Knoxify

93 Responses to “Have you seen coyotes in Knoxville?”

1. Patrick Beeson 
   October 24th, 2008 at 8:41 am

   

   I saw a coy­ote off Mid­dle­brook Pike a few weeks ago. It was just before the turn for Old Weis­gar­ber Road.

2. CP 
   October 24th, 2008 at 8:51 am

   

   @Patrick Bee­son: Really? I thought these were urban leg­end around here. Watch out for Coy­otes on your motorcycle.

3. Gavin Baker 
   October 24th, 2008 at 9:16 am

   

   I heard some the other night, how­ever I was out in Cades Cove doing a moon­light ride. So maybe that doesn’t count, but I really just wanted to be on the same com­ment stream as CP and PB

4. CP 
   October 24th, 2008 at 9:19 am

   

   @Gavin Baker: Come on in, the com­ment stream is warm.

5. Doug McCaughan 
   October 24th, 2008 at 9:53 am

   

   We used to have lots of red fox around here. Sadly, I don’t see them nearly as often any­more. I won­der if peo­ple con­fuse the red fox with the coy­ote. They are both in the order Carnivora.

   Now, odd things have been brought in on trucks that have passed through the Smok­ies. Once a black bear was hauled into the Home Depot in West Knoxville. The truck was unload­ing at mid­night and it stirred up quite a ruckus.

6. bcknoxify 
   October 24th, 2008 at 11:33 am

   

   Lots of great tweets on twit­ter today around this issue. I have heard of coy­ote attacks and crazy stuff in Rocky Hill, this is a real issue…not to many peo­ple talk­ing about it. BUT I HAVE NEVER SEEN IT

7. Suzy 
   October 24th, 2008 at 11:44 am

   

   No coy­otes, but I’ve seen a sus­pi­cious num­ber of what I believe to be ground­hogs in North and West Knoxville. Never, ever seen them before in my life until this summer/fall.

8. R. Neal 
   October 24th, 2008 at 2:39 pm

   

   Saw one in our back yard in Alcoa. There used to be a fam­ily nearby judg­ing from the pups’ evening howl­ing ses­sions, which is quite eerie if you’ve ever heard it.

   Have also seen them walk­ing around Royal Oaks in Maryville where we lived for a while. There was a fam­ily some­where nearby there, too.

9. Jim Lee 
   October 25th, 2008 at 2:57 pm

   

   I believe there are some coy­otes liv­ing in that old Water­house Prop­erty between Old Weis­gar­ber, West Hills, and the KUB sub­sta­tion off Mid­dle­brook Pike near Hill­crest west nurs­ing home.

   I did see one about three weeks ago while camp­ing at camp­site # 20 on the Meigs Moun­tain Trail behind Elk­mont. We’ve also hear them at night while camp­ing for sev­eral years now.

10. R. Ferguson 
    October 29th, 2008 at 7:10 am

    

    I work on Mid­park Road, which is off of Mid­dle­brook Pike. We see coy­otes, and their tracks, all the time here!

11. CP 
    October 29th, 2008 at 7:45 am

    

    Wow! I really didn’t expect such a large num­ber of responses. Seems that Knoxville has its fair share of Coyotes.

12. Blake Stranz 
    November 2nd, 2008 at 7:16 pm

    

    Almost drove into one as it ran across my neigh­bors front yard and into the gul­ley across the street from our houses. Any tips on how to get rid of them?

13. Patrick Beeson 
    November 3rd, 2008 at 7:42 am

    

    Looks like they caught four coy­otes in a west Knoxville sub­di­vi­sion: http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2008/nov/03/coyotes-gone-parents-pet-owners-relax/

    They had been killing cats!

14. LInda Brown 
    November 3rd, 2008 at 7:55 am

    

    Jim Lee is right. That is exactly where the coy­otes are liv­ing. I have had them run in front of my car going through there. The Wes­ley Rd. neigh­bor­hood has had them in there too. That wooded area there that he men­tioned used to be a riding/boarding sta­ble for horses, Weis­gar­ber Sta­bles. I am on the other side of Mid­dle­brook Pike and we have coyotes.

15. bcknoxify 
    November 3rd, 2008 at 9:31 am

    

    Keep ‘em com­ing, where else have they been seen? Glad West­wood has been cleared.

16. k. campbell 
    November 3rd, 2008 at 9:35 am

    

    There are coy­otes in Sequoyah Hils. Sev­eral cats were reported miss­ing in July and finally at least one coy­ote was seen in the neigh­bor­hood shortly after that. We have them on our farm in Louisville. My barn cat was grabbed by one. My dogs have gone nose-to– nose with them-it’s usu­ally a standoff.

17. Patrick Beeson 
    November 3rd, 2008 at 10:51 am

    

    Here are some things to con­sider: Are coy­otes native to this area? Has the west­ward expan­sion essen­tially dropped homes in places where coy­otes have lived for quite some time? Or have changes in their envi­ron­ment made it so cats are eas­ier food than what they eat normally?

18. bcknoxify 
    November 3rd, 2008 at 11:05 am

    

    @Patrick Bee­son: Here are some things to con­sider also — can we hunt them, can we shoot them, and is it ok to walk down Mor­rel Road or through Seq. Hills with a 22 or Shotgun?

19. CP 
    November 3rd, 2008 at 11:14 am

    

    I’ve been try­ing to locate hunt­ing and trap­ping laws for Knox county with­out any luck. Any­one know where to find it in our ordi­nances: http://www.municode.com/Resources/gateway.asp?pid=12815&sid=42

20. CP 
    November 3rd, 2008 at 11:16 am

    

    Accord­ing to this, Coy­otes are fair game year-round? http://www.state.tn.us/twra/smallgamehunt.html

21. Linda Brown 
    November 3rd, 2008 at 11:33 am

    

    I think it is because the wooded areas are dis­ap­pear­ing fast with too many sub­di­vi­sions being built. They come out look­ing for food and more woods.

22. MDP 
    November 3rd, 2008 at 12:00 pm

    

    I have seen three coy­otes in the past year around Emory Rd./
    I-75 along the creek. I guess it’s a com­bi­na­tion of habi­tat destruc­tion and adapt­abil­ity of the ani­mals them­selves. Not only have I seen the coy­otes, but a vari­ety of species that I haven’t seen fre­quently or at all around my house, includ­ing wild turkeys, rac­coons and deer in my back yard.

23. Marla Stair-Wood 
    November 10th, 2008 at 4:38 pm

    

    I think we may have both red foxes and coy­otes in the Lyons View Com­mu­nity. Our prop­erty is divided from Chero­kee Coun­try Club’s dri­ving range by the ser­pen­tine brick wall (which is bro­ken) and we have seen foxes in the woods behind our fence as they come and go through the break in the wall. We hear howl­ing from a pack each time a siren goes by, day or night, or just howl­ing because that’s what they do and it’s dri­ving our dog crazy. We lost a cat in May just before our fence was built. Who do we call?

24. susan 
    November 22nd, 2008 at 9:02 am

    

    I saw a large coy­ote yes­ter­day at 3:30 p.m. on Ebenezer Rd.

25. Donna 
    December 5th, 2008 at 12:38 pm

    

    I just saw a coy­ote today in the Mead­ows of Miller­town neigh­bor­hood off of Miller­town Pike. Roam­ing the neighborhood.

26. CWB 
    December 5th, 2008 at 12:57 pm

    

    Saw one last year out­side my kitchen win­dow in Far­ragut . I was up at 3:30 am mix­ing baby formula.

27. Jim Lee 
    December 9th, 2008 at 8:56 am

    

    Note to the guy that asked about shoot­ing coyotes.

    It would be extra­or­di­nar­ily dan­ger­ous to shoot at any ani­mal inside the city lim­its because of the pop­u­la­tion density.

    I believe the City of Knoxville also has an ordi­nance against fir­ing a gun in the city.

    Even a .22 cal­iber bul­let will carry almost a mile. The dan­ger arises not from shoot­ing, for exam­ple a coy­ote, but missing.

    Who knows where that bul­let could end up; you give up con­trol of the bul­let once you pull the trigger.

28. bcknoxify 
    December 9th, 2008 at 10:14 am

    

    @Jim Lee: Jim Lee great safety tip!

29. Jenny 
    December 23rd, 2008 at 11:31 am

    

    Recently saw either a fox or coy­ote in Karns, cross­ing the road in front of Karns Ele­men­tary. On the smaller side, so prob­a­bly a fox.

30. kti5783 
    December 29th, 2008 at 4:11 pm

    

    My sister-in-law saw two run­ning down her street ear­lier this month. She lives in Ft. City, a cou­ple of blocks away from Litton’s restuarant.

31. Connie 
    January 2nd, 2009 at 10:46 pm

    

    I have a fire­fighter friend who was sta­tioned all night out­side of the 5th Avenue Hotel the year some­one tried to burn it down. Fires flared up all night long and the fire truck just parked there putting them out over and over. He saw a coy­ote jog down Hen­ley Street in the early am. They are every­where. They have cleaned all the out­side cats out of my West Knox neigh­bor­hood. I hear them howl­ing on the wooded hill­side beyond my pas­ture with every siren that passes, day or night. Saw a huge one stand­ing in the grass beside the Pel­lis­sippi Pkwy exit to Dutch­town Road late one night. My knee jerk was, “that’s a tall Ger­man Shep­herd, what’s it doing out beside the road? Oh wait, (wolfy head) that’s a coyote”.

32. Nad 
    January 4th, 2009 at 4:50 pm

    

    Saw one today 1 – 4-09, East Knoxville while trav­el­ing west bound Rte 40 at the 640 merge in the field on the right 12:20 PM.

33. Bob Wilson 
    January 5th, 2009 at 10:29 pm

    

    My par­ents live in Halls (Emory Estates) and have a wooded area behind their house. They have seen a coy­ote a cou­ple of times toward that area. I haven’t heard any­thing about it in a while though.

34. Letitia Basner 
    January 7th, 2009 at 9:22 am

    

    I saw a coy­ote walk­ing through the Bap­tist River­side (for­merly Bap­tist Hos­pi­tal of East Ten­nessee) park­ing lot near the Hen­ley Street bridge in Octo­ber. I was so stunned, I called Ani­mal Con­trol and the oper­a­tor told me that I was in fact not crazy and there are many coy­ote sight­ings in Knoxville. Ijams Nature Cen­ter isn’t far down the road.

35. Karin 
    January 9th, 2009 at 4:32 pm

    

    I don’t just have a sight­ing – I have a reg­u­lar. I live in Clear Springs Plan­ta­tion off Miller­town Pike and we have a res­i­dent coy­ote (pos­si­bly den­ning in nearby under­brush) who hunts every after­noon around 4 p.m. Just passed him on my after­noon walk and won­dered if I should avoid wear­ing my win­ter coat with the fur-lined hood, which makes me look like a large, deli­cious rabbit.

36. wfpak 
    January 12th, 2009 at 2:11 pm

    

    A pair (at least) of coy­otes is liv­ing on Keller Bend Rd. I spot­ted one near the old quarry on 1/5/09 at 8 am. My hus­band has seen them both sev­eral times. They have been here since sum­mer. We walk 2 bea­gles on leash, but I’m a lit­tle ner­vous doing that at night now. I found some­thing online for $60 (cov­ers 4 acres) that is a bat­tery oper­ated device that broad­casts cougar sounds to drive off coy­otes. How­ever, it will also drive off deer, pos­sums, racoons, foxes, etc. Still inves­ti­gat­ing it and other options. I want to pro­tect the dogs, but I like the deer and foxes around.
    Phan­tom Enter­prises Web­site
    http://www.freewebs.com/walnut_creek_enterprises/????
    I sug­gested to my teenage son that we down­load cougar sound files to the IPOD and play it while walk­ing the dogs .

37. Jim C. 
    January 17th, 2009 at 9:32 pm

    

    I saw a coy­ote in my neigh­bor­hood in S. Knoxville (just across the river from down­town) last year. My neigh­bor spot­ted one a few weeks after that.

38. jrm 
    January 20th, 2009 at 8:38 pm

    

    I live in Sey­mour and I have seen a coy­ote.
    I also have seen their tracks in the snow in my subdivision.

39. Denese 
    January 26th, 2009 at 8:25 am

    

    We live close to Townsend and the Smok­ies and have seen them many places. There are packs of them up here, we hear them run the ridgetops here in the holler, we’ve heard them take down calves in Dry Val­ley and even our dogs bear their scars.
    They’re everywhere.

40. vs 
    February 3rd, 2009 at 5:12 pm

    

    We have them off Tooles Bend Road and our deer are now no where to be found where we had a fif­teen plus last year. I saw one Jan­u­ary 15th on my way to the air­port around 5a.m at Tooles Bend and Northshore trot­ting along, stopped looked at my car and then went on.

41. Linda Moore 
    February 19th, 2009 at 10:10 pm

    

    I live in North­west Knoxville against Vic­tor Ashe Park bound­ary and prior to and since the park’s com­ple­tion we have had reg­u­lar sight­ings of a sin­gle coy­ote. There were a cou­ple of times in the last 10 years when we have seen two together. A week ago we heard our cat scream and she has dis­ap­peared. Her scream was dif­fer­ent than when she was being attacked by the local toms. She was old and weak. She is gone.

42. Linda Moore 
    February 19th, 2009 at 10:13 pm

    

    The last sight­ing I had per­son­ally was fall of 2008 and while I was sit­ting out­side at near dusk, a coy­ote walked right up to 5 feet from me, and when he finally noticed me. he was not afraid — just stood there and looked at me. Coy­otes are every­where. They’ve always been here.

43. CP 
    February 19th, 2009 at 10:15 pm

    

    @Linda Moore: Ahh, that’s not good. Sorry to hear about your loss Linda.

44. Bob Wilson 
    February 20th, 2009 at 11:39 am

    

    I live in the city.

    Any­one know the offi­cial pol­icy on whether cit­i­zens can shoot coyotes?

    I haven’t seen one yet at my house, but the dogs in the neigh­bor­hood were going nuts the other night and I did hear a strange howl I’ve never heard before.

    So I want to be pre­pared if it comes to that.

45. Adam 
    February 20th, 2009 at 9:20 pm

    

    I live in Ftn. City and live near Cedar Ln. and behind my house is a larege wooded area with many houses near by. I see two big Coy­otes about every night in my back yard. They are the size of one of my dogs who is a 35 lb. Bor­der Col­lie. I want to get rid of them because many of my neigh­bors have small dogs and cats that are out­side for long peri­ods of time. They won’t heed my warn­ings to keep an eye on their ani­mals so I want to do some­thing about it. I know I can’t shoot the coy­otes beca­sue I can’t fire a gun in the city. Can some­one tell me who I can call to relo­cate them or get rid of them some how??? I would really appre­ci­ate any help.

46. Bob Wilson 
    February 20th, 2009 at 11:36 pm

    

    Hey Adam,

    I’m not far from you. I’m near Ster­chi school. I’m all for relo­cat­ing them or what­ever we have to do. They will only get big­ger or more hun­gry. Either way they’ll be more of a pest.

    Bob

47. Linda Moore 
    February 21st, 2009 at 6:29 am

    

    Just want folks to know that I love the Coy­ote like most ani­mals. I posted because the page requested sight­ings. I really have no neg­a­tiv­ity toward an ani­mal that freely lived here and now has very lit­tle space to live. If we think about it, these fairly large crit­ters do well in very small spaces; we rarely see or hear them. I’m sure one day they may become a real prob­lem with no space, but they do help keep down the other crit­ter pro­duc­tion like rodents and pos­sum, etc., etc. Coy­otes really have been here for a very long time — they just don’t show them­selves often. Foxes eat lit­tle pets too. Dogs will kill lit­tle pets as well. There should be a good bal­ance — what that is, I don’t know.

48. susan 
    February 21st, 2009 at 7:18 am

    

    I will trade you 3 stray cats for one coy­ote( this is a joke) I am a bird­watcher and stray cats are catch­ing and killing my birds!
    Susan

49. Linda Moore 
    February 21st, 2009 at 7:27 am

    

    Can you build feed­ing ledges on any of your trees for the birds and squir­rels to get the birds off the ground? Coy­otes also will kill birds. This is no joke.

50. Bob Wilson 
    February 23rd, 2009 at 10:54 am

    

    Funny coy­ote story today by Katie Granju — http://tinyurl.com/bynm4v

51. Alicia 
    March 1st, 2009 at 2:03 pm

    

    I def­i­nitely saw one in a field across from where I work off Mid­dle­brook Pike the other day. It was just sit­ting there bathing itself. Oth­ers have seen them around the office build­ing as well.

52. CP 
    March 2nd, 2009 at 7:51 am

    

    Wow, sim­ply amazed at the 50+ com­ments here.

53. Dan 
    March 3rd, 2009 at 9:03 am

    

    Saw a coy­ote this morn­ing won­der­ing around the neigh­bor­hood as I was return­ing from the gym. Ran down through my yard and into the neighbor’s yard. Crazy!!

54. Beau 
    April 1st, 2009 at 1:21 am

    

    Heard the most errie dog cry yes­ter­day morn­ing at 6am, thought a dog had been hit by a car. We went out­side look­ing for it, but didn’t find any­thing. My other half said it sounded like a pack of dogs, like some­thing you would hear from a scarey movie. We just moved to the rural side of Far­ragut. I used to like the coun­try set­ting, now I’m not so fond of it. We’ve lost cats in the past, I sus­pected foul play, but told my kids, they prob­a­bly got picked up, or ran away. Now, I’m wor­ried about the chi wie­nie puppy we have, she’s about the size of a cat. Other than shot­ting them with a sling shot, what can be done to keep them away from your prop­erty? Any cases of them com­ing too close and try­ing for chil­dren instead of cats?

55. Linda Moore 
    April 1st, 2009 at 7:22 am

    

    You know, owls love cats and small dogs just like coy­otes do. Large hawks will swoop and steal your lit­tle ones if they are hun­gry as well. My neigh­bors and I know that there is a fam­ily of coy­otes and we occa­sion­ally throw scraps away from our homes so they have enough to eat and don’t search at our house. We have to remem­ber that WE are on THEIR prop­erty. Fences work well. Humans have to real­ize that urban­iza­tion means just that and we have to fig­ure out a way to incor­po­rate that which WE are urban­iz­ing in the ani­mal world. There can be a very good balance.

56. Jim Lee 
    April 1st, 2009 at 7:43 am

    

    @Linda Moore:

    Not to rain on your parade Ms Moore but gen­er­ally feed­ing any sort of wild ani­mal around your house or any­where else is not a good idea.

    Here’s a big bunch of rea­sons why but the most impor­tant ones are that it hurts the wild ani­mals by reduc­ing their abil­ity to for­age for them­selves and it makes them less afraid of humans.

    “An instinc­tive wari­ness of peo­ple is impor­tant to a wild animal’s survival.”

    http://tinyurl.com/dg9dc2

    That’s one of the rea­sons they have all the “DO NOT FEED THE BEARS” signs posted all over the Smoky Moun­tains Park.

57. jamie 
    April 1st, 2009 at 8:55 am

    

    We saw a coy­ote the size if a Ger­man Shep­hard cross­ing the road towards Maryville on the Foothills Parkway.

58. DesignChick 
    April 1st, 2009 at 10:21 pm

    

    We live in Foun­tain City and my hus­band saw one on the way home last night at about 1AM.

59. Linda Moore 
    April 2nd, 2009 at 9:00 am

    

    Won­der­ing what is thought of bird feed­ers, squir­rel feed­ers, deer feed­ers, wild hog feed­ers? I am in total agree­ment of NOT FEEDING THE BEARS or ATTRACTING ani­mals that may be harmed or harm humans; how­ever I am in the prac­tice of help­ing those crea­tures who are already present to make it through a win­ter where prey or food is sparse, espe­cially so they don’t walk through the front yard look­ing for it and remain in the city park area to for­age for their own.

60. Connie 
    May 15th, 2009 at 8:32 am

    

    I saw a coy­ote this morn­ing on my way into work. I saw it as I entered Sol­way, at the split. He was trapped in the grassy area, between com­ing and going traf­fic. He looked con­fused and wor­ried. It was around 7:55 and traf­fic was heavy. He was trapped with no way out. Strangest think I’ve seen in a long time.

61. KnoxKnowsBest 
    May 16th, 2009 at 7:29 pm

    

    I live on 22 acres about 0.2 miles from Melton Hill Park in Hardin Val­ley & saw a coy­ote like the pic­ture above but a brighter cop­per color. He was walk­ing across the prop­erty about 100 yards away from me. He saw me, stopped & we looked at each other & then he scam­pered into the woods. I was shocked because I thought a coy­ote would be smaller than he was. But it was def­i­nitely a hand­some crit­ter. He would be able to eas­ily dis­patch a cat or a small dog!

62. Suzanne Russell 
    June 3rd, 2009 at 5:43 pm

    

    I live in the West Hills area, very close to the old Mid­dle­brook Sta­bles prop­erty. I have seen sev­eral coy­otes lop­ing down Rock­ing­ham Drive. I have also seen foxes and wild turkeys. I feel thrilled when I see them; some wild­ness in my neighborhood!

63. David 
    June 18th, 2009 at 11:21 am

    

    I’ve seen them, my neigh­bor saw 3 in her back­yard and another neigh­bor lost a dog to them. Tooles Bend and Northshore.

64. Julie 
    June 30th, 2009 at 12:30 am

    

    Does Sey­mour count? Most likely not but yes in Seymour..

65. CP 
    June 30th, 2009 at 7:33 am

    

    @Julie: Sey­mour def­i­nitely counts Julie. Thanks for stop­ping by.

66. Donna Keith 
    June 30th, 2009 at 10:22 am

    

    I live less than a mile from South Doyle High School. We received a neigh­bor­hood let­ter warn­ing in the Spring this year. Evi­dence was clear when we had no small wildlife to gather food, etc. As the temp began to warm up in the year, we saw one lay­ing on John Sevier High­way, then I saw a coy­ote stand­ing in a yard on Tip­ton Sta­tion Road! It caught my eye because the dog was so thin and it had dis­tinct markings…Slowly, our squir­rels have returned in var­i­ous spots, so I don’t believe they are a prob­lem on this end of town — for now…

67. Lorie Warren 
    June 30th, 2009 at 10:56 am

    

    I saw one run­ning down Woodrow Drive (Foun­tain City) and another one 1 block away from Broadway!!

68. Linda Moore 
    August 7th, 2009 at 11:32 pm

    

    Some­times when the Fire Dept. down the street sounds the alarm, the coy­otes howl will out-howl the neigh­bor­hood dogs. Then the domes­tic dogs get all mad and excited about the coy­otes and the whole neigh­bor­hood is soon bark­ing. The dogs in the neigh­bor­hood don’t seem to like the neigh­bor­ing coy­otes at all. North­west Knox @ Vic­tor Ashe Park area

69. Mayte 
    August 14th, 2009 at 11:09 pm

    

    One of my two cats has been miss­ing from August 4th. “Silas” was an indoor/outdoor big size cat (3 times big­ger than aver­age). He was 7 years old. He liked to stay close to our house; nor­mally in the front yard or in the back yard, but never more than a few feet away from our prop­erty. I was some­how wit­ness of his death. I was sit­ting on my back yard around 4:30 pm with my kids when I heard a ter­ri­ble sound made by the cat that did not last more that 1 or 2 sec­onds. The sound came just a few feet out­side our back­yard fence. I did not hear the cat strug­gle. It sounded as if Silas had been sur­prised by a sud­den attack. I did not see a coy­ote but I can not think of another crea­ture able to kill such a big cat with­out a fight. I never thought a coy­ote will get so close to our house in the mid­dle of the day when we were out­side. Unfor­tu­nately he has not been the only one miss­ing in this Far­ragut neigh­bor­hood, this year I read 3 or 4 e-mails of peo­ple look­ing for miss­ing cats. My next door neighbor’s dog was attacked two years ago. I am afraid they are going to take the most eas­ily avail­able food source. If the coy­otes keep get­ting pets they are going to keep com­ing. I am also con­cerned that the coy­otes will not only kill cats or dogs, but that they could also attack small kids. It looks like they do not get intim­i­dated by human pres­ence any­more. I found sev­eral reports about coy­otes attack­ing kids and it worry me a lot.

70. Bob Wilson 
    August 14th, 2009 at 11:56 pm

    

    @Mayte: That’s why, unlike some peo­ple, I have no prob­lem elim­i­nat­ing them if given the chance.

71. Linda Moore 
    August 15th, 2009 at 12:04 am

    

    I hope that the coy­otes find new places to live because the land move­ment for sub­di­vi­sions all over Knoxville takes their homes and their hunt­ing grounds. As long as I have lived in Knoxville, I have NEVER heard or found sup­po­tive reports that chil­dren or adults here have been attacked by coy­otes in Knoxville. Fences work well to keep them out, chimes, alu­minum pans like in the old days, etc., etc., etc.,. Luck­ily, most par­ents don’t allow their young chil­dren out alone with­out close super­vi­sion. I’ve seen big white owls swoop down and take huge hares into the sky. Wildlife is amaz­ing and it still goes on even when we move in on it.

72. lisa trofatter 
    August 17th, 2009 at 10:14 pm

    

    August 17, 2009
    Lone coy­ote spot­ted mov­ing across the front dri­ve­way and lawn at West­min­ster Pres­by­ter­ian church on Northshore Drive in West Knoxville about 7pm, cross­ing Lyons Bend into brush toward the river and Lakeshore prop­erty. Lean ani­mal, mov­ing con­fi­dently and with­out par­tic­u­lar haste as is moved over this wide open area.

73. K. Street 
    September 25th, 2009 at 10:35 am

    

    I live in Karns and two nights ago I was out­side and heard them call­ing, howl­ing. I just moved here from rural Mis­sis­sippi and am very famil­iar with what they look and sound like. The next night my neighbor’s dogs started bark­ing and he saw a coy­ote right in front of my mail­box on the street. I have two small chil­dren whom I watch when they are play­ing out­side, but it wor­ries me that these par­tic­u­lar coy­otes are braver than the ones we have in Mis­sis­sippi. The only one I ever saw alive when I lived there had rabies, (my father in law was able to shoot him). With no nat­ural preda­tors around here, they are free to mul­ti­ply and feed on domes­tic and farm ani­mals. I wish some­thing could be done about the threat they are becoming.

74. jordan 
    September 27th, 2009 at 11:53 pm

    

    The other day I saw 2 Coy­otes while leav­ing my neigh­bor­hood at Land­mark and MId­dle­brook . Tonight I heard one of my cats scream in the woods behind my house.

75. Jane 
    October 6th, 2009 at 7:49 pm

    

    I live in Emory Estates and tonight my hus­band and I were sit­ting at the din­ner table around 7:15PM and we saw one run through our back yard then into our neigh­bors yard. My hus­band is an out­doors­man and has seen them fre­quently in the wild, so he was sure it was a coy­ote and not a domes­tic dog. We have seen the small red foxes sev­eral times, but this was as big as a ger­man shep­herd with a big bushy tail.

76. Bob Wilson 
    October 6th, 2009 at 10:22 pm

    

    Jane,

    My par­ents live in Emory Estates and either they or a neigh­bor (can’t remem­ber which) saw one a cou­ple of years ago near the woods behind their house.

77. JP 
    November 6th, 2009 at 4:02 pm

    

    Saw TWO today. One ran across Sny­der in front of my van and the other was stalk­ing in a horse­field near Can­ton Hal­low. Never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen them myself.

78. L Moore 
    November 6th, 2009 at 4:14 pm

    

    It is get­ting to be the time of year when their coats are most beau­ti­ful. I still can’t believe that peo­ple don’t know that coy­otes are every­where, just like deer.

79. Todd Badeaux 
    November 16th, 2009 at 8:34 am

    

    I saw one this past week­end in the field across from Weigels on Kingston pike between Watt and Everett rd. It was about 1:00pm, I got out of my car with my binoc­u­lars to take a look. He saw me and ran into the woods at the cor­ner of Everett and Kingston Pike.

80. Leila Haynes 
    November 30th, 2009 at 4:03 pm

    

    My mother’s bf owns alot of farm­land on both sides of Mal­oneyville Rd. near the Halls side of Tazewell Pike. I brought my new shep­herd coy-dog mix there to play in the fields, and he said she looked like the coy­otes he’s shot around there. He showed me pho­tos of the coy­otes, and they were gray and cream col­ored like my dog. They both told me that the coy­otes killed pet cats, cor­nered and attacked his cat­tle at night and walked through his front yard. He killed almost 15 that year (2008). Also, they said that there are in fact wild dogs that roam the fields on the out­skirts of Knoxville, but they appear very dif­fer­ent from coy­otes, and are much more rare of a prob­lem than the coy­ote issue.
    This is NOT an urban leg­end! I would post pic­tures but he deleted them already, he doesnt see the need to keep pic­tures of hunted coy­otes because they are not the same as hunt­ing deer, he really con­sid­ers them as a deadly pest more than a prize hunt.

81. Ricky o'connor 
    December 16th, 2009 at 8:48 pm

    

    I have a reg­u­lar in North Hills. It walks the trail down a drainage ditch behind my house. They drive all the dogs nuts.

82. JDH 
    December 19th, 2009 at 6:18 pm

    

    The lit­tle old lady across the street told me that she’d seen a coy­ote in our neigh­bor­hood at night, and I dis­missed her story because I thought she’d con­fused a fox (a reg­u­lar vis­i­tor to our neigh­bor­hood) for a coyote.

    BUT, a few weeks after she men­tioned this, a reddish-brown coy­ote ran across Nub­bin Ridge Road in front of my car. I stand corrected.

83. BMitchell 
    January 20th, 2010 at 4:37 pm

    

    Of course! Myth? What? I’ve seen them sev­eral times in var­i­ous places in South Knoxville. My hus­band and his brother also hunt them. So far, they’ve only had luck in Sey­mour though.

84. Jedi 
    February 5th, 2010 at 10:41 am

    

    One night at my fiancee’s house I saw what i thought was a coy­ote skulk­ing around their neigh­bors yard off Kingston Pike. I dis­missed it as a dog (it was really dark) until about 3 nights later when a coy­ote ran right out in front of me while dri­ving on Kingston Pike at around 4am in front of the ORNL there. Just stood there for about 30 sec­onds so I got a good look at it. No myth about it.

85. Me 
    February 22nd, 2010 at 3:43 pm

    

    So, 2 days ago, I was going to work and saw my pup wasnt in her house. Odd for that time of early morn­ing. Then I saw. I can’t type the details, but in the field, across our road, in our field, my pup was dead. Alot of you peo­ple that think its cool that coy­otes are about, she was a 9 year old Akita, strong and vibriant…coyotes attack in packs. She would have snuffed any one of them, even with her old age. She couldn’t. I have to guess there were too many. She was slightly over 100lbs. Coy­otes are 20 – 40 lbs.

    I can’t claim that it was coy­otes. I never saw it. They’ve been hip­ping and yelp­ing around here for over 2 years. It’s their mat­ing sea­son, and yes, my pup was fixed by a vet along time ago. She is dead, on her own prop­erty, and we had to bury her. It was ani­mals, from her wounds I know for sure., coy­otes are heard almost every night.

    So any­one that likes to take pic­tures of them, think they are cool, just see if You can actu­ally cud­dle one, because my pup would have let you cud­dle her.
    But we had to deal with it. STop think­ing they are some­thing missed or cute. She was on prop­erty she belonged to, and now she’s dead. She’d never bit­ten a soul, and never hurt any­one. South Knox County, if you peo­ple want to come take pic­tures of the newly intro­duced coy­ote. We’ve had them here for years and ignored their “beauty”, ignored them all together, “let it be” kinda thing… my pup was on her own prop­erty at the wrong time. Good thing the state says its open game for them. So you peo­ple that think it’s cool to see them… put up your pets, your chil­dren, yourselve’s, based on some com­ments, and come visit please. The mur­der is done but you can at least see her grave.

86. Me 
    February 22nd, 2010 at 9:27 pm

    

    JP… please respond. Lovely thread you have going here. Sorry to bring it back to life, but seems that you like see­ing them. Just wanted u to know there is a mis­er­ably hurt side also.

87. CP 
    February 22nd, 2010 at 9:37 pm

    

    Me — every­one hates that you lost an ani­mal but please con­sider this your final warn­ing to cease from call­ing out other com­menters. Please read our com­ment­ing guide­lines if you’re unclear on what you can say. Thanks.

    http://knoxify.com/comment-policy/

88. Me 
    February 22nd, 2010 at 9:40 pm

    

    Any­one else like to talk about it? 87 responses before me.

89. Me 
    February 22nd, 2010 at 9:44 pm

    

    wow, you almost sounded con­cerned. I said “JP” because u started a thread, and after read­ing it, I thought u should know what they are capa­ble of… sorry to offend…and her name was Nikki.

90. Fourier 
    February 23rd, 2010 at 7:41 am

    

    I just saw two coy­otes (which means there could have been more I didn’t see) prowl­ing around my apart­ment com­plex (Coun­try Oaks) off of Paper­mill. It was around 3am, but they were def­i­nitely in hunt­ing mode.

91. David 
    February 23rd, 2010 at 9:12 am

    

    Amaz­ingly, I saw one sav­aging a dead deer on the side of Northshore dur­ing morn­ing rush hour. I think there are quite a few in the Northshore, Wrights Ferry, Bad­dget, Tooles Bend rectangle.

92. Lee Ann 
    March 6th, 2010 at 2:26 pm

    

    I live in West Knoxville and have seen 3 coy­otes over the past few years. Just a few days ago I was get­ting on the inter­state off Camp­bell Sta­tion Road and saw a scrawny coy­ote that had prob­a­bly been hit by a car. It was limp­ing and ran across Camp­bell Sta­tion Road seek­ing refuge in some bushes.
    A few years ago, a coy­ote ran across Park­side Drive in Turkey Creek. It was dusk and this guy did look both ways before he crossed the road.
    Prior to that, I saw one on Con­cord Road as the sun was com­ing up. All the devel­op­ment in this area has destroyed the wilder­ness the coy­ote once lived in and now we see them near our homes look­ing for food. A lit­tle bit fright­en­ing and also a lit­tle sad. It is also a real­ity we face along­side con­tin­ued growth of our city.

93. Concerned Citizen 
    March 9th, 2010 at 8:39 pm

    

    I just don’t under­stand how all of you peo­ple can find coy­otes “cool”. They’re a men­ace. We had the deer vir­tu­ally dis­ap­pear here in south knoxville and the only rea­son coy­otes came back here was because the deer finally came back. Now…the coy­otes are a deadly nui­sance. Every­one around here knows it and agrees with it. They need to be exter­mi­nated. They have plen­ti­ful pop­u­la­tions around the globe. It’s not like they’re endan­gered or anything…

Trackbacks