New Island coyote group forming

A new coyote group is forming to track local coyote activity and behavior on Martha’s Vineyard and to inform residents and visitors about the presence of the animals, as people hike and enter potential coyote habitats this summer.

The organization is so far unnamed, but according to Tisbury Animal Control Officer and a founding member, Heather Maciel, the group consists of two local animal control officers, current and former police officers, Patrick Roden-Reynolds of the Martha’s Vineyard Tick Program, and representatives from environmental organizations like Polly Hill Arboretum, Sheriff’s Meadow Foundation, and the Martha’s Vineyard Land Bank.  

“When we put it together, we picked a few people who were interested in doing it and just wanted to learn,” said Maciel. “For the animal control people, we want to know what to tell people when we get the call.” Maciel said they’ve had one meeting so far. 

Roden-Reynolds said the group started with an email chain born from community interest after the “Coyote Talk” held at the Ag Hall in February. 

“It created quite a buzz with local residents, so we formed a group,” Roden-Reynolds said. “It’s mainly for monitoring and surveillance.”

“Whether we can track coyote sightings or encounters…just to get a better sense of where the island population is at,” he said.

As of now there is no formal research study underway, but Roden-Reynolds says a “citizens science” project involving trail cams and home security footage may be coming. 

One of the group’s main missions is to raise awareness about the possible presence of coyotes. The group is putting together a forthcoming educational poster to go at trail heads with an accompanying QR code that can be used for reporting sightings or evidence of coyotes in the area, like pawprints, or scat. Maciel and the group intend for these posters to go right alongside the existing “You are entering a tick habitat” signs. 

“For the most part, people are probably never going to see one, but there’s always that chance,” Roden-Reynolds said. 

The QR code will link users to a form where they can fill out all relevant information to the sighting. 

“We started a QR code that people can go to so they can report where they’ve seen one. Where it was, what time of day, did it look healthy, was there more than one, was it big, did it have a limp, is there something unique about it, just to see if we can figure out what we have here,” Maciel said.  

The town of Edgartown also has a link to the survey on their website under the Animal Control tab to an All Island Coyote Spotting Survey. According to the website, the survey is meant to “help Island Wildlife Officials, ACOs [animal control officers] and Agriculture know about your encounters with coyotes on Martha’s Vineyard, to help them better understand our Island population. Please report each sighting once.” The link is available on the website, as well as on the Martha’s Vineyard Board of Health website, and asks questions about the time, date, and location of the sighting, and other questions about the animal’s appearance and behavior.

When asked about the size of the current coyote population, Maciel said, “I don’t think we have that many yet, but if there is a mating pair that can change.” Roden-Reynolds also expressed an interest in determining the number of individuals on the island. He hoped people reporting sightings would help the group “just to get a better sense of where the island population is…we don’t know if it’s single digit numbers or closer to 15 or 20 individuals,” he said.

Coyote breeding time is mid-February through mid-March, and it can take 60 days for pups to arrive. 

“We’re in the waiting period now,” said Maciel, “If something did happen, it would probably be sometime in May, but it could be anywhere between mid-April through the beginning of June.”

There have been a number of coyote sightings reported across the island over the years, including a video confirmation on a trail cam in Oak Bluffs in 2020, and another live sighting in Aquinnah in January of this year, 2023. 

In the past year, the presence of at least one coyote has been confirmed on trail cameras in West Tisbury, during an altercation with a woman and her dog in Edgartown, and there have been visual sightings reported in Aquinnah of a coyote crossing a road. Coyotes are thought to be living in the town of Aquinnah and in the State Forest, bordering the towns of Oak Bluffs, West Tisbury, and Edgartown.

Maciel said so far she has not been receiving calls addressing interactions with humans, pets, and coyotes. “It’s been the occasional sighting and questions from the public,” she said. 

Maciel was not concerned about coyotes as a threat to safety or the public. “There’s plenty of food for them here,” she said. “They tend to go for smaller prey, but [they] are opportunistic predators, and whatever they decide they want to go after, they will go after that,” she said. 

Maciel said that small dog and outdoor cat owners should practice extra caution when outside with their pets. She said that while cats can climb trees and coyotes can’t, they are definitely within range for coyote prey. 

“What people need to be aware of is that a coyote will go after whatever it wants,” Maciel said. “They’re opportunists.”

Maciel said she hoped the coyote group could help fellow Animal Control officers and others help the community to adapt to a new coyote population.  More public messaging to educate the public and raise awareness will be key to our island adapting to live in harmony with coyotes.  

“Like everything you need to adapt and find a way to make it work,” Maciel said. 

The newly formed group, Maciel and Roden-Reynolds both hope, will be a big help in bringing about public awareness. 

For more information as it arrives regarding Martha’s Vineyard Coyotes, check 

www.mvboh.com/coyotes