[Speaker 2] (0:00 - 2:25)
Good evening, my name is Tony Bandewitz and I'm the president of the Swampscot Conservancy and I'm here to welcome you tonight to our presentation on How to Safely Coexist with Coyotes and Keep Your Pets Safe by Dan Proulx. He's a problem animal control agent and also a wildlife rehabilitator. This presentation is being sponsored by the Town of Swampscot and also the Swampscot Conservancy.

Before introducing Dan, I'd just like to tell you a little bit about the Conservancy. The Conservancy is an all-volunteer, non-profit organization dedicated to supporting the town in the preservation of conservation land and open space. And we do that through education, research, and active stewardship.

We've got a five-year history behind us. We've opened up new trails in town, like the connector which is behind the cemetery, also a new ridge trail over at Harold King Forest. We're putting pollinator gardens, there's one at the town hall.

We also have a wildflower meadow over at the middle school, so we've been very active. If you want to learn more about us, I urge you to check out our website. It's swampscotconservancy.org, one word. And to help us continue on our mission, please consider becoming a member and if you are already a member, please, you know, renew your membership for 2023. And now our speaker, Dan, he grew up in Somerville, but he now resides in Marblehead, and he was, you may recall, our first full-time animal control officer in Swampscot, and he served for about three years, and we certainly miss him, especially now that we have an increase in wildlife coming into our community. I'm going to let Dan tell you about himself a little bit.

He's got a slide. So please wait until his presentation's over and then ask questions. But let's give him an enthusiastic welcome now.

[Speaker 1] (2:28 - 1:40:31)
Thank you. I live in Marblehead. I'm a U.S. veteran. I was in from 94 to 99. I was in the border infantry. I'm an assistant animal control officer in Marblehead, Massachusetts, probably an animal control agent.

That's a fancy word for a trapper, okay? Massachusetts wildlife rehabilitator, I do wildlife rehabilitation, all mammals, and I volunteer at the local Marblehead animal shelter, which is like 98% cats. So I know cats very well and have had a scratch here and there from them.

I've actually learned how to catch wildlife better because of handling the cats. They're like a fox. A fox will get you good.

But anyways, let's get started. Let me grab my clicker. All right.

Yes, there's been a lot going on. I also forgot to put on there that I'm the animal inspector for Marblehead. So any kind of bites that happen in Marblehead, the police call me, okay?

Whether it's a dog, cat, coyote, et cetera. No more in rule is don't feed the coyotes anything. That's my first slide.

We're just setting them up for failure. They're going to get habituated, go up to people, and it just causes problems, as you can see, what's going on. And as over this summer, we've had a couple of incidences where a coyote was biting people in Adventon Square, and it was wanting food.

So please don't feed wildlife. Even if you see it struggling with mange or anything to that nature, it's just, you're just setting it up for failure, okay? That's my number.

If you want to write my number down, and if you ever see any injured wildlife, anything, or if you have a question, you can text or call me. I prefer text. It's easier.

These are a few animals that I helped over the years. A little bunny like that, it's usually healthy. He just freezes, all right?

He was in the post office walkway. Everybody thought he was injured, but usually that time of year, they just freeze, and they just wait until nighttime, regardless how many hours it is. So if you see a little bunny, just give it some time.

But if it's in danger, just shoo it off, okay? Sorry. It's probably someone calling for an animal.

I spent the summer working with birds of prey. I have enough hours to get my federal permit. I just don't have enough land to get enclosures.

So I am moving to New Hampshire in a couple of months. I still will have my problem animal control agent license in Massachusetts, but I won't have my wildlife. I'll have it up in New Hampshire.

This is a bird I released. It was a great time. I didn't realize how many photographers show up to things like this.

You got to comb your hair and do everything, right? The first pictures I had was like, oh. But you can see my braces there.

Four and a half years. I also volunteer at Wolf Hollow in Ipswich, Mass. If you have never been there, please come to a presentation on Saturday and Sunday.

I've been there for almost a year now. The volunteers, after a while, are able to go in the enclosure with the wolves. Working with the wolves and talking about the wolves, I've learned so much over the year to where now the coyotes seem so tiny because I work with such large wolves.

This is actually my first encounter with a coyote. It was when I was in animal control. There was a call about a pup stuck in the net.

I was scared to death. I was terrified because I've never dealt with coyotes. And all I was thinking was the mom or the dad or somebody was going to come run and attack me because I was messing with their pup.

Turns out that's not the case. They don't do that. They will whine and whimper from the wood line or the woods and not come near any human being, especially when you're messing with their pup.

I don't know if some people remember the trap that was lodged on the face of the juvenile coyote who's almost a year old. Someone had an illegal trap inside their backyard. When they're about eight, nine, ten months, they're off roaming on their own.

So they probably went in someone's backyard that was illegally trapping raccoons and stuck his face inside the trap that's designed to snap the neck of a raccoon. We never found the person. I think there's still like a $1,000 to $5,000 reward.

But yeah, any predator that breaks its jaw usually has to be euthanized because you can't have it repaired, release it and hope that its jaw stays together. You know, it's really difficult. This is the most exciting coyote capture I've ever had.

There was a call about, the environment, the police called the animal control in Swampscott and asked if they had a catch pole. And I said yes. And they said that there was a coyote on a boat.

And when I showed up, they were like, it's right there. So they have guns, I don't. And I was just starting to understand coyotes and to not be as scared.

But I was a little scared, not too much, because I kind of already understood them. I knew that it didn't want anything to do with me and it would want to get away and not attack me. I'd rather deal with a large coyote that's a little aggressive or even highly aggressive than any dangerous dog.

Because dogs are more dangerous than coyotes, in my opinion. Dangerous dogs, large dangerous dogs, because they're so used to humans, they just want to snap and bite at you. A coyote, all he wants to do is get away.

When you grab him, he freezes up because he has no predators. And all of a sudden, some huge person is trapping him and holding him. Usually when you put him inside the kennel, they just go into the back and you cover it up and they're quiet.

Unfortunately, you cannot relocate wildlife. And this was on the border of Nahant and Lynn. This was three years ago.

The environmental police were there. This coyote was healthy. He was just wandering around and just got onto the boat.

And when everything started up during the day, he just got scared and hid. We had to release him on the edge of the property by law because there was nothing wrong with him. If he was euthanized, I would have had every humane group knocking on my door and complaining and stuff like that.

So we had to bring it to the edge of the property and release it. The entire time he was trying to freeze, never tried to bite me. Usually when you catch a dog or a coyote with a catch pole, they're usually biting on the red part.

It usually gets all bloody because it just tears up their lips a little bit. A coyote was fine. We brought it up to the edge of the property.

We looked at it. The environmental police was like, what should we do? And I said, by law, we have to release it.

There's nothing wrong with it. It didn't have mange. It didn't have rabies symptoms, nothing.

So it was perfectly healthy. I have a slide for that where you could bring it to Tufts while I like stuff. But it's a double-edged sword nowadays and we'll go over that.

This is mange. Mange is a skin disease that affects the mammals caused by microscopic mites that grow into the skin. This coyote, I'm not sure is still alive.

That was, I didn't put the date, but I know it was probably two years ago. They kept going through an area in Salem, people would call. But the thing is, it's still healthy enough to run away from you.

And the closest you could probably get to it was probably at least 20, 25 feet. So I tried to go out there, but it was useless trying to catch. What happens is all the hair falls off and they're exposed to the environment and they slowly pass.

So PBD has a massive issue or did have a massive issue earlier before the winter. Their pup, coyote pup population had mange really bad. I got several calls.

People would send me pictures and there'd be a pair of coyotes with severe mange. Again, you show up and they just run off. They're small, they can dart, dart into the woods and stuff like that.

So there's nothing you can do. The only legal way I'm allowed to catch a coyote is with a net, either on a pole or a hand net or this, that's it. Nothing else.

It's illegal for me to use anything else than that. As you can see, that's how I caught this guy, see the net. We believe this is the reason why a lot of coyotes are getting mange these days is because they're eating rats that have rat poison, lowering their immune system, causing them to be more susceptible to mange because the mange has exploded, especially in fox.

Foxes, again in PBD, it's really bad. Salem was pretty bad. We got people sending me pictures that I'm like, is that a coyote?

And then I realized it's a fox with no hair. So it happens a lot. So we're working, we're doing a rodenticide presentation I think next month or something to that nature.

So come to that, we'll have more. I've recovered so many birds of prey, like yesterday I picked one up. I'm not going to really say cities right now, but I will have a list of all the places that I did pick up and it ranges from out to Salisbury, even the Malden area and all that.

It's pretty bad. There's a lot of birds that died over the past year and a half. Some make it, most don't.

This coyote, my mom would kill me if I told her that I got it at this date because I had a shoulder surgery and it was like three months after and I shouldn't have been doing it. However, from the sounds of it, I knew that I could possibly get this coyote because he was in really rough shape. It was five degrees that day.

He was hiding underneath cars. He was at a complex in Linfield, which is right next to the highway that has large wooded area, ponds, just plenty of places. And it's right behind, it's right next to a whole bunch of restaurants, which probably have the poison bait boxes and most likely was eating those rats.

I was able to get it with this, took me like 15, 20 minutes because it is really difficult to loop around a coyote. They're just, they're really smart with dogs. They're so used to you putting a leash on them or a collar on them, they're just kind of used to it.

So it was kind of hard to get it on him, but I finally got him. That's him before, this is him after. He was brought to Tufts Wildlife Clinic, which I love Tufts Wildlife.

I do a lot for them. They do a lot for me. And we have a good relationship.

That's the thing with when you do wildlife rescue and stuff, you have to have a good relationship with people. You can't burn bridges. You got to find people who can help you in any situation.

So we were allowed to release the guy back into the area. Again, when he was released, just ran off, didn't want anything to do with me. Mass Wildlife was called and alerted about me getting it and releasing it.

So I follow the rules, the laws. I'm not allowed to go after, physically after a coyote unless I let the main biologist of Mass Wildlife know that I'm going after a coyote. He can give me a yay or nay on it.

Like I said, it's a double-edged sword now because with all the coyote population that we're having and the issues that we're having, I wouldn't feel very comfortable getting this guy out of Nahant or getting this guy out of Swampscot, getting all healthy and releasing back. I don't know how I'd feel now. It's a double-edged sword.

He's all tagged up. I'll tell you what, when I released him that day, I called the dispatches for Linfield and I said, if there's any coyote issues, please call me. I was worried that, you know, I got them all healthy, something may happen.

But this was last year, early last year. We didn't start really having severe problems until the middle of the year. But yeah.

All right, the eastern coyote, it's stealth, a male and female, or simply just a mom and dad. All right. They could be a pair, a mom and dad that already established a pack and a rough and tough big coyote come in that's bigger than the other coyote and the mom wouldn't go for it.

It's their monogamous. They stay with the mate, okay, unless they're taking out or die or something to that nature. And that's when something could transpire with a new mom or dad.

And the pack usually consists of a family members, okay. Usually they're born, they're pushed out later on. Some stay, some go.

Average lifespan, three to four years. It also depends on where you live or where they live. Where we live, we have a lot hit by cars.

They're just not announced. Over the last year, year and a half, there was probably four coyotes hit. Two in Swampscott, one in Salem, one in Beverly, and I think there was another, there was almost five of them.

So that's five coyotes in a year and a half get hit by cars and deceased. So there is a predator for them and it's cars. I had one call for Swampscott to where there was a coyote in the back of the elderly home.

I had my wildlife permit and went out there and I saw its teeth and I feared that it had rabies because usually they show their teeth and stuff like that. I just had my shoulder surgery. I really couldn't help it and I decided I'll come back the next day.

Turns out next day, I got a call about a deceased coyote and when I went, his jaw was actually busted. He was hit by a car. So that's why he was having a hard time.

I help every town, every city, even though as ACO for Swampscott and stuff like that, it doesn't matter. I can get a call from Malden, Beverly, Swampscott, everywhere. So it's all of Massachusetts.

Why can't we just relocate coyotes, right? That'd be easy, simple. The problem is it's illegal in Massachusetts to relocate an animal, any animal.

The reason being for coyotes, they are very territorial. Say if we caught one and we're like, hey, let's go bring it out to Linfield. Let's bring it out to this area or this wide open area.

All we're doing is placing that coyote in somebody else's territory. So now it's on the run. It's got to defend for its life.

It doesn't know where to go. It's going to most likely die. Also the fighting will cause, if one has rabies or anything to that nature, it can transmit.

And again, mass wildlife prohibits it. It's like a $500 fine. So if you're trapping something in your house because it keeps getting in like squirrel or something like that and you know where it's coming in, you got to trap it, plug the hole and then release it outside on your property.

That way you can't get back in. You can't take it and go out to the woods a mile, two, three miles away and release it. If they find out, you could get in trouble.

Just letting you know. They're omnivores. It's an animal that eats meat and plants.

A coyote pretty much eat anything, anything it runs across. It's, they are opportunistic, meaning that they're always on the go. Usually they're always trotting along.

Some of them will stick around an area, look for stuff. But majority of the time these guys are trotting along and just going a course they usually go. They'll go into different towns, different cities and whatever they run into, they try to consume if it's an animal.

Usually it's rats, cats. If they run into a cat, most cats get away from coyotes. Only problem is if it's windy, raining or something's going on, loud noises and the coyote goes around a corner and the cat's just sitting right there, that's how they usually get them.

I lost my cat. I actually lost my cat while I was ACO for Swampscot and it felt embarrassing and I didn't want to tell anybody. It was my fault.

It accidentally got out. I had left the back door open and didn't realize it until later that night. My dog was barking and I looked and I see something running back and forth in my backyard and I went down there, realized door's open and my cat's hair was everywhere.

I was angry at coyotes for about a week, week and a half. I just wanted them. But then I realized that's what they do.

It was my fault. They're predators. That's what they do.

And I actually have a little bit more respect for them over the time passes. You know, I missed my cat. She was 14 years old so she had a good life.

Plus again, I work at or volunteer at Marblehead Animal Shelter so I'm around cats all the time. I think I'm kind of done for a while with the litter and all that stuff so I'm good. All right, coyotes were first initially in the west.

That's why they're western coyotes. People started building all sorts of stuff. They started having to migrate.

They ran into a bunch of wolves, a bunch of dogs and started mating with them. That's why we have eastern coyotes that are a little bit larger. We have here, most likely from a more western is a smaller coyote skull and this one here is from Marblehead and it's slightly bigger.

Not too much bigger but you can see a little bit of a difference. The most recent study and actually I was looking at the most recent study the last time but the most recent study was in Stony Brook University and out of 462 coyotes they found that the coyote was only an average of 64% coyote, 13% gray wolf and 13% eastern wolf and 10% dog. When I was picking up an injured duck in Phillips Beach parking lot, I was getting a duck that was under the ice, it was deceased.

Someone was upset, dogs were going up to it, wanted to get it and stuff like that and I heard howling out in the marsh area behind the Phillips Beach area, that area that's all marshy. It turns out it was frozen and it was a coyote running back and forth probably 40, 50 yards away from the dogs howling. It was breeding season so I can't say that it was howling because it smelled the dogs but when I went to the beach just to warn people, there was probably seven or eight large dogs running around off leash.

So just be careful. I think it still might be frozen but breeding season has just peaked and should have ended. So the further south you go, the less wolf and dog DNA is found.

I think Virginia has hardly any in their coyotes. Breeding season February to March, I put an asterisk because we don't know with the temperature changes and all that stuff and all the crazy things going on, we don't know if they're breeding a little bit earlier, a little bit late. Birthing season's around April, again if they do it earlier, it might be a little bit earlier.

It's only 60 days for the coyotes to have their pups gestated and delivered. The average litter size is six to seven pups. It all depends on where they are, how much food they have and they can get up to nine, nine pups.

Coyotes are great for rodent control and small mammal control. If we were to delete all the coyotes, the rat population would explode, we'd bring in more poison and everything would die, everything. Everything's already dying now.

So imagine taking away something that eats the rodents. So there's a purpose, there's an ecosystem, everything plays a role and it's tough what's going on. Why do coyotes howl?

Usually just to communicate with their pack. I'm sure everybody's heard it, I've heard it, I've seen all the coyotes in this area. It's the hair in the back of your neck stands up because it's so scary, sounds like a million of them, but a lot of times they're yip yapping and doing different vocals and could sound like two different ones at different times.

They also howl to warn other coyotes that are not in their territory saying, hey, this is our territory, you stay over there, we're over here, don't come over here. Or to mate like the one I saw in Swamp Cut that was howling during mating season. When the pups are a little bit older, towards fall, they're trying to mimic their parents.

So in late fall, listen, you'll start to hear some weird howling and stuff like that, it's usually the pups trying to learn how to howl. How far do coyotes travel? If you Google that, you'll get like 50,000 answers, seriously.

It is just, it's, it's, everybody has their own answers, but I just kind of narrowed it down from this area. It all depends on their habitat and food availability. If they have plenty of woods, plenty of space, they will, and plenty of food, they usually don't go that far, unless they're mating and running off.

But it's usually average of six to 10 square miles, but can it be up to 40 square miles? You know, Swamp Cut is only three by three miles. So who's to say that some of the Naha coyotes are from the Swamp Cut area and go back and forth or from the Swamp Cut to Marblehead, Salem, we don't know.

Only way you'd be able to really tell is to have a tracking system somehow, some way. I actually just learned that that is an opportunity for that coyote to where if he got into a fight with another coyote, he actually has protection around his neck now from bites. So it's actually a little bit of an advantage for him and a disadvantage for whatever he runs into if he gets into a fight.

They usually fall off after two years or a certain amount of time, I'm not 100% sure, but they're designed to just fall off. Coyote pups born between April and May. These are actually Swamp Cut pups from I think like three, three and a half years, maybe four years ago.

There was a resident that said that this coyote would show up with their pups and just leave the pups for like a half hour while they went off and went hunting and then came back. Pups are born blind, open eyes after 10 to 12 days, will stay in the den for six weeks. They start to eat regurgitated food from the mom after about four weeks while they're weaning off the milk.

So if you do the calculations in your head about when they're born and the mom's going to have to get supplies for her milk and then supplies for all these coyotes that she's trying to feed. So there's an uptick on hunting when it comes to pups being born later, six or eight weeks. They travel short distances with family members after six weeks, will stay put like I showed you in areas where mom and dad hunt or a brother, sister or whoever, an aunt, uncle.

This is actually footage of me setting up a trail cam and me coming, the woman would call me and I'd run over and haze the heck out of, scare the heck out of these guys to get them back into the wood line. They brought the ball up from I don't know where, but at the end you'll see them run away because they hear my car. They start to know the sound of your car and that's me pulling up.

So that's the thing. I've been actively hazing coyotes in Marblehead. Like I took on upon myself to, that's all I've been doing the last couple of months is going to haze coyotes.

Anybody would call and I'd go haze them. It's really difficult to find them when someone calls. You actually need a few people to saturate the area because they can cut through backyards, they can cut through wooded areas.

They're not like a dog that gets lost that's on the street or the sidewalk. They're not typically going in between houses, but these guys, it only take you a couple of minutes to get there and already be four or five blocks away. But the thing is, is after a while they know that someone's coming after them.

That's the thing. Because I would set up trail cams in little wooded areas and stuff like that and I know that they would smell me. They wouldn't come through the area for a couple of days and then I'd see them on the trail cams.

So they know if you're actively trying to get them hazed. So, and some of the pups will venture off to hunt with or without siblings. The fall, the pups may be pushed out by the parents, like I said, it depends on the space and food availability.

Very important, the pups learn from the parents in the pack. So if you scare the living crap out of the parents, they will say, hey, we don't want to go near those people. And they'll learn to not go near people.

But if you're not scaring them and you think it's cute and they're coming into your yard and you're feeding them and you think it's great, they learn that. You see them, scare them. Don't be scared.

Just scare the heck out of them. Trail cams, if you don't know what comes in and out of your yard, I suggest that you get a trail cam. They're very cheap.

It takes an SD, most of them take an SD card. This one's a little bit pricier, probably around $80 and it's got a built in screen which is very convenient, especially if you go into the woods and you don't have a computer on you, you don't have to bring back the SD card, you can just look at it on the screen there. $150 probably gets you, it would get you a cellular one that will alert you just like your ring doorbell.

You can set it up in an area. If you're worried about coyotes coming into your backyards or whatever, get yourself a couple of cellular trail cams, set them up and it'll alert you anytime anything crosses through there. You're going to get a lot of squirrels though.

That's the thing, the squirrels. But you'd be able to tell where a coyote comes in and out of the brush by just a small hole about this big. You'll see a little trail.

What you could do is just set a trail cam there, it'll be spooked in the beginning but after a while, if it's used to going in through there, it'll go through there. Coyote print, number one way to tell that it's maybe a coyote is usually there's no footprints of human beings, it's just, and plus they usually walk in a straight line, dogs will go back and forth, back and forth, this and that and do that. So if you see a straight line and there's no footprints and there's no footprints off in the distance and it's not an area where people usually let their dogs run off, most likely coyote.

And another way to tell is even though they have claws on this side, they usually don't show up that much in prints. So if they have just two on the top, it's a coyote. Usually dog, you'll see four of them.

Also you can make a perfect X with a coyote paw print. Dog paw print is usually space. Now there's some dog breeds that you can do that and it is deceiving a little bit to where it's like, is that a coyote or not?

But again, you got to look for the two claw marks, okay? And a lot of times, their back feet are smaller than their front feet and a lot of times, and I didn't take a picture of it, but many times that they'll step with their back feet where they put their front paw. Saves energy, not having to walk through the snow, they can step.

When they run, they run on their tiptoes, that's why they're so quiet. Also the coyote print is oval and usually a dog's is round, that's another way you can tell. But you can tell the difference, that's actually my dog's print.

Okay, hazing and scaring coyotes. This is more of what I want to talk about. I personally have hazed multiple, I'm not scared of a coyote.

If I see a coyote, I will pull over and I will chase it as far as I can possibly run until my back or my knee starts hurting bad. They are very timid if you are extremely bold and stand your ground. If you're not with a dog, you shouldn't worry.

You shouldn't worry. If you go out running and stuff like that, just the only times I've heard where a person encountered a coyote other than the issues we had this summer in Vinnies Square was runners running home and coming up their driveway and running to a coyote. And they'd be like, the coyote tried to attack me.

And they'd be like, what were you doing? And I'd be like, I was running. Did you run up to the coyote and not see it and around the corner, it's usually yes.

So that's the only time that you may have a problem is if you're running. So if you're a jogger or know a jogger, just say hey in the morning when you come back, just take a wide, take wide corners instead of just cutting around a corner. Plus someone might be walking their dog, you never know.

Number one rule is don't back down. If you've got a coyote in your yard and you open the door and you scream it, hey, and it doesn't run off and you go back inside and it's like, what's it doing now? You just back down.

You just said, hey, you can stay in my yard as long as you want. I'm going to go back in while you chill out there, okay? So you always, you don't back down.

If one's in your yard, I'm going to go over a couple of things to help aid you because I know that it's extremely difficult to go after a coyote, scream at a coyote. Many people think it's going to come after them and stuff like that, but they average the biggest, maybe what 40-something pounds at the most, a large male. If you think about it, if an average 150-pound person, you're three times bigger than that thing, three times bigger.

And they're super smart and they have no predators. So why are they going to go after something that's three times bigger than them when they're opportunistic that just go after little things, right? So if you're going out by yourself and you're scared, don't be scared.

You know, I tell people just be aware, don't be scared, okay? We're going to go over the little dogs and stuff like that, okay? All right, you stand tall, wave your arms, stomp your feet.

That works well, especially in the fall when there's leaves all over the ground. I was walking my dog. I got about a 45-pound dog.

She's a little chubby. She should be probably five pounds less than that, maybe six pounds less. Anyways, we were walking.

I live near Tedesco on the Marblehead Swampscot line. And a lot of times we'll see a certain coyote and it's usually going by. And this fall, when I was walking my dog, I seen it go by and there's leaves on the ground.

I just started going like this to the leaves and that thing just took off. It was scary. My dog was like, what the heck are you doing?

But I'm sure she smelled them and stuff like that. Try to use common words together. Like say if some people are really good at hazing and they scream, hey, get away.

And that's like the words they learned where it's like, hey, get away, instead of everybody using different terminology and stuff like that. Talk to your neighbors. If you and your neighbor are close and you always have a coyote in your yard, communicate with your neighbor saying, hey, the coyote's here.

We're going to go out in three, two, one, both of you just go out screaming, acting crazy. The crazier you act, the more it's going to want to leave. And the more you do it, the more it's going to be like, yeah, I don't want to hang out in that yard anymore.

That person is nuts. And that's what you want them to think is you're just crazy. We'll go over that.

I'll go over that. That's a good question though. I did encounter the six pack of coyotes and I hazed the heck out of them.

They were really scared. One of them wasn't that bothered but ran off with the rest. But it is scary.

And again, I do work with wolves. So when they came running and I saw them, I was kind of like, it's not that bad. They're not so big.

Plus, I know how they act, their behavior and stuff like that. Again, I'm three times bigger than all of them, even though there's a whole bunch of them. I didn't have a little dog with me.

I didn't have any dogs. So I wasn't worried at all just because I have experience with them. The more you experience hazing and the more you see them run off, the more you're going to do it.

Like when I first realized, when I scared my first coyote, I was like, wow, that thing was like a squirrel. They acted just like a squirrel. They were just sitting there.

When you chase after or scare it or whatever, it just goes running off like a squirrel. They're scared of people. We'll go over the ones that are habituated and there's issues with them going around people and stuff like that.

But this is on the average of the average coyote that doesn't have that issue right now. Throwing in something is very effective. When I was walking two little dogs one time, I did see two.

And they were about probably 15, 20 feet away from me and they were following me. I didn't have any hazing things. I forgot them.

And it was during the day. And so I picked up a handful of rocks and I just tossed them in their direction and all of them just, the rocks just scattered all around. And they ended up backing up another 10, 15 feet.

Still followed me, but they kept that distance because I threw something at them. If you got a poop bag or something like that, whip it at them. They're going to leave.

So if you ever throw something, go back and get it. Don't leave your poop bag. All right?

Air horns. You can get them. You can go to Walmart and get yourself a super duper hurt your ears one.

You know, if you're scared to go out on your porch and scare off a coyote, go out there with one of these and just blare it. Your neighbors would be more upset than the coyote actually. Because it is so loud.

These are like maritime, like boat ones. All right? Then you got the medium sized ones that's good to stick in your pocket that if you're going around, works on packs, six packs or whatever, how many there are.

Then you have a little teeny itty bitty one you can keep in your car, keep in your purse. These if it's old, I wouldn't trust it that much, especially if it's a cheap one. Spend a couple extra bucks on something that works well.

Okay? Let those work well. Flashlights.

I've been trying to haze with flashlights to get them scared of flashlights, especially strobes or just a flashlight that's moving around. I'm trying to get them to fear people walking their dogs with flashlights. So they're extremely smart.

They're like dogs. I used to be a dog trainer. And I realized that if you consistently do something, a dog will remember it.

The coyotes are super smart. They're going to remember stuff. So I try to do that as much as possible.

And then there's the whistle that you get. They're pretty loud. They're really loud.

So like I said, when you haze a coyote, hold on to your dog's leash. Because the last thing you want is to blow your whistle or blow the horn and your dog will freak out and run off. And then all of a sudden he's loose and there's coyotes.

Okay? Most dogs do get away, especially medium-sized ones. I mean, look how many loose dogs there are online.

When someone's like, oh, we've seen a little dog or a medium-sized, there's a French bull dog running around the park during the day, the other day, and it was there for a while. And it's opportunistic. Coyotes are opportunistic.

They're just lucky that they're not in that area. So next time you see a loose dog online and laying in swamp scot or whatever, just realize when it finally gets home or whatever, you'll be like, oh, look, it got out there. It wasn't attacked.

It wasn't looked upon and preyed upon and stuff like that. The dog was lucky. A lot of times they get away.

We had times where dogs would be walking off leash in a park area, like a trail area, and all of a sudden the dog would get chased off by a coyote and run. And I would get a call from somebody probably five, six, seven blocks away saying that there's a dog on my porch and he's scared. So I go pick him up and just the way they act, it's like he's like scared as heck because he was just chased by coyotes.

So if you don't ever take your dog off leash, especially in areas with coyotes, just plain and simple, it's just not worth it. It's not. The only time you shouldn't haze a coyote is if you suspect rabies.

The reason being is because they're not acting right. They're not all there. This one was online to where it was the one going up to the patio window trying to bite the window.

That's the thing with animals with rabies that have rabies is they like to chew on things. Like a lot of times if I pick up, and rabies is rare. It's very rare to where I haven't had a rabid bat yet.

I've had 15 tested over the past four or five years and all of them came back negative. But I did pick up a couple of raccoons that did have rabies. There was actually one that bit a dog.

The dog went in the backyard and it was just going around in circles and biting everything. It had, his lips were all destroyed from just biting on stuff. There's something in their head going that just makes them want to bite stuff.

So anytime you see teeth on a coyote, they don't do that. They don't growl like a dog. They don't do that.

So anytime you see the teeth of a coyote, you got to say, hey, this thing might have rabies and don't go after it. That's why I like when I said when I showed up at that, the coyote that was hit by a car and I didn't know was hit by a car and I saw its teeth, I see bright white teeth. I'm like, you know, I'm going to leave this guy alone.

I'm not sure. It was later in the night. So I left, but it turned out that it was broken.

Yeah, you'd be able to tell. You'd be able to tell. Stumbling, walking around in circles, just acting all weird.

Just call animal control. Animal control needs to come out. Police need to come out and take care of that thing.

Aggressive hazing on bold and unresponsive coyotes. Those are the ones where you do go outside and they're standing in the lawn and you scream at them or whatever and they don't move. Those are the ones that are just like, yeah, I've had that done to me.

You're not going to bother me. You're scared of me. You're going to back off and you're just going to leave and post online that I saw a coyote.

Look at it. That's usually what a coyote sees from most people is this. You know?

Whenever someone posts online and says, look at this coyote, this coyote wanted to kill me or this coyote was doing this, doing that, and the entire time they're just filming it like this, what's the coyote got to worry about, you know? If more people are doing this than screaming and yelling and chasing at them, how do you think they're going to act, right? That's why for now on if anybody posts a picture of a coyote, first thing you should ask is did you haze it?

That's what you should start asking, okay? The good one is bang pots and pans. Get yourself a big metal spoon on one of your pots, go out in the yard and just bang the heck out of it.

Scare the heck out of it. Startle it. It's really cool when they don't see you coming or hear you coming and all of a sudden you just go, ah!

They just jump and they'll do the old cartoon thing where they're trying to run but they're not going anywhere and then they go. If it's summertime, use a garden hose. If you're spraying or if one keeps coming into your yard and you know it, just have your garden hose ready, turned on, stuff like that, and when you see it, just spray it.

After a couple times, it's not going to want to get sprayed. I mean, maybe when it's like 98 degrees, but other than that, it's not going to want to repeatedly get sprayed by a hose, okay? Mace and pepper spray, which is legal now in Massachusetts, right?

I suggest that you get the stream spray with the gel that sticks the stuff. Don't ever get the one that does the cloud mist because you're just going to get you and your dog, okay? Always have your mace.

They sell nice little cases for them and stuff like that. Always have your whistle or whatever hazing device you have, attach that little loop. That way when you see a coyote for the first time and you're scared to death and you freeze and your whistle I think is in this pocket, I think it's in that pocket, my mace, where did I put it?

It's right there, okay? So that's what I do with these whistles. I just tell people to tie them off onto something, okay?

That way it's right there and you become an expert after a while. I didn't start saying charging after coyotes until MassWildlife started saying it because I didn't want people to actively go after coyotes and stuff. But if you charge at a coyote, it's going to jump up and want to run away, okay?

But if you charge at them and then back up, you just back down, all right? If you run up and, ah, that crazy, it usually helps. When you have a little dog with you, it's a little bit different, all right?

Especially if you've got a little tiny dog, all right? I've had times where I had a little dog and the coyote would look at me, be a little scared, look at the dog and just kind of go like this and then when I'd startle it, it'd look up at me again, kind of walk around and look at the dog and just go into a trance. So that's what they're doing.

You've got to get them out of that trance. You've got to carry something. You're spraying them with the mace, you know?

If you have a pack of coyotes and they surround you or whatever and you've got mace that's a stream and a gel and good luck when you get back to your den, all right? The thing is, is the coyotes are going to be fine. The things I'm telling you, the coyotes are going to be fine, you know?

Or if you use something that's loud and, oh, my poor little dog's ears. It's like, what do you want, the coyote or the dog having the hurt ears for the night? You know what I'm saying?

You have to make a decision. They will run away. I've chased almost every single coyote there is around here.

Every single one. And I love doing it. I love doing it.

They know me. They know me. Bomb bags.

I don't know really how much wildlife will feel about this, but at the same time, there are people that have little tiny dogs. If someone calls and says there's a coyote in a certain area and I drive around and I see an elderly woman walking a little tiny dog like that, and I'm like, holy smokes. Holy smokes.

And I'll pull right up to them and be like, hey, there's a coyote in the area. I'm looking for it. I don't want you to be scared, but just, there's one in the area.

If you're walking a little dog and you see a coyote, you pick up your dog. It doesn't matter if your dog's barking its head off or wants to bite you. You pick up the dog like this and you don't put it down and you walk home, okay?

You walk home. You don't put it down because that coyote might follow you and you not know it and you put your little princess down, you know? So you don't want to do that.

Here, I'm going to go over this guy right here, okay? That's what you need is this. We'll talk about it.

But bomb bags. I'm actually going to set one off, okay? They're called bomb bags, but all it is is pretty much like a Capri Sun drinky box.

You ever put one on the ground and stomp on it? Or if you ever take a shopping bag, fill it up with a little bit of air about the size of a baseball and go, like that? It's the same thing.

And this, I think, will help a lot of people who are scared to haze and are just walking. And if you would like some, I'll give you a handful. You can probably suggest your practice with some because it's kind of like one of those compress, cold compresses where it has a little bag inside the bag to where you pop it and you've got to shake it and it gets cold and you put it on like that.

The thing is if you are scared and you pop it and you shake it like that and throw it, it's just going to fill up and not go off, okay? But I'm going to show you that they're not super loud, but they would be effective if you're walking your dog. And if you're sensitive with your ears, just cover your ears, it's fine.

But I'm going to show you that it's not going to immediately explode, so you've got to shake it really good, okay? So if you see a coyote and it's over there and you're scared, you pull your bomb bag out of the pocket, you take it and you shake it really good and you throw it over to them and you walk away with your dog. See how much time you have?

Hopefully. There it is, okay? You carry two or three of those, that's going to startle the coyote, right?

And after that happens, as you're going away, you're taking out another one, pressing it and shaking it. You see how long it took? That way you don't press it, because I can take one, set it off on my hand and it's not going to hurt me, okay?

It's going to hurt my ear, but it's not going to hurt my hand. It's just kind of like baking soda or vinegar inside of a little bag, okay? That's all it is.

Most of the props I have are kids' toys, okay? People are going to laugh at some things that I pull out, but I've used them on coyotes and scared the living crap out of them and I still had ringing in my ears from using it and it's just a kids' toy, okay? So those are kids' toys and they're called bomb bags and they're a novelty item.

So if you'd like a bunch, I'll give you a bunch and I recommend you practice with them to make sure, because this time's the work. When I first did it, I didn't shake it up enough because I was a little nervous, but as you can see, you still have plenty of time. Coyote's going to be a little ways from you, you're going to shake it, you're going to put it on the ground, it's going to be like, what was that?

And then it may come over, but I seriously doubt it will, because you're throwing something at it and then when it goes off, it's going to startle the heck out of it and by that time, you already had another one going. Go home, put your dog away and go pick it up. Don't leave it, because the last thing I need is Swampscot having a problem with all these silver bags everywhere.

That's the last problem I need, all right, and it's just going to make the issue worse and it's just going to destroy a good idea. So, if you do it, you're going to spook the coyote, the coyote is opportunistic, they usually don't hang out in areas, especially if they're spooked, if you spook the hell out of it with that and it runs off and you go home, it's not going to be sitting there waiting for you, especially when you don't have a dog, right? You just go, pick it up, don't, you know, it says it irritates the skin and stuff like that, but I'm sure if you get it all over your hands and leave it on there, it's going to do that, but just go back with a little, even a poop bag and pick it up, put it in the poop bag, throw it away, all right?

You can order them online, you can buy them like by the dozen or a pack of 80 of them, okay? And I would suggest just using them for emergencies with coyotes and that's it. Don't keep them in extreme heat or let them freeze up.

I've had some that freezed up in the car that I left and 50-50, 50-50, it worked, so don't let them freeze, but it's, I will sit up, I will lay in bed at night trying to figure out ways to help people and people will say something online and I'm like, oh, how can I do that? And, you know, I'll go through stores, I'll go through the kids' parts, I'll go to all sorts of places and just look for something that would work. Another thing that would work is these guys, right?

You know, the birthday, right? Three dollars for a pack of these and a whole bunch of things. You got stuff like this, you know?

Even things you can give to your kids so you can all go out and have a family hazing thing and, you know, scare the heck out of them. This thing I'm about to show you, people are going to laugh, but I'll tell you what is, it's three times louder than that. It's this guy and they're legal.

You know the little snap caps? You put them in there. These guys right here, it's four dollars at a Walmart, right?

And it comes with a whole bunch of them. You have eight. I've already set one off.

My ear still hurts a little bit from earlier today. I'm not going to do it. But this thing is three times louder than that and if you would go out in your porch or keep this, and it's orange, you're not going to scare anybody.

Nobody's going to think you have a gun and stuff like that. But you're going to pull it out and just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. That thing's going to run, okay?

Simple, silly toys. Yeah, yeah. It can be all decked out like a commando.

Yeah. All right. Again, I go everywhere, right?

I went up to the fireworks place. It's illegal to take something that's an explosive to throw at an animal and stuff like that. Especially they make these snap caps, right?

Adults, you know the little snaps that you throw on the ground and they snap? Well, they make adult ones that are like firecrackers, okay? If you would take a handful of those.

But I don't recommend those and I'm not going to give those out. But they are extremely effective and they are legal. But I don't think that they're humane on a coyote.

Because they may come up and try to bite on one. But if you were to take a handful of those and just toss them up in the air, bang, bang, bang, bang. All right?

So, but just one of the things that I saw but I'm not going to do. The mass wildlife would not like that. And I don't think the bomb bags are dangerous at all.

You know, little kids things. I could set one off on my hand and it may get some of the chemical on me. I'll just wash my hand off but it's not going to do anything.

I mean, come on. It's just going to help you. These guys, I think, are cool.

You know, the little party streamer things that you pull and a little confetti. Well, this shoots out 14 feet. So, probably to around you.

Or if I would pop this and make a pop sound and all these streamers would come out 14 feet. Still stay attached to it. And you just roll, the thing would run off.

I mean, it's, they don't know what the heck that is. All right? It's kind of like those gender reveal things.

I'm not going to do it. But you would just take the string. If you were to pull it, all right?

A pop sound would scare it. And all of a sudden, all this stuff going all over the place. And the best thing is it stays attached where you can just roll it up, okay?

Phantom fireworks in New Hampshire. $1.99, 25% off. And I think I have enough for everybody to take one home.

Again, don't leave a mess. The last thing I need is for people complaining that there's trash everywhere. Plus, the amount of times you run into coyotes is not that often.

You know, if you're running into a coyote every day, then you call me, okay? My slides. It's so much fun here.

Okay. Trash day, all right? Swampscot actually has been doing pretty decent.

Nahant, actually, they do a really good job of containing their trash. I noticed that some towns kind of lack it. And whenever it snows out and it's the day of trash and it's already picked up, when I go out early in the morning looking for trash driving around, there's areas to where it's trash day.

And there's all these prints that are going up to the trash. And they're all coyote, okay? So if you can, I know that sometimes the trash comes super early and it's convenient to put it outside.

But if you're a coyote scared to come in your yard, and most people keep their trash out and put it out during the day, there's less chance that everybody's trash out at night is going to not bring in all these coyotes, okay? And if you have a neighbor that has trash that's piling over and falling over and always getting into, be like, hey, every week, the coyotes know that you have trash everywhere, okay? And it's a food source.

You got to eliminate the food source. This is actually a Swampscot trash can. I asked the guy if I could take a picture of it.

He had a bungee cord on it. Just be careful if you use a bungee cord, because if you get used to doing it, that thing will hit you right in the eye, all right? So it's dangerous.

Just be careful. You can always put something heavy on top of it. But that's if something is trying to get into your trash can.

I mean, those trash cans are actually pretty good. Recycling bins, make sure your food is completely washed out of the stuff. You know, if you have cat food, dog food cans, and you're kind of lazy and not get all the cat food out, and you put it out, it's an open bin.

They're coming after that food, okay? Less trash, less rodents, and less coyotes. Raccoons are pretty smart.

The squirrels are pretty good at getting in there, doing a hole and stuff. It's a perfect example how it should be at the beaches, especially in the summertime, to where they should have the automatic locking lids. Some raccoons could still get in there.

There's YouTube videos of those. However, a coyote is not going to be able to knock that over or get inside. So compost piles and bins.

If you have a compost in your backyard, you're most likely drawing something in because of the smell. Try to secure it with fencing around it. You can build a small little coop for your recycling compost area.

These guys right here. I've been paying attention to when the people come and pick them up, if they just leave it unlocked. 90% were locked after they were picked up, which was great because I've witnessed a coyote going around trying to knock some over, all right?

They're trying to knock it over. So if you run into the guy who does it or the woman who does it, just ask, hey, could you make sure that you're locking the lids? Especially with the windstorms and some people don't take them in.

I've seen a couple with the lids open on the ground. So just keep them locked. Peperica or crushed pepper.

Coyotes, raccoons, raccoons hate it, all right? If you were to take it and make sure it's not going to rain for a day or two, sprinkle it around your trash can, sprinkle it around your compost area, sprinkle it around a tree that a raccoon keeps crawling up and going into your roof area. The rats, everything hates it.

Everything hates the peperica, okay? So if you can keep things away from your house, you're going to be keeping coyotes away because a coyote comes through there and be like, there's never any food around here. I'm not going to bother coming around.

Why is he going to bother coming, right? You could sprinkle it in bird feeders. The birds, their sense of smell isn't what people think.

If you have a baby bird on the ground that fell out of a nest, you can pick it up and put it back in the nest with your bare hands. The mom's not going to be like, that's human, right? Their sense of smell isn't what we think.

So birds don't mind it in their bird feeder. And as it drops down, I'll go over bird feeders, but as it drops down, so is the peperica, which is keeping the rats away, which is keeping the coyotes away. Because the small rodents are going after the food that drops and that's bringing in the coyotes and the turkeys.

Use waste-free food, right? They sell seeds that are already unshelled. So there is not a whole bunch of waste on the bottom of the ground.

And this is if you have a bird feeder. I'm not really anti-bird feeder, even though it does cause problems and stuff. But there are people who do not leave their house because they can't.

And that's the only interaction that they have with wildlife. I've met lots of people like that, to where it's like terrible that a neighbor was complaining and they had to take it down for some reason. And they're crying, you know.

It's tough. So I'm not anti-bird feeder. But at the same time, if you're going to have one, use waste-free food.

You can put a catch pan on the bottom. A really good thing to use is a kitty litter box, big one. The biggest one you can get.

If you put it underneath your bird feeder, it'll catch all the feed. If you get rid of that every day, every other day, there's no feed on the ground. There's nothing to get, okay?

Avian flu can spread through bird feeders. It's been isolated lately. I've had probably six or seven, maybe nine birds that tested positive for avian flu over the last year and a half.

It's died down, but it's still out there. And it's in small areas. The last one I got was a peregrine falcon on the causeway in Nahant that had avian flu.

I actually picked up one two years ago, right before all of it started. So it was like almost exactly in the same area because the other one was across the water on the Linway area, okay? If you see a bird, I didn't want to put it on here, the video of a bird with, I call it like Parkinson's because it's getting seizures and it's like moving around and it's like this.

It's neurological, okay? When I went to go pick it up the police, not to get on the Nahant police, but they learned a lesson to where they had it in their office in a box and they said, hey, we got a peregrine falcon. We think it was hit by a car.

And as soon as I opened up the box, I was like, yeah, it's avian flu. It was very, very obvious. It takes about a week, two weeks for the test results to come back from Tufts Wildlife Clinic.

They'll take any bird to test. And it came back positive for avian flu. I'm sad because it's a beautiful bird.

Again, I had to post this on here. Don't feed wildlife. Just don't do it.

How to deter coyotes from your yard. If you're, they're super smart. If they're coming through your yard all the time and you have statues around and you move them one night, they're going to come and be like, what's going on here?

But if you leave it for weeks on end, they're going to be like, yeah, this has been like this every single night for the last week, week and a half. So I'm just going to go through here. That's why in Halloween time, I hardly see them or hardly get calls for coyotes.

Especially everybody's worried, oh, kids are walking around in costumes on Halloween night. That scares the living crap out of them. You know, all these monsters, creatures, people go up into porches and just, you know, be creative.

They're super smart. They're super smart. Use that against them, right?

Reduce hiding places for wildlife on your property by trimming back bushes and shrubbery. Some people like not picking up their leaves, not doing this because they want bugs, bees, all that stuff. That's fine.

That's great. But if you're scared of coyotes and don't want coyotes coming in your yard because you're scared of them or don't want them coming in there, trim back your bushes. Because if these were full bushes, there's plenty of places for them to hide, okay?

We'll go over lighting in a second, but it's the next slide. But just if you had a lot of lighting, you'd be able to see everything in there, right? Plus, animals are not burying and living in there.

So you don't have all these rabbits living underneath your bushes to where you come out of your house and they're always running by. The coyotes are going to know that they're there. And if he gets one, he's going to come back to make sure that there's no more, okay?

So trim back, expose everything, and yeah, it'll help. Again, have plenty of light. Motion sensor lights are great.

A lot of people have motion sensor lights that will go on and the ring camera will go. I have somebody that sends me some from the neck and marble head. Great footage.

Usually, it's in the middle of the night. That's the thing. After like 10 o'clock at night, don't go outside with your dog.

You know, let the coyotes go and do what they go do with the rats and everything. They got all night to do it, okay? So just let them do what they do in the middle of the night.

You know, if you're going to go off for a walk in the middle of the night, don't worry, they're not going to bother you. They just, they don't want anything to do with you. But still haze them.

Anytime you see one, scare the hell out of it. This is cool. It only works in the summertime though because the hose that attaches to it will freeze in the wintertime.

But you get it, you get it like 60, 70 bucks online. You put it in your yard and you connect your hose. I think it takes batteries and there's ones that have solar.

To anything that comes into your yard, as soon as it senses, some people set it up for package stealing people. You know, there's videos of that. So this will keep everything out of your yard all summer, okay?

I love Halloween props. They are the best things. This guy right here, I have one of these to where it motion sensors all night, middle of the night.

You walk up to it, it'll stand up and move back. What you can do is you can pile empty cans on there, right? You stack empty cans, Coke cans or whatever.

So when it goes up, there's extra things falling down and all this chaos going on, right? You can order something online, 50, 60 bucks. Again, 100 bucks will get you something really good.

I suggest that you get something that's somewhat weatherproof and put a tarp on top of it to prevent rain because it is electrical and it runs usually through a cord. But you can decorate it. You can get a wolf's mask, throw it on there, something super scary.

You can drape it with all sorts of stuff and just make it look scary as heck, all right? If you have a coyote that you know is cutting through your yard, set it around the corner, knowing that as soon as it comes around the corner, it's going to scare the hell out of them. That's the trick of scaring the living daylights out of them so they don't want anything to do with your yard or you.

This is some more. This guy moves back and forth. This guy looks like he's coming out of the ground.

Yeah, especially after Halloween, those stores, those, I forget what they're called, spooky whatever. It's Spirit of Halloween. Yes, Spirit of Halloween.

It's usually 50% off. You know, you go in there and you have cool ones. They had a huge rat one time that scared the heck out of me.

I was walking by and it just came, it shot out like four or five feet. It was like, ah, its eyes lit up. You set something up like that and it's going to scare the heck out of everything.

Um, you don't want rabbits living in your yard. A lot of people have nests in their yards and stuff like that. One, you're going to, the lawnmower is going to get them.

The weed whacker is going to get them. Every year I get tons of people call and say, my cat got one, my dog got one. I weed whacked one because it was in their yard and didn't know.

You can get something like this, sprinkle it in your yard. It's natural stuff. The rabbits don't like it, but you got to do it in February, which is a little late, maybe.

Also works as pinwheels. You put pinwheels all around, especially the reflective ones. Not a solid color one.

The reflective ones will constantly change colors and all sorts of stuff while the sun moves. If you move those around, especially if you set them up early spring and you move them around often, no rabbit's going to be like, yeah, I'm going to go plant my babies in your yard. You can get things like this.

You can get things like this that have bobble heads. I'm a big fan of the bobble head guy. The wind blows, their head moves a little bit.

But here's the thing. You set it up on a porch somewhere up high so they see the silhouette because that's how they see birds of prey. Usually your birds of prey are sitting up there and they see the silhouette.

So you don't want to put it eye level. You want to put it up high on top of your garage looking over something. Get yourself a pair of these guys and a hawk and you switch them out.

I had one guy complaining about rats and I just stopped by and he's like, I was like, have you ever tried a fake owl? I was like, yeah, I have one right there. It was all faded, had bird poop all over it.

Things flying right by just because he left it there. You got to move it around. You got to take it down.

You got to make it act like it's a real animal. All you got to do is in early spring and after everything is mated and built their nests, you can take it down, not to worry about it. It keeps things from living in your yard, which keeps coyotes from coming in your yard.

Because the coyotes will go right up and I'm not trying to be too graphic, but a lot of times they'll go in there, they'll scoop some and just run off. And there'll still be a couple left, which those are the ones I get. Some of them are injured, some aren't.

But I know for a fact that that coyote is going to come back to that hole. Any rabbit will not go back to the hole when they know it's disturbed. If they popped out or you did something and they came out, you can pack them back in, try to make it as nice as possible.

But a rabbit will leave its nest when it knows it's compromised. It only comes to the nest twice. Once at dawn, once at dusk to feed their babies, packs them back up and leaves.

That way nothing is attracted to their babies. Scare tape. Scare tape's pretty cool stuff.

I did forget the rolls that I have. But anyways, if you have a porch on your railings, you could just take a couple pieces, tape them up there, tie them down, make sure it's not windy. If they blow off, go get it.

Don't litter. What it does is it flaps in the wind, scares things. You can put them on sticks, tie them to sticks, put the sticks in the ground.

The wind will blow and like some people do it in their gardens to keep things away. Most things away, especially birds. But the thing is, you got to move it, right?

Went over those guys. If you get a back porch that's exposed or has an open area, most likely they have something that's want to come in there and live. Put lattice.

A lot of times they'll shoot through the bottom. So you want to get some kind of mesh wire and put it right above, probably about a foot above. And then a foot into the ground and an L shape like this.

Say if this is your shed coop or your deck, you put it up here and you do an L shape. This is all dirt. So when the animal starts digging down, they're thinking they're going to go under, but they're not, they're not, they're not.

I'm out of here, right? If you know something's already living under there, do that to the whole area, except for a small section. You get your one-way door.

Don't do it during baby season because you might be evicting a mom and you're going to know, especially if you have a trail cam and you take that trail cam and you set it up right in front to make sure something comes out, right? I kind of feel bad sometimes when skunks come out and they can't get back in and they're trying all night and they're like, huh, I got to give up. I don't do it during baby season at all.

But this will prevent things from living in your backyard and attracting coyotes attracted to it. If they smell a skunk, and you can smell a skunk when it's living under your shed, they're going to come back there and they're going to look. That's when you scare the hell out of them.

Coyotes in golf courses. This is all golf courses, not just local ones. The most are private, right?

Possibly not being hazed because it's kind of cool while you're playing golf and this coyote's in the distance and you're telling your buddy, hey, check it out, I was playing golf and this coyote's all around, right? Possibly being fed because people are in and out of there and not everybody's like, hey, I shouldn't feed it. They're having a beer or two and, hey, here's a chicken finger, something like that, right?

Hazing plant will be desensitized to people. So when they grow up, especially if their den is on there and they grow up and they come down into the town and stuff like that, how scared do you think they are going to be, people? They're not.

They're not going to be scared at all. Work with your local golf courses to come up with the hazing plan. I worked with Tedesco and they did a really good job with fixing all the holes in the area, putting up my signs, all the crew have this.

They're going to text me if they see any and stuff like that. They're just, they did a good job at hazing them and stuff like that. So they've been doing a good job.

So I'm pretty proud of them. Do coyotes hunt in packs? Years ago, when someone would say, I saw two coyotes together, I'd be like, yeah, right, yeah.

They got smart. They got smart and they realized if we work together, we can sometimes get something together, okay? And it's over the years, it became two and three.

And 90% of the time though, they're by themselves because they're opportunistic for small mammals and they're not going to want to catch a rat and have to share it with their brother and sister, right? So majority of the time they're cruising on by themselves. Okay, they may be just on a run with the whole pack, stuff like that because what I've noticed is I've heard of three people being surrounded by coyotes in different areas, probably the same pack.

But at the same time, nobody was attacked, I don't think. And none of the dogs were attacked. None were attacked.

So those three, those people surrounded by all those coyotes, they just left, right? Most coyote bites on dogs, it's just been a single coyote. Sometimes two, but most of the time one.

These guys, a guy was cool and sent me this video. There's a chicken coop, there's one, there's two. But he has a really good secure, that's his ducks.

It's really, really, really secure. Salem is over there, we're in Marblehead. So they're coming from Salem.

They're coming from Salem to Marblehead, to Swampscot and to Marblehead. And God knows if they're going out to Nahaan. The only way to know is to collar them or mark them somehow to know who travels where and when.

So all these bites and all this stuff going on, it might have just been one or two coyotes and all the rest of the coyotes look bad. All right, domestic pets and coyotes. Times, we're going to speed it up a little bit.

Cats, cats should stay indoors. They kill wildlife. They kill a lot of things.

I get a lot of people bring me stuff that their cat is mauled. They're responsible for killing even bugs and stuff like that. So they're taking away from the coyote of something to eat, just leaving the cat.

So also, the cat could get rabies if you have a cat and you don't have it vaccinated. It may run into a raccoon that has rabies and bring rabies home. So always vaccinate your cats, always.

Dogs, lose their retractable leash. These things are terrible. They're terrible.

I've seen dogs hit by cars because people walk right up to the walkway and think that they hit the button, but they didn't. The dog keeps on going, right? It happens to Lynn a lot.

Limits your control of emergencies, leaves your dog vulnerable to dog and coyote attacks. Keep your dog by your side, never in front of you, just slightly by your side. You don't want your dog going first.

If you don't know what's around the corner, your dog's going to be the first thing going around the corner. Could be a coyote, could be another dog, okay? So never allow your dog to go around corners.

When you're walking near bushes that could actually hide something, just walk into the street, all right? Just be aware, don't be scared, just be aware of where you're walking and just make sure that you're not going by something to where it's like, I had no clue there was a coyote in there, just laying down. No phones, headphones.

You see people walking around, walking their dog like this. They know this coyote's in the area and it's just like, dude, you gotta pay attention. Have at least a whistle, attach your leash, throw something at the coyote if you don't have anything, just whatever.

A pair of keys, go back and get them. Silence your dog's metal tags. You don't want the coyotes to hear nearby.

They're super smart, right? You think by now that they know the jingle of some dog tags? You don't think they know the sound of this, all right?

Take a piece of electrical tape, any kind of tape, wrap it around. If your dog gets loose, the person that finds it can take the tape off and look, all right? You get the dog back, put the tape back on.

Rubber bands, the stores sell little silencers but they're different shapes and you're just gonna match up the shape and stuff like that. But if you just take a piece of electrical tape, tape it around, it'll be fine, okay? You want the upper hand when you walk in your dog and wanna be silent.

My dog's completely silent, I'm completely silent. We're not scared and trying to be quiet as possible. We're just quiet walking along.

So when we see a coyote, it's like, whoa, and I'm like, ah, and it runs off, right? But if you're walking along, all right? Silency dog tags.

Allows you to startle them first and get a good haze. Protective vests, all right? Seems silly.

It does seem silly but at the same time, a coyote, you usually bite on the neck. I'll bite right here, all right? There's a guy in Boston that had one of these because I'm talking to the people who created these and I actually have a 15% off code.

That I'll show in a minute. But the guy was walking his little dog like this and the dog, the coyote came along out of nowhere, bit him like that, yelped, ran off. Dog was covered in blood.

He's like, oh my goodness, my dog, my dog, you okay? And realized that it was none of the dog's blood. It was the coyote's blood.

These are made of plastic and they're just the right size to where when it bites down, it's gonna poke their mouth. They'll live. Really, they will live.

They're not gonna die from getting a little puncture on the mouth. However, when you do have this guy and this setup, you can get the attachments. I didn't put them on.

That's good for like hawks and that's like super protective. You know, if you're at the beach and you do let your dog off leash, throw one of these on because how many dogs, little dogs have been attacked by big dogs quite often, right? So also it protects your dog from birds of prey.

This canvas will prevent the claws from going in and trying to get your dog, okay? The thing is, is even though your dog has that, it's not invincible, okay? It doesn't mean they should let it run around now wherever it wants to go because you never know what could happen, right?

So always have it on the leash. It's added protection. If I'm walking a small dog and have that on, I feel a little bit better.

I feel a little bit better, right? It protects them and they don't mind it. It's super light, super light.

When I first got it and I got the package, I was like, what the heck is this? I don't remember ordering something small and when I opened it up, it was the vet and I couldn't believe how light it is because these are plastic and it's just like a hard canvas type thing and they're super light so the dog doesn't mind it and it makes them look tough, right? Imagine this guy with one walking around, okay?

We're coming to the close, okay? Anything over $10 is free shipping. These guys are like 100 bucks, okay?

It's worth it. It's worth it because when you go back, your average bill is gonna be $400 to $1,500. And like I said, I'm the animal inspector for Marblehead so I get all the bites and we had, at the end of the summer, after Nahon had a whole bunch and Swampscott had a whole bunch, we got a whole bunch.

That's why I think it's the same coyotes that were making their way down and going back, okay? Because it was like, wow. I'm like, I'm glad we don't have that problem.

Then all of a sudden, Swampscott has the problem. I'm like, oh man, I'm glad we don't have that problem. Then all of a sudden, Marblehead and Salem started getting bites.

And so who knows, it might just be one coyote that's just like, hey, this is so easy to just go out and get it, you know? The small one. The people are scared, I run up, you know?

That's all it takes is a couple times for them to do it and be like, hey, yeah, I can do that. And then they're teaching their pups that and you don't want that. So you need to haze them, pay attention and we'll come up with ways.

If you use the code DAN, you get 15% off if the lady asked me what you want for your code and I said, I don't know. She's like, what's your dog's name? I said, Sisley.

I said, people spell it all differently. So let's just do something easy. So I did DAN.

So it's good until March 14th. So you're getting free shipping and 15% off. So you're looking around 100 bucks.

It's worth it. Look at this guy, right? All right, now it's time to talk serious and it's time to, if someone wants to leave because I'm going to be talking about things that everybody wants coyotes to live with us and everybody be happy and free and rainbows and cake, okay?

Life's not like that sometimes. Sometimes things are habituated like black bears. You ever see black bears that go into people's houses and sometimes they have collars on and they're like, oh, the ranger's here to pick it up.

They're there to pick it up to euthanize it because they can't relocate. Remember, you can't relocate animals. So if you have something that doesn't get hazed, doesn't care, is super aggressive and just going around and causing a whole bunch of problems, these are the coyotes I'm talking about.

I could easily avoid that and say, everything's going to be fine and go home. But it takes me a lot of time to go to sleep because I'm thinking of certain ways because I talk to the victims. I see pictures.

Sometimes I visit the dog, you know, so I actually see the damage that some coyotes cause and it's the people are never the same. They're traumatized. They're absolutely traumatized.

Yes, we do live in the woods. Technically, if you were to zoom out on a map, the entire United States pretty much looks forest, right? However, we're technically mammals ourselves to where it's like we live amongst others, you know?

So it's like, why should we completely back down and let them do whatever they want and us not do anything because they're here as well, right? It's we have to coexist. Coexist is meeting in the middle.

It's meeting in the middle. It's not allowing something to happen and you back off and say, hey, I'm going to let you do whatever you want and I'm going to coexist with you. It doesn't work that way, okay?

So the things I'm about to talk about right now, it's just for those terrible coyotes that were causing problems over the summer. And we do believe that the coyote that the two people in Bennett Square was hit by a car because it was one hit by a car and it all stopped. All right, it all stopped.

So, but we don't know, right? We don't know. We did have some random ones here and there, some in Salem.

It's usually like this quarter mile radius around Bennett Square where we had issues in Salem, Marblehead, Swampscott. You know, Salem ACL will send me pictures and say, hey, this thing just ran up in the middle of the parking lot under the lights, stuff like that. I called the guy and the guy's like, hey, I had a retractable leash, but he was only two or three feet from me.

It's like, I'm kind of like a doctor that when you tell a doctor you only have like two beers, he's like, he times it by three and it's most likely it was five, six, seven feet away from him. I don't say that, but at the same time, it's like that's what a retractable leash does. Your dog's used to going long distances.

It's like a fishing line. If something happens, you get this thin line and it's hard to get it back, okay? So what I'm about to talk about is options and ways that other states have done, other states and a country has done it to deter just a small handful of coyotes that are just off the charts when it comes to habituated and just causing problems, very aggressive.

It's non-lethal paintball markers, okay? It's the paintball guns where you shoot paintballs, okay? Some people will call it inhumane.

However, a paintball doesn't hurt as bad as a bullet, right? Other communities across the country have had success using paintballs and clay balls. I've called California, Arizona, Canada, and I talked to people who were in the programs for years over the past couple of years, all right?

And I asked them, did the coyotes get more aggressive? And they were like, no, it actually worked. It actually worked on the ones that were super aggressive and there's some places I'll go over there because I'm gonna show proof that there was a 30% reduction in aggressive coyote calls just in one area alone.

In California, they had an area, let's see, Irving, California, Animal Services, had tremendous success deterring bold and aggressive coyotes with paintballs. They were able to track certain troublemakers as well. So imagine while everything was going on this summer, if, and I'll go over what I believe should be the rules and all that stuff, it's not just run out there like John McLean and shoot everything up.

You know, it's inhumane if you're just doing that, okay? But when I talked to them, some of them were saying our coyotes were attacking dogs on leashes and then after that, they started biting people. So when I explained our situation, what's going on, they were like, that's exactly what was before it got really bad.

And he said, that's why we decided on using the paintballs. That's why we decided on it. So I'm just throwing this out there as a problem animal control agent.

It's not a resident of Marblehead. It's not knowing Swamp Scott. It's just my opinion on, because I don't want to go through the same summer we did last summer.

I'd get calls, one time we got two in one week to where they would call and a lot of times it was the dogs off leash. We had seven coyote attacks on dogs, four off leash, three on leash, okay? And that was, you know, people weren't just posting online and stuff like that.

So that's seven. And in one week, I got two, right? So when they call and the dispatch is like, hey, we had a coyote bite.

My stomach drops. And I'm like, please don't say a person. Please don't say a kid.

Please, please. And then they say it was a dog and I'm like, not happy about it. But at the same time, I'm glad it wasn't terrible.

And none of them passed away. One of them had like a 15, $1,600 damage. Another one had $1,500 damage.

So the veterinarians are making out, to be honest. I mean, it's terrible. How much money is being spent?

It's damage. If you had beavers in a dam that's causing thousands of dollars of damage, what happens, right? Pest control comes in or trappers come in and they remove the problem.

That's what a problem animal control agent is. The thing is, is I got my license and I don't do that. And I was trying to make a new name for problem animal control agents.

A pack agents, when I got my license, I had a rehabilitator saying, why are you doing that? And I said, because it gives me options to be able to do stuff like haze coyotes. I'm allowed to.

Technically, you can hire me to haze coyotes, but I usually do it for free because I like doing it. However, I don't want last summer to happen again. This summer, I really don't.

And it just, I'm hoping that, you know, there's a group that, what's the name again? They're putting a team together that's trying to help Nahaan, trying to help Swampscot. And I encourage people to support this group because they want to come up with a community plan to where they involve the community, they involve the first responders to do long-term chronic hazing of coyotes to keep the problem down.

That's great. However, I do have a short plan program to where, like the other places, when they did do it, they only had to do it temporarily. And only after a couple of weeks, these coyotes started realizing, every time I come around people, I get hit in the butt with this super bad thing from this person running after me.

How many times do you think it's going to take that and decide I don't want to come back, right? And it's, what it would try to do is rebuild fear back into the bold, unbothered, habituated coyotes, right? That's giving them a chance because what's the next option?

We're like, Nahaan, Nahaan, it's, you know, I offered to do it for free at the end. It was just, it was too late for them to, I don't know what's going on. They're keeping it pretty quiet.

But I still would offer my services for free to possibly try something short-term while the group comes in and does long-term for all of them. Because like I said, it just might be one or two. And if you had a tag, say if this guy was biting little dogs and running off with them, and he got tagged with one color on the butt, and all of a sudden, two towns over, someone's like, I saw a coyote and it had green on its butt.

You know, you know that it's that one, right? A place up in Canada had a 30% reduction in calls. They used chalk, which I don't think that's, that's a little too hard.

Usually a paintball is a very soft plastic. They do have the coats. I mean, I honestly would allow someone to shoot me with the paintball gun with this on my back to see how much it hurts.

Because that's a thick coating, right? People are hit, they're designed for people, right? People get hit all the time.

They have little welts here and there. They have protection, right? It's, as long as you're safe and accurate, I do believe they'll be fine, right?

And it's a better option than a bullet, right? This lady, I don't totally agree with this, but she uses her dog to go on trails that dogs have been attacked by coyotes on the trail. But she has a lot of confidence in herself.

And it's just started not too long ago. They had coyotes that were just getting way out of control. And so they started the service.

So I propose a short-term, high-intensity hazing program for the troubled areas in the North Shore, followed by a long-term hazing programs to coexist with coyotes, kind of reboot the system, if you will. You will need MassWildlife's permission. They decide everything.

They say yay or nay. Communities can get together, get their representatives in their municipalities to vote on something. They vote on something, and then they ask MassWildlife, kind of like what Nahat did, right?

So the people have the power to get together and decide what they want to do. If you want to scrap this and throw it away, go ahead. Honestly, I'm just throwing it out there.

I asked each individual who did do the program if the coyotes got aggressive, and there was no aggressive. It worked, it worked. But it was short-term, and they were very careful with it.

PETA got involved where they wanted to see the records. I'll go over the best way to do it for towns so they can do it humanely, safely, and precisely. The rest of the pack will benefit from the troublesome coyotes getting this, right?

How many innocent ones you think will be killed if they didn't thin out the herd or the pack, you know? If, you know, I said to just start labeling the ones that are running around, and if they're causing problems, you know it's the certain ones, you know, it's those are the ones. All right, the use of paintball markers should only be utilized by trained officials with the permission of Mass Wildlife Fish and Game, right?

Because the last thing we want is a whole bunch of people shooting coyotes with stuff, okay? One, you're going to screw up the whole program, the whole thing we're trying to do because you're not going to do it right. You're going to get all crazy, and you're going to hurt that coyote, and you're going to get him in the eye.

And as soon as someone takes a picture and posts it online and says, look what's happened to this coyote, it's scratched, okay? So they're just going to destroy it. Officials would be animal control officers, police officers, problem animal control agents, municipalities can make those decisions.

They can create anything they want. Officials should receive training and practice with paintball markers. They should know the equipment.

They should practice off and on, just like with a service weapon. They should treat it just the same way, right? Paintball markers should be painted bright orange to avoid the confusion of a real gun, like that woman that had that one, that should be all orange.

That should be all orange. You don't want to be walking through the woods and all of a sudden you see someone with a gun and stuff. Bright orange or bright yellow and just make it look goofy as heck, right?

She should have a big old reflective vest and not look all professional. For what? Coyotes don't, they can't tell the difference.

Okay, should wear reflective vests with credentials. So if you are walking through the trails where there are coyotes or, you know, in an area to where you see it, you're not scared. You see a reflective vest and you see a bright orange gun, is that a Nerf gun?

Each town or city involved should use a specific color of paint, right? Because you don't want everybody, half these people using green, half these people using blue, you're not going to be able to keep track of stuff. So if you have one town with green, one town with orange, one town with yellow and they stick with it, you know when you see a coyote with yellow, you can look at your chart and be like, hey, that one's from Swampscot, that one's from whatever.

They traveled that far. You know, you'll be able to tell. Dispatch or police departments is notified when going out to a specific area.

Everything is logged. Every time you go out, every time you encounter one, don't encounter one, it's logged. That way if PETA wants it or if any group wants it, they can see how professional you are about it.

The more professional you are, the more the program will work, in my opinion. When going into the area, if you're doing it, be hyper aware of the surroundings. Look and listen for people.

Make a decision saying this, even though there may be coyotes here, this is not safe. They don't have dogs. It's not safe.

You have to make the call. That's why it has to be responsible people that do it. Coyotes should only be targeted in non-vital areas such as the shoulder or the hindquarters.

You don't want to hit them in the stomach. You don't want to hit them in the eye or anywhere in the face at all, right? You just take a shot.

You only use one. Actually, another thing you could do is attach metal dog tags to the paintball gun. That way, when you're moving it around, it hears the dog tags.

You're hazing it. You're not just shooting it from a distance. It's like, where did that come from?

You're looking right at it, just kind of like how I do. When I run up to a coyote, I scare the heck out of it. If I had the dog tags and jingle and it hit it in the butt, it's going to remember that.

Anytime it hears a dog tag and it's hitting the butt with that after it hears this, it's going to be like, is it that crazy guy? They're smart. Again, eye contact is extremely important.

You don't want to take long distance shots. If you can't take the shots too far and you can't make eye contact, you can't haze it, don't do it. Don't do it.

Only one or two paintballs should be used per coyote to reduce possible injury. Anytime a coyote runs from you, it'll look back. It'll run and it'll look back.

So if you're shooting it, bang, bang, bang, bang, and all of a sudden it looks back, right in the eye, okay? So you take a clean, crisp, perfect shot after you haze it. Once in the butt, that's all it takes, okay?

If you have the opportunity, two. But one or two, anything more than that is dangerous and you shouldn't be doing it. I'm just throwing it out there.

I am a problem animal control agent. It's a possibility. I'm just throwing it out there.

Well, you should saturate the area with plenty of people, but if you have these guys looking out for these guys and there's a coyote in the area and you have a couple of these guys show up in that area and able to say, hey, this guy, you need to come over to this street because it's over here. We have it blocked off. There's an opportunity right there, all right?

That's why if you hire someone outside, you got to make sure they have good credentials and is a humane person. Look how many coyotes I've risked reinjuring my shoulder. How many times I've put my, I wouldn't say life, but more limb, saving coyotes and going through all the trouble because that's what I'm trying to do right here is that, is to save the coyotes from, you know, people saying, oh, the problem starts up again and they're like, hey, let's just do it when the hunt it.

Let's do, you know, I don't want a chain reaction of that. Again, I'm moving up to New Hampshire. I don't know if I'm coming back, to be honest.

I don't like the potholes. Honestly, I don't like the potholes all around. When I'm in New Hampshire and I come back, it's just like jerks driving, cutting you off in potholes and there's a lot of animals that get hurt, right?

I would like to go to an area that was not much poison. I can help, you know, I could still help the birds down here. I'll have the paperwork to be able to receive birds from Swamp Scott.

I'll have a good communication with all the federal rehabbers that I've been working under and still helping Massachusetts in a way. But at the same time, it's like, I kind of like to retire. Even though I had a short career in animals, I'm getting kind of older and back problem, shoulder problem, and I can't be chasing and tackling coyotes and stuff like that anymore.

It's catching up to me. But yeah, these guys should be trained and it should not just be volunteers and just random people that are just like, hey, I paint ball every weekend. Let me do it.

You don't want that. No, I understand what you're saying. Okay.

A set time frame should be established when using them after, like, especially when the summertime comes and it doesn't get dark till 9.30, 9.45 p.m. at night. The great days, those are great times. Only problem is it's dark a little bit later.

So you want to make a time frame to where after a certain hour, even if someone calls you, say there's coyote in my yard, you say, tough, don't go outside and go walk your dog at 11, 12 o'clock at night. You know, what do you need to do? If you're just going out to your car, just scare it and haze it, you know.

Or you can call the group and have a, if they want to do after hour type stuff, but you need to allow them to live as well. They need to go run around and collect the rats and all that stuff and control what they're supposed to control and not be afraid even in the middle of the night of the paintball gun guy. Okay.

Wooded areas are off limits. Coyotes should feel safe in the woods. If you're going after a coyote and he runs into the woods, that's it.

He's done, he's safe. That's where you want him to go. That's where you want him to be, right?

During the day hours and while people are out, schools letting out and stuff like that, you want the coyotes in the woods. There's some trails that people walk their dogs. At the same time, it's like, if you know there's coyotes back there, don't go on those trails.

You know, take the dog somewhere else where there's more people or whatever, but you're taking a chance taking your dog in a wooded area, in this area, and especially taking it off leash. You're just risking your dog. A long-term plan should be established.

Oh, this short-term plan is a deal. I'm sorry. This is a short-term deal to deal with certain coyotes that don't respond to regular hazing.

These are the guys that just could care less or going up to people's houses or just hanging around during the day and not running off or attacking dogs, okay? A long-term plan should be established to maintain coexistence with the coyotes when and if it's done and it's controlled and it's only been a short time, those things are packed up and you allow the long-term people to take over and it should reboot the system and allow them to do it. Not everybody's gonna agree with it.

I'm gonna get some flack from some people, but at the same time, I'm not gonna know something that works and not say it. Some people see me as humane or whatever, but the things I just went over is probably the most humane way. Any coyote hit with a paintball will be fine.

They have thick coats, especially in the winter. This is what's best for the coyotes and for the community, all right? You're protecting everybody by doing it.

Habituated coyotes. Unfortunately, unfortunately, there's just like black bears. Everything is not rainbows and cupcakes, like I said, and sometimes things need to be put down.

I have had to put down or bring something to be put down that's a beautiful hawk or this or that and it's just, it has to be put down. It's all on the circumstances and it's from people feeding them and there's some people that will feed them in their backyards and leave stuff for them, try to hand feed them and stuff like that and it just destroys everything. Any coyote that's habituated, isn't responding to high-intensity hazing should be marked and then humanely euthanized by a professional.

It's, if not, you're just gonna destroy the rest of the pack by that one going around causing trouble. You tried to give it a chance. I always give animals the chance all the time.

I just had an owl hit by a car in Salisbury a couple of months ago. Brought it to Tufts Wildlife. I knew his eye was, retina was attached because it was all cloudy.

Figured it was gonna be put down. Figured he had a whole bunch of head injury. They called me up a month later saying, hey, that owl's ready to release.

We took its eye out, stitched up, it's fine to go. I felt bad because it was still winter but at the same time, this bird, this barred owl had a mate somewhere, somewhere out there and it was a full-grown one where it didn't want to be secured or an educational bird or anything of that nature. Owls hunt mostly by sound, right?

So they can hear their prey and he's still got one eye, he's fine. He had a second chance. So I'm really, really big on giving animals second chances.

So if someone calls me inhumane, I don't think so, okay? Must have authorization from Mass. Wildlife.

A mammal biologist will have to be involved to make the decisions. You just don't go, a town kid, she'd be like, hey, we're gonna catch this coyote and euthanize stuff. But you know, you call the mammal biologist and you always get permission from Mass.

Wildlife whenever it comes to wildlife, all the time, okay? I'm a rehabber. I don't have to call them for the small stuff but anything big, I have to call them.

Deer, I have to call the deer biologist. This is a big one and I will find out who does it and I will make sure that they're prosecuted and paid dearly because I don't want anybody else going around hurting coyotes. It is illegal in Massachusetts to use a projectile on wildlife, it is illegal.

Slingshots, paintball guns, all sorts of stuff that shoot at animals, it is illegal. Any municipality using paintball markers on bull or aggressive coyotes should establish bylaws with heavy fines, like a thousand, two thousand dollars and stick with it and make a, you know, put an article on the paper and say, this person was doing this and they're like, well, there we go, the town was doing it but we went over all the rules and everybody would know the rules just because officials are doing it to protect dogs and protect people doesn't mean you can go John McClane shooting up the place, okay?

John McClane is diehard, if you don't know. Bruce Willis, yeah. That's it, yes, yes, I'll answer questions if you have any questions, I'll try to answer.

Oh, I forgot one thing, these are really cool, you can buy them in a 12 pack and if you hang them around your yard, they're really cool. So it's like $15, $10 for a pack of 12, okay? Move them around, yeah, I forgot about that guy.

Okay, anybody got a question?

[Speaker 7] (1:40:31 - 1:40:46)
I have a question, it seems to me, I've been around 70-something years, I don't remember coyotes when I was a kid, walking down Barrett Road or, yeah, I used to have, you know, what's changed in our environment?

[Speaker 1] (1:40:46 - 1:41:44)
It is happening everywhere, it is actually happening everywhere because animals, we're building, right? And we're taking away resources, so all these animals that would come out in the middle of the night now only have half, a third of the food that they usually have. Some of them are like, hey, if I go during the day and everybody else is sleeping, I could find me some squirrels, which squirrels go to sleep at night, so that's one food that they don't get when they go out at night, squirrels are asleep in their nests, they knock right out.

So there's available food during the day, so that's one of the reasons and it's just, it's the same thing with raccoons, people are seeing raccoons everywhere and stuff like that, a lot of times, they lost their homes or they're just looking for extra food and it's, again, until we get GPS callers or some kind of marker that's going on, we'd be able to track to see how much there are, where they're going, who they are, to that nature, so I don't know if I answered it, but that's my answer.

[Speaker 8] (1:41:45 - 1:41:55)
I don't have a pet, but I have little grandchildren and a baby niece and such, are they in danger? I'm afraid to let them be out at all.

[Speaker 1] (1:41:56 - 1:42:42)
Here's the thing, with predators, even as human beings, we have predators, there's predators in every aspect of our lives, in the ocean, people, this and that, when it comes to having your little kids outside, especially in an area where there are coyotes and there have been dog attacks and stuff like that, don't let them play out by themselves, that's the reason why I brought up the project I just brought up, is to actually prevent something like that from escalating, because there were some areas in California that was the problem, they had the same problem we have now, and then all of a sudden, a kid or two was attacked, so that's why they got the program out, so my kids are grown, they're in their 20s, it's like I'm kind of glad I don't have little tiny kids, to be honest, to be 100% honest, so I can't say yes, I can't say no.

[Speaker 4] (1:42:43 - 1:43:10)
Okay, let's say we were to initiate one of these paintball programs here, how do we go about that, because the bottom line here is that they don't have any predators, and they're multiplying, and they're dangerous, and those of us who are here who have pets, certainly respect your techniques, but it does sound like that paintball thing might be successful.

[Speaker 1] (1:43:10 - 1:43:13)
It wouldn't hurt to try to...

[Speaker 4] (1:43:13 - 1:43:18)
How do we initiate that? Who pays for the devices and the paintball?

[Speaker 1] (1:43:18 - 1:43:39)
It would be your town, it would be your town, it would be the animal control department, it would be your police department, it should be underneath the police department, and ran by the chief and the town administrator, and they should be making the decisions. It's not expensive, and it can be easily controlled in a very, very professional way, with heavy, heavy fines if anybody else does it.

[Speaker 4] (1:43:39 - 1:43:48)
Okay, so we go to the town administrator in Swanscot, for example, and make the proposal, and he has to say A on A?

[Speaker 1] (1:43:48 - 1:44:15)
Yeah, that's how democracy works, right? People get together, they decide on something, look at Nahant, look at what happened to Nahant. They could have easily said, hey, let's try some kind of paintball program before we take out all these coyotes, because we don't know which ones are which, so that's the first...

I mean, I know there's gonna be upset people tomorrow, but at the same time, I can't go home and say, you know what, I should have mentioned that idea to where it's like it probably could help. You know what I'm saying?

[Speaker 4] (1:44:16 - 1:44:22)
Is there any possibility of a capture, doodah, and release?

[Speaker 1] (1:44:22 - 1:45:42)
I don't think so. To be honest, I actually would think that would be a great idea on an island of some sort. Mother's Vineyard just started having coyotes on their island, and I went over there, and I talked about the basic stuff, and 90% of the people even haven't seen a coyote, but they've been popping up on cameras.

One lady did have an incident with one, but she does live near a heavy wooded area. Mother's Vineyard's massive, and it's a lot of land. It's like 100 square miles.

So the spay and neuter thing, that's something that, you know, do some research, and if you think it may work, get some people together and request it. Mass wildlife has to decide that. When it comes to spay and neutered on animals like that, I work at Wolf Hollow, right?

All the wolves are spayed and neutered, every single one. I talked to the director. I was like, hey, is there any problems in breeding season, stuff like that?

They're like, no. We just don't allow new volunteers to go in, even they've been there for six, seven, eight months to go in with the parents, with the babies during breeding season. They're just smart.

They think about it, but there hasn't been an issue to where it's like, wow, they're going crazy because they're spayed and neutered. I'm not a biologist. I didn't go to school for stuff like that.

All of my stuff is hands-on, you know, stuff like that. That's my opinion on that to where they have it with wolves. Yeah, it's tough.

It's tough with that one.

[Speaker 3] (1:45:44 - 1:45:57)
I just want to reflect on what she said. Do you feel as though they are multiplying, like she said, or is it more like we're going, like you said, into the territory building?

[Speaker 1] (1:45:58 - 1:46:46)
I think it's a little bit of everything. Because like I said, there's been several hit by cars the past year. There's ones that I remember driving with somebody.

We hit something, and I looked in the mirror, and it was a dog. But then we seen some other coyotes running over, and it ran up. And later that night, I looked.

I called the police to make sure there wasn't a dog loose or in the area or hidden area. I couldn't find anything. And the next morning, I looked around again.

That thing went underneath the car and under the wheel and stuff like that, got up and going. So that was just, it happens all the time with the coyotes get hit by cars. So that is their biggest prey, is the vehicles.

But we are taking up land. Look how many condos we're building. When's the next one going up?

When are we knocking down a whole area of woods and building something where 200 people live? You know, there's less places to go.

[Speaker 3] (1:46:47 - 1:46:59)
Would you say that they're just more visible? It's not that they're multiplying, but they're more visible because of the development and also that people like to go in the woods more?

[Speaker 1] (1:47:00 - 1:47:32)
Yes, that is a possibility. And especially after the COVID lockdown, stuff like that, more people are outdoors more. Again, we've taken away a lot of their food.

So more are out during the day than at night. Because it used to be a couple of years ago, people like, oh, I saw a coyote. I think it has rabies.

I saw it during the day. Or I saw a raccoon. During the day, it has rabies.

And it's like, was it walking a straight line? Yes. Does it walk through the same area all the time?

Yes, it doesn't have rabies. Something with rabies, which Walker H. loses its mind.

So yes, that would be correct.

[Speaker 3] (1:47:32 - 1:47:58)
Paula, just to address, I think because you had your paintball presentation near the end, people think that that's what we should do in Swan Spot. But in your opinion, do you think that we're at the point that we've actually done heavy duty hazing of the coyotes in Swan Spot?

[Speaker 1] (1:47:58 - 1:48:45)
I don't, to be honest, 100% honesty. I don't know. Because I've been helping haze the coyotes in Marblehead.

And we just started getting more reports of people seeing them after it being dead for a month, month and a half. Completely dead. And it's the same in other areas.

And all of a sudden, boom, they're back. So I don't know. I mean, we can, you know, the group wanting to haze and stuff like that.

It's, I can't say yes. I can't say no. And that's why I did do the paintball part, especially at the end, because nobody wants to hear that.

You know, not a lot of people feel that it's the right thing to do. And it does cause pain. It's temporary pain.

But I'm not complaining about it.

[Speaker 3] (1:48:46 - 1:48:55)
I'm just saying that I think like in the hunt, people jump to the most severe method instead of trying something else.

[Speaker 1] (1:48:55 - 1:49:03)
This would be the next step above regular hazing. After this, we'd be taking them out. That's, yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

[Speaker 9] (1:49:03 - 1:49:08)
I think we need to be doing the hazing first, before we haze.

[Speaker 1] (1:49:08 - 1:50:09)
You could try. And like I said, you could talk to the community. You could talk to everybody and decide how everybody feels.

I would say if things start picking up, maybe you may consider it, you know. Because here's the thing. I'll get to you in a second.

Here's the thing. When someone calls me, especially at night, and says they see a coyote, the chances of going out there and finding that coyote at night is, I thought it was going to be simple. You know, someone calling to run out and go see a coyote and the thing would be gone.

It's just like, they're difficult to find. They're difficult to haze. If they're hanging around a cemetery or a golf course and they're all just laying there sunning and stuff like that, that's different.

You can haze the heck out of those guys. But when you have these guys trotting around, it's kind of difficult to locate and to haze. That's why everybody has to get on board and haze the heck out of them.

Because if everybody does it, use all these techniques, get yourself an eight ring firing gun and just bang, bang, bang, bang. Get you some bomb bags. Try all that stuff.

See what happens. If things aren't working out, I don't know what to tell you, to be honest. And that's why I had to bring it up.

I had to bring it up.

[Speaker 3] (1:50:10 - 1:50:10)
I'm fine with that.

[Speaker 9] (1:50:10 - 1:50:15)
I'm just saying that trying everything first is a great idea.

[Speaker 1] (1:50:15 - 1:51:00)
And it wouldn't hurt. That's why the humane wildlife. Yeah, I mean, it's always best to try the smallest things first and then build up to something.

The season has passed over the summer to where people are out at nine o'clock at night. You know, there's more chances of seeing. The most coyote attacks on dogs that I've seen are when fall hit and we turned back the clocks.

And before you know it, it was dark at six o'clock. People walking around and the attacks were happening around eight o'clock at night. So it's two hours after it's dark.

In the summertime, two hours after it's dark, it's almost midnight. So yeah.

[Speaker 5] (1:51:00 - 1:51:24)
I live in a hut and I am not for killing all the coyotes. Maybe I've decided to. But I've been telling people that it's not a good plan because is this true that when they go and kill them off or try to, then they'll grow ones just moving?

[Speaker 1] (1:51:24 - 1:52:12)
There will be no more howling as much. There will be no more, hey, we're over here. Don't come over here.

So you're going to have random ones coming from different areas that maybe they are habituated and maybe they're not. So the thing is, is if it does happen and it happens and you can't stop it, at least start building up the hazing with the new ones. You know, the pup season's coming in a month, month and a half.

Then six weeks after that, they're coming out. You got to get on top of it. Get on top of it.

So when the mom and dad are looking for food and all of a sudden people are going crazy hazing, they're going to be giving that vibe off to their pups, saying, hey, don't go over there. Those people have bomb bags, stuff like that, right? Yes.

[Speaker 3] (1:52:30 - 1:53:03)
And I have seen eight or 10 queers personally. And have I ever tried to scare them off, you know, try to hit them and run up to them? No, once.

Well, once my two dogs did. They ran after them. They came at my dogs.

Luckily, they came back. You're not saying you saw eight or 10 at once. Coming for me and I did the wrong thing.

[Speaker 1] (1:53:03 - 1:53:27)
It's scary. It's hard. That's why it's like I'm trying to reinforce the confidence.

You can't have courage without fear. So you got to be courageous and just you'll see when you do it and you really haze that coyote and he goes running off, you're going to be like, yeah, I just haze the coyote. And you're going to be calling people and be like, I just, hey, I did what I was supposed to do.

So if everybody were to do that, this whole project and plan I talked about, it doesn't need to be done.

[Speaker 3] (1:53:29 - 1:53:30)
A few more questions.

[Speaker 1] (1:53:31 - 1:53:33)
Oh, yeah. Yeah, go ahead.

[Speaker 6] (1:53:34 - 1:53:55)
I live in Nahant and Nahant never has taught people how to haze. As a town, they think they've done things by like providing whistles and all that, but they've never actually taught people how to haze and empower them. And that's so they did this extreme thing and it wasn't a good idea.

It was a no win for either side.

[Speaker 1] (1:53:55 - 1:54:54)
A lot of things that are going on are links. You know, I've done a couple of little coyote things. It wasn't a major problem like it has had become.

So it wasn't just honestly, things just escalated quickly. And like you said, people weren't prepared. You know, a lot of times it's just a link, just a flyer.

You know, it's so this is what you're supposed to do. You know, stuff like that. So, yeah, I mean, this is what I'm hoping that to where people will be encouraged to do the things I talked about.

And none of that stuff needs to happen. So it's all of the community working together and support Deb and Francine, right? Francine, support those two.

They're helping Rebecca out in California, which I think Rebecca's moving out to Massachusetts. You should be moving out here and stuff like that. She runs a humane wildlife program to help wildlife humanely and stuff like that.

They're trying to build something up. So support them. If you hear about it, support them because they're helping you.

All right.