Irving resident Richard Jackson came to the city council last week with one request: do something about coyote overpopulation.
As an active caretaker of feral and stray cats in his neighborhood, Jackson said the coyotes are eating the cats alive while also posing a threat to chickens and other small pets.
"They're in our backyards, they're everywhere," he said. "A lady walking her dog down the street has worry about being attacked by coyotes."
Jackson's concerns about coyotes in Irving are not the first — another neighborhood in the city had coyote sightings last year in August. It prompted the city to issue a guide on how to deal with wildlife, reminding residents that Irving Animal Services responds to situations when public safety is in jeopardy.
But the issue is not exclusive to Irving. Coyotes are common across North Texas, with sightings also in larger cities like Dallas, Fort Worth and Arlington.
And with coyote mating season well under way — typically occurring mid-January to early March, with its peak in mid-February — sightings are more common during this time and in the winter, when there's less vegetation, said Rachel Richter, an urban wildlife biologist with Texas Parks and Wildlife.
Coyotes are part of the urban wildlife ecosystem, and play an important role as pest control for rodents, seed dispensing through their droppings, and a cleanup crew for roadkill.
"They're good urban adapters," she said. "They have figured out a way to survive alongside us, and they do a pretty good job about it."
As North Texas has grown, coyotes have adapted to the urban expansion.
In a way, they had no choice.
When development occurs, Richter said coyotes have three choices: move, adapt, or don't survive.
Dispersal barriers, like roads or a lack of suitable habitat, make it difficult for coyotes to migrate elsewhere. Even if migration does occur, there can be other challenges.
"If there's suitable habitat nearby, there's likely other animals already occupying that spot that they have to compete with," Richter said. "So moving is not always possible."
Because coyotes are generalists, they're able to live in a variety of places and conditions. This quality means they're more likely to survive places with a lot of disturbance, development, and habitat fragmentation — meaning they’re good at surviving in cities alongside humans.
While they are more active during the day in rural areas, coyotes are more active at night in urban areas in order to avoid people.
It's difficult to know whether coyote sightings have grown in recent years, Richter said, due to the wide range of attitudes towards them. Some people are fearful and are quick to alert authorities, others may feed them food scraps.
"There's a whole range of attitudes towards coyotes," she said. "So that kind of dictates where we may or may not hear more about them."
In Irving, the police department oversees the city's animal services. Police Chief Derick Miller was not available for an interview.
"Irving Animal Services is aware of wild animals, such as hogs or coyotes, within Irving city limits and is working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Wildlife Services regarding this,” a department spokesperson wrote in a statement. “The USDA has devised and continues to implement the best plans of action to ensure the safety of our residents, their pets, and wildlife.”
Texas Parks and Wildlife often works with the USDA's Wildlife Services as well to tackle nuisance issues like coyotes.
Wildlife Services only works at properties where requests for services are made, USDA spokesperson Tanya Espinosa, said in an email. If the request is made at a housing development, the Wildlife Services biologist or technician will contact surrounding residents to educate them on the reported issue, such as if a dog was attacked by a coyote in a backyard.
While more sightings can happen during mating season or in the winter, human interactions with coyotes are common in the warmer months when coyotes rear their pups, Espinosa said.
"While there may be more coyote sightings than normal, that doesn’t necessarily mean that 'the coyote problem is worse than ever'," she said. "When prey species, such as rabbits, are abundant, the predator species also increases."
Dallas is one city that developed a coyote tracking map that displays cases by observation, sighting, encounter, attended or unattended pet attack, and livestock loss.
Richter, with Texas Parks and Wildlife, said having a centralized location to report coyote behavior can be helpful for cities to make appropriate management decisions.
"That way people aren't just going on like Nextdoor or Facebook and reporting stuff," she said. "Sometimes it's like the neighborhood might know about it but the officials who are in the position to provide guidance don't know about it."
Whether residents like it or not, coyotes are living alongside their North Texas communities, often nearby a neighborhood in whatever green space or habitat fragments remain.
Coyotes tend to avoid people and attacks are rare. Which is why, Richter said, it's important that people do not intentionally, or unintentionally, feed coyotes like leaving pet food outside or not securing trash.
"It's not like a dog, you can't walk up and pet a coyote, or befriend a coyote, or tame a coyote," she said. "So when they become habituated and they start to lose their fear of people, that's where the potential for conflict could arise."
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