Coyotes Are Taking Over NYC

NEW YORK CITY - Coyote sightings are increasing across New York City, according to officials, after sightings spiked back in 2019 when one was spotted in Central Park.

"We’ve been sort of keeping track of the coyotes with non-invasive methods since 2011," said wildlife biologist, Dr. Chris Nagy.

Earlier this year, residents of Queens spotted a coyote strolling through the street.

Police first responded to a report of a coyote in the area of 81st Avenue and 257th Street in the Glen Oaks neighborhood. 

Video shared by the New York Police Department’s 105th Precinct showed the animal slowly strolling down a sidewalk. 

The animal was later captured and brought to the Sweet Briar Nature Center in Smithtown on Long Island. 

"We found a handful of places where coyotes are breeding. Every spring and summer, they have pups," Nagy said.

Nagy is confident nearly every park in New York City has a coyote camping out.

THERE ARE COYOTES IN EVERY BURROUGH EXCEPT BROOKLYN! I am actually all for it. As long as we vax all of them by dart gun for rabies, I am down. We need every ally we can get in this war against rats in this city. North East Coyotes fascinate me because unlike coyotes in the rest of the US, they are larger and try to occupy the niche wolves once held in the area.

To have a breeding population in the largest city in the world shows the determination to survive these animals possess. Eastern Coyotes are actually a wolf-coyote hybrid that only developed in the past century due to decimation of the eastern wolf population. 

Coyotes interbred with remaining eastern wolf populations in the northeast and developed the eastern coyote that is large enough to take down white-tailed deer, but small enough to avoid the demarkation of wolves and avoid extermination by humans. In 2014, a DNA study of northeastern coyotes showed them on average to be a hybrid of western coyote (62%), western wolf (14%), eastern wolf (13%), and domestic dog (11%) in their nuclear genome. It's just insane how this Coywolfdog hybrid has developed a niche that can survive in not only the great American West but also the concrete jungle. 

Yeah but if you see a coyote in NYC don’t go near it could have rabies.