I happen to live in The Vistas at Summerlin. In one of our social groups online, I was seeing many posts about Coyote sightings.

At first, we thought we could call the Department of Wildlife, and they would come to the rescue. Neighbors are reporting conversations that make this an unreliable method.

I love Summerlin. I’ve been here since the 1990’s. I’ve never had a problem with Coyotes. But when we see 100+ days of rain, like we did at the end of 2017, everyone gets thirsty.

I for one will be keeping my cat indoors for a while.

• January 9, 2018 – The Vistas, Estancia, Bella Vista. Multiple Coyotes in the parks and in neighborhood yards.
• January 9, 2018 – Barrington. 4 Large Coyotes reported.

With permission from my neighbor, here is the advice she received from the Department of Wildlife.

1. Make noise, beep your car, whatever you have to do to make them uncomfortable around humans.
2. If you discharge your gun within city limits at a coyote, that’s a court date and you’ll be explaining yourself to a judge.
3. They scale our walls looking for pets in our backyards. They are most active from dusk to dawn. When letting your dogs out at night, turn a light on and make some noise.
4. Doggy doors are the greatest danger to our pets regarding coyotes. The dog/cat goes out in the middle of the night when the neighborhoods are quiet and the coyotes are most active, and they take the pet and people assume their animals ran away. He said this is VERY COMMON and he himself would never, ever have a doggy door.
5. Keep your cats inside and your dog close to you when walking. He said if the coyote gets ahold of your animal, at the least they are terribly injured.
6. Coyotes are more likely to come down to the neighborhoods with the cooler weather and lack of rain for over 100 days (before the rain of the last 2 days, of course)
7. Hawks and birds of prey are also in the area and they WILL fly off with a 12-pound animal, no problem. Bobcats too, but they’re more elusive. 8. As well as seeing our dogs as a potential food source, they also regard them as competition for food, so they’ll kill them just for that reason alone. Most importantly, WE LIVE IN THE WEST with wildlife everywhere, so BE VIGILANT.

Coyotes Approach Apartment Complex