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Originally Posted by Bruno
Coyotes are also a bother in urban areas. They're being more cautious in expanding into towns than foxes, but coyotes have the benefit that they can be mistaken for dogs - particularly when a lot of them are actually coydogs anyways.
We're getting pure coyotes in city even all the way up here. They don't have a good grasp on if there are coydogs yet because they're less blatant, but they suspect those are already kicking around... if they weren't actually here longer.
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We occasionally have coyote encroachments into a Denver suburb, of enough animals to create problems. They're really tough to get rid of, too, because stress alters their behavior, significantly, and they become incredibly difficult to eradicate.
Essentially, if the people in Animal Control don't do the right things, really fast, their jobs become phenomenally more difficult. For instance, if coyotes detect hunters, the females will split their litters and hide the pups in two or three different dens.
Also, a pack usually has an alpha male and no more than one or two alpha females, plus immature pups. In that pack, the male breeds with only one or two females, and those are the only matings.
However, if the alpha females and alpha males die (or get killed), the pack scatters and all the maturing pups create their own family packs -- so, where there was once only one or two breeding pairs, there can now be up to a dozen.
And all of that is on top of the fact that coyotes are frequently smart enough to compare reasonably well with a really bright, Frisbee-chasing border collie.
We get foxes all the way into the center of town, but that's in large part because just within the City and County of Denver, itself, we have a really large number of parks (about 20,000 acres worth, IIRC) scattered all around. Many are connected with bike trails and other paths to the Platte River, Cherry Creek and other waterways that bring animals in from the countryside.
Foxes aren't nearly so aggressive as coyotes can be, and generally do a better job of staying out of sight of people. As such, nobody much minds if they're around. Bring in your cats and small punting dogs, at night, though.