On a quiet (so far) Friday night, a few notes about West Seattle coyotes, starting with a question:
SCHMITZ PARK COYOTES STILL THERE? Nita wonders:
I’ve lived on Manning Street by Schmitz Park for about 13 years. There has been a pack of coyotes in the park for about 10 years. We usually hear them howl at night, especially if a siren goes down Admiral. It sounded like 6 or 8 individuals, probably a family group. We would see one trotting down the street near dusk or dawn maybe once every other month.
I haven’t heard or seen a coyote in the park in at least 6 weeks. I was wondering if anyone had any information about this.
Prior to the coyotes moving in about 10 years ago, there was a breeding pair of red foxes who lived in the park. They could often be seen in the neighborhood and I have photos of them on my front lawn. Then the coyotes moved in and either killed them or chased them out.
The coyotes also greatly reduced the number of raccoons in the neighborhood. And greatly increased the number of raccoons sighted with most of their tails lopped off – “the ones that got away,” no doubt.
Anyway, just a local amateur naturalist here, wondering what’s become of the pack that’s lived in Schmitz Park for so long. My theory is that they’ve hunted out the mice and rats and moles that they depend on for survival, and have had to move on. I’d be interested to hear from someone more knowledgeable than myself.
This also came up recently in the WSB Forums. We don’t have any recent Schmitz Park reports, but we do have these three:
EARLY-MORNING SIGHTING: Dave e-mailed to report a coyote seen early Thursday, “Avalon and 32nd at 7:00 am.”
MID-AFTERNOON SIGHTING: Trileigh Tucker photographed this coyote in her yard:
Trileigh lives near Lincoln Park.
EAST ADMIRAL SIGHTING: And via Twitter: “Spotted a young adult coyote eating apples that fell from a tree in the alley at Andover between 35th & 34th Ave SW.”
(photo added) Thanks to Karin for this photo of a coyote she says is the 32nd/Avalon visitor mentioned above:
WSB coyote coverage is archived here. Info on co-existing with coyotes is here.
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