in my neighborhood. Outdoor cat gets eaten. Kids are heartbroken. They get another cat, leave it outside. Cat gets taken by a coyote ON CAMERA so the kids can see the whole thing and be traumatized. Excuse? “We thought we’d be back before it got dark.”
Absolutely just feeding shelter cats to the coyotes. And I love our coyotes, it always makes me smile to hear them. But my cats stay indoors.
Keep cats indoors oh my god. Also why do folks get cats (or dogs) just to put them outside. Also… cats are horrible to the eco system. I have two cats, they are inside only.
We killed off the native ones. I had a bobcat for 12 years, no one was shaking my hand for letting him be an outside cat 🙄. Cats are far better for controlling the rats we also brought over than poison and traps, which have horrible downstream effects. Unless you are advocating cats native to the Americas replace European ones, you are only trying to wipe out a species. Not rebalance an ecosystem.
Yeah. Well he was found abandoned at 4 days old and I kept him alive, but after that he was too friendly with people to release. What color flag is that?
Deeply red flag. 1. You should've taken him to a wildlife rehab center instead of trying anything yourself. 2. Even after you tried yourself you should've taken him to a rehab center to be rehabilitated or euthanized. 3. You're telling me you had a bobcat that wasn't afraid of humans that you let outside?! That's insanely dangerous.
It was a wildlife rehab center that I foster for that needed someone. You sure have a lot of jerk face assumptions going. Without asking a single question! Don't let me get in the way of your imaginative vilification, tell me more!
Edit so you know just how offbase you were.
I didn't find him. I was called because I was part of a raptor rescue network that I had been in since I was a teen that I got into through a program at the Hogle zoo that visited my school and made me interested in falconry. There's a lot of licensing involved for raptor rehabilitation, some of the most stringent in the nation. We are often called in for other "dangerous" animals because we have protective gloves and understand a lot about handling predators that sometimes are trying to decide if they want to have a go at you.
Someone did take him to a rehab center, they called me. Killing is always a very, very last resort, and only for limiting suffering or actual danger to the public. Not imagined. An animal being potentially dangerous is different from one presenting a danger.
The other thing raptor rehab people have are outdoor enclosures that can't be flown out of or climbed out of. But eventually, yes. He was free to leave. But preferred to come in a window and sleep next to me.
What wildlife rehab center is letting a volunteer foster a bobcat and then letting said volunteer let the human-friendly bobcat outside? This was either 50 years ago before regulations or that rehab center shouldn't be operating.
He did pass on quite some years ago now, well over a decade. But don't try to disguise your uncalled for hostility with lesser accusations branching out to the wildlife center itself without knowing anything or asking real questions. Your embarrassing display should be an apology at this point. But I understand ego is hard to shed.
For real though, I know I wasn't repeating the "environmentalist" refrain about cats, so you are confused and frightened (RIP Phil) and your instinct is to discredit and dismiss, but I am not your enemy.
Even if cats were proven great urban rodent killers (which is debatable for urban cats especially and has mixed results in the scientific literature), the pervasive use of rodenticides in this region makes it a large risk to that cat's health
Barn cats are a whole different situation than urban pets. Anyone on Seattle city limits will be much kinder to the ecosystem and their pet's lifespan if they keep their cats indoors.
Let the coyotes eat the rats as well as the rabbits.
We have bobcats buried in native graves wearing collars that predate the Columbian exchange. I have personally seen how readily they adapt to close human contact. They would work just as well as European cats.
In current times, wild bobcats appear to prefer more suburban areas, NOT within dense city limits. Densest I've ever heard them going is the outskirts of Bellevue, backed onto a greenbelt. IDK what your point is. Bobcats should ideally be wild, and wild bobcats are irrelevant to pest control within the city of Seattle. Domesticated cats from Europe are also not a great choice for pest control within the city, because they are likely to also target birds we want to keep around. We have a ton of coyotes, which deliberately hunt rodents, and raccoons that will opportunistically eat mice and rats, as well as a few deliberately-kept feral colonies of domesticated cats in locations with known rodent issues
Joe Schmo, resident of the city of Seattle with nothing larger or more rodent-prone than a single-family house, in a developed neighborhood, on less than half an acre, does not need and should not keep outdoor cats for the purpose of pest control.
There are more species of birds than reptiles and mammals put together. There are more species of birds that prey upon and eat cats than species of cat extant in the entire world. We are so close to losing cats entirely it is honestly mind blowing there's this false assertion that birds are at extinction risk from cats when it's literally the opposite.
This is true but also good to know that cats are not the majority of city coyote's diet. They are mostly eating rabbits, squirrels, garbage, and the rats that eat your garbage. They are filling the ecologocal niche that stray cats and dogs would otherwise be occupying if we were not generally good about controlling strays in western WA.
We also have a record number of Cooper’s hawks. Ravens have returned. And eagles are a pretty common sighting. All those wild bunnies are allowing them to thrive.
Have there been any coyote attacks on humans in the Seattle/Greater Seattle area? I am concerned for our smaller children being in our yard alone when we know there are coyotes that prowl our neighborhood.
There have been 2 in recent years. Both I believe with known feeding/habituation. The chance your child is attacked by a coyote is far less than the chance of your child being attacked by a neighbor's dog. There are also 2 known deaths attributed to coyotes in all of modern history. WDFW does advise teaching kids what to do if they see a coyote (yell, wave arms etc) and generally not leaving them fully unattended if there are coyotes around, and Project Coyote has some great curriculum on coyotes (and other carnivores) if you want to get them to know more about the general ecology of coyotes so they can understand why a coyote is there, what it's doing etc. https://projectcoyote.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/KeepingItWild_CuriousAboutCoyotes_Web.pdf
Thank you for this. There’s so much misinformation regarding wildlife. We really can live along side our furry neighbors in harmony… it just takes us humans understanding things.
Are coyotes in Seattle larger than other places? I grew up in CA and recall coyotes being smaller.
I’ve seen them about 8x on early walks in Wedgwood. Near the elementary and also by our lady of the lake. Plus multiple times on the arboretum. They seem huge!
They may be slightly larger in the city just because of the amount of food they have access to. But after 150 or so necropsies on salvaged coyotes (roadkills, conflict removals) ranging from tacoma up to skagit valley, the largest one we had was ~32lbs (coyotes on the east coast are roughly double the size of coyotes on the west!). Coyotes in warmer areas often have thinner coats though, so that might explain why they look larger up here!
Thank you, this is so interesting. It’s hard to believe they only weigh up to 32#. Then again most dogs as big/tall as the coyotes have more girth from all those treats.
I guess when you don't have the weight of genetic deformity from centuries of inbreeding weighing on your body, it remains a well oiled machine calibrated by millions of years of evolution.
Yo! I'm a photographer, and I've been noodling on urban wildlife photography. Got any tips on finding them? Alternatively, if you'd be open to having a tagalong with a camera, please feel free to DM!
Despite studying coyotes for 5 years in Seattle, we have bad luck in physically seeing them! Spots that seem to be good for coyote sightings: Discovery park meadow area, Union Bay Natural Area, Seward Park, Washelli Cemetery, arboretum.
General wildlife:
North side of Discovery for river otters, Shishole Marina/Locks for river otters, harbor seals, sealions, Seward park is awesome for birds, Alki for river otters, seals, sea lions, and orcas (if you're lucky), union bay/arboretum for most things. iNat is also good for seeing where people are seeing the critters recently: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=119121
You know they are just going to have another buff disguised as a nerf since there's a new paid coyote skin coming out soon
Then they're going to nerf raccoons again for no reason
What timing, I just stumbled across a coyote sleeping in my back yard. We get them every night based on cameras, but first time I saw one just sleeping during the day. [I'm out near Cottage Lake, so not in Seattle proper]. I just said "Hello there" and he got up and slowly walked away.
Some people here in West Seattle accidentally sped up the cycle by paying someone to remove (i.e. kill) a bunch of coyotes. The next few years everyone was asking where all these rabbits came from. And now we've got coyotes again.
No because domestic cats do not hunt for food. They're one of the only predator species that will hunt and kill birds even though they don't need to for survival.
When animals hunt and kill for food it's typically a much lower volume because hunting takes a huge amount of energy and most animals survive on hunting occasionally and then saving their energy until they need to eat again.
Cats killing birds and other native species is not natural selection because 1) they are not native and 2) they are killing out of instinct and not out of necessity so the amount of individuals a cat kills regularly is much higher than normal predatory species.
Walking in greenwood is better than walking on a trail. On an average evening to night, I see Coyote, bunnies, Squirrel, 500 varieties of fruit and flower trees/plants, raccoons, crow, sea gulls (flying), canadian Geese (flying), Humming birds and other 50 varities of small birds that I cant identify and some of the nicest people walking.. And if you go on fremont avenue, its a walking friendly street too!! I am never leaving seattle
Has to be between evening and dusk. Yes night is more probable but hard to see.. Usually in the alleyways (I wouldnt go into alleys but look). Most I have spotted is either Evanston and 97th (ish) or around Phinney.. I have seen a couple of times on 120th and Dayton too. In fact one time, it was sleeping on corner of 115 and Dayton like its a house dog.. Raccoons are frequest but later in the night
There are some red foxes here and there in the lowlands (and also famously on San Juan island), they're descendants of fur farm escapees but not native.
Cats are 4-5 on the diet graph per frequency of occurrence but these methods likely significantly overestimate the number of cats in the diet (we have an undergrad working on genetically identifying individual cats from coyote scats to get better estimates on this). But yup mainly rabbits, fruits and rodents (rats/squirrels/voles). Here's the study if you're interested: https://www.washington.edu/news/2026/09/10/coyote-density-is-9-times-higher-in-seattle-than-in-washingtons-wild-lands/
Sadly I am not. Some people are very, very cavalier about slaughtering the coyotes just for existing.
They didn't choose to be born a coyote. They're just doing what comes natural to them. Letting your cat out does MASSIVE ecological damage while coyotes are arguably good for the urban environment and for ecological balance.
Also you're an asshole if you wanna shoot this lil guy
So this isn't intended to counter that wolves have a very important niche in the environment, particularly for taking care of larger prey animal populations, but as far as I know, a lot of the early studies that showed a trophic cascade as a result of the wolves have since been debunked.
Still amazing animals that have gotten a bad rap though.
Flipped over a pizza box for a crow that was really struggling, there was still a slice inside that had touched the pavement. There was a lime bike flipped over on its side nearby.
this explains why my cat thinks he’s in a survival game every time he steps outside. the coyote population here is wild! I’ve seen one just chilling in my backyard at night, and yeah, definitely keeping the kitty inside from now on.
Its estimated they arrived in the 1920-30s in part because we changed the landscape in ways that benefit them, but also because we removed their larger predator cousins and competitors
My husband went up the ladder to clean my tenant's roof (one story building) and found a pile o' poo up there, and several smaller piles as if the animal were straining and released several small ones and then the big one. It was black and moist, so had been deposited in the last couple of days. The volume was equivalent to that of a large dog or a small bear. Tenant never heard a thing. How does one report this? Should the poop be collected and sent somewhere to determine if a bear is where it shouldn't be?
Personally I think it's more likely coyote, coyotes have learned to climb up on the roofs here.
If you ever walk around Queen Anne you see why. Those people love nothing more than feeding their cats to wild animals, every light pole has 5 new missing posters every time I’m there.
What do you mean? The premise of the article indicates they are actually drawn to the city vs living in the wild where they have near unlimited space to hunt...
They've actually adapted quite well to urban life. No predators, they're omnivores so there's an abundance of food sources, and a relatively safe living environment. They're one of the few wild animals that have benefited from urban sprawl
As an early-morning bicycle commuter, my observation is that the probability of a coyote sighting is directly proportional to the number of "missing kitty" signs that I see near apartment complexes.
Coyotes are really not a threat to people (kids included!). "Attacks" are exceedingly rare (in quotes because they are often more akin to nips). When they do happen its often because they've become over habituated often due to intentional or unintentional feeding.
Dogs on leash are significantly less likely to be viewed as prey and if dogs are taken off leash this is a big red flag that that coyote is over habituated and may become a threat to human safety (again often from feeding).
Coyotes are not very responsive to lethal management as this frees up resources that contribute to larger litter sizes.
So here's some things that can help:
Don't feed coyotes! intentionally especially, but also unintentionally. Make sure trash and compost are secured, pick up fallen fruit that is near your house, feed pets indoors.
Hazing - this has mixed effectiveness in the literature, but can't really hurt. Yell at them, wave your arms, throw a rock *near* them if you feel they are losing fear of people.
Talk to your friends and neighbors about how to live with coyotes. If you see people feeding them or leaving food sources out on accident - say something. It takes all of us working together for co-existence to work. However, co-existence is really the only way forward given the lack of response from lethal control. Here's more info from wdfw: https://wdfw.wa.gov/species-habitats/species/canis-latrans "Due to WDFW’s need to focus on fish and wildlife species of conservation concern, in most cases when coyote management is required in urban or suburban areas that management is contracted by the city, town or private landowners to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Wildlife Services.
Local or county animal services or a WDFW-certified Wildlife Control Operator may also be able to help. See Trapping Wildlife for additional information, including live-trapping coyotes.
Removing a coyote is typically not a long-term solution — if there’s food available, other coyotes will continue to show up. It’s nearly impossible to permanently eliminate coyotes in an area"
Likely attributed to what is written above "When they do happen its often because they've become over habituated often due to intentional or unintentional feeding."
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u/RockOperaPenguin North Beacon Hill Sep 10 '26
This kind of smart, mixed-use, walkable coyote habitat is illegal to build in most of the US.