
The recent coyote attack on a dog in Edgartown — some state and local officials say it may be the first widely reported incident of its kind on the Vineyard — is leading officials to remind residents to take precautions to protect their pets.
While it’s still uncertain how many coyotes there are on the Vineyard, and there possibly could only be one, the report of a coyote attacking a dog at Jernegan Pond Road in Edgartown has led officials to believe similar events could potentially happen in the future if homeowners don’t take note.
According to a redacted Massachusetts Environmental Police report, a 39-pound mixed-breed dog was attacked by a coyote on Jan. 3 in the backyard of a home.
Environmental Police reported that the Edgartown pet owners “hazed” the coyote — which the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife defines as “a technique used to deter an animal from an area, or change its behavior” — after hearing a commotion in their backyard. The wild animal fled into a “wooded area” afterward.
“It was at this time they noticed their dog had ‘severe’ bleeding around the neck,” the report reads. The pet owners took their dog to a veterinary clinic in West Greenwich, R.I., where the dog received a rabies vaccine booster as a precautionary measure, and is “recovering well” in its 45-day quarantine, the report states.
David Wattles, who leads MassWildlife’s Furbearer Project, said he was told by Environmental Police that the Edgartown dog was behind an electric fence. He said the dog’s training and electric fence collar would keep the pet enclosed in the yard, but nothing would keep a coyote from entering the fenced property if the owner wasn’t also outside.
Wattles said it was “very common” for coyotes to attack loose dogs on the mainland, and Vineyard pet owners should be aware of the risks. Specifically, Wattles said, a small dog can be viewed as food by a coyote, while medium and large dogs may be seen as potential “competitors” during mating season, which is from late January through early March.
“It’s when the natural hormones take effect,” Tisbury Animal Control Officer Heather Maciel said.
Still, wildlife and animal control officials are uncertain whether coyote attacks like the one in Edgartown have occurred before on Martha’s Vineyard, and if they will be more common going forward. The animal’s population is elusive.
A seeming uptick in coyote sightings led some Island officials to form a group in 2023 to monitor coyote activities on the Island. However, Maciel, one of the group’s founders, told The Times there were only a few “credible sightings,” with photographs or videos, submitted to their coyote sightings survey.
Andrew Jacobs, laboratory manager and environmental technician for the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah), said his office has tried to lure coyotes out with bait so trail cameras could document them, but he’s also primarily received reports of sightings from Island residents.
Jacobs told The Times it can be difficult to verify certain sightings, since people can mistake dog pawprints for a coyote’s pawprint, and some people are wary about saying the exact location they saw a coyote. Still, he’s heard from “pretty reliable” sources that a coyote has been seen in Aquinnah in the past month.
While there have been coyote sightings over the years on Martha’s Vineyard, Wattles told The Times the animals are fairly new additions to the Island, which hasn’t historically had coyotes.
And Wattles said Vineyard residents may be more “naive” when it comes to coexisting with coyotes, because the animals haven’t been on the Island that long, compared with nearby areas. Coyotes began trickling into Cape Cod in the 1970s, according to the National Park Service, and now they’re common critters in the region.
Circulation of photographs and trail-camera footage have led to speculation that there may be several coyotes on the Island, but Wattles said that a lack of active population monitoring on the Island made this uncertain. He said factors like lighting and fur conditions could make the same animal look different in each image. “We just don’t know at this time whether it’s a single coyote or more,” he said.
Additionally, the Vineyard is small enough that a coyote could wander in a “nomadic state.”
“A coyote could easily move across the Island in a very short time,” Wattles said.
And a lack of data on the number of coyotes on the Island make it uncertain whether more attacks could happen. However, Wattles anticipates it’s a possibility as long as a coyote is living on the Vineyard, pointing to incidents that take place on the mainland.
Maciel pointed out that the winter months, during the mating season, are when coyotes might display more aggression. Still, Maciel highlighted that each town on the Island has leash laws. She said if people keep their pets on leashes outside, the chances of an attack drop, since coyotes fear people.
Coexisting with the unknown number of coyotes is a question that resurfaced with the Edgartown attack.
Wattles said it was important for people to better understand how to best mitigate conflict with coyotes while numbers were small. He said the population could rise rapidly if a male-female coyote pair established themselves on the Vineyard.
Wattles gave three primary practices for Islanders to employ: Don’t feed coyotes, secure pets, and scare off coyotes, also called hazing. Residents should also secure sources of food so coyotes do not become accustomed to being attracted to neighborhoods. This includes bird feeders and compost. Wattles said owners being with their pets on leashes can ward off coyotes, since they are naturally afraid of humans. And Wattles said that more people hazing coyotes — such as making loud noises while approaching them — in a neighborhood drives home the message, “You are not welcome here.”
Wattles also suggested Vineyarders visit MassWildlife’s website, mass.gov/coyotes-in-massachusetts, to learn more about coyotes, particularly its “prevent conflicts with coyotes” page.