When you are looking for your missing cat, someone is bound to tell you that your cat was killed by a coyote. In every missing cat case I have worked, the owners were told this by one or more people. It is rarely true. Missing Pet Partnership helps over 400 families each year in the search for lost loved ones. In all those cases, we have fewer than five cases a year where we can confirm that a predator took a pet. Studies of coyotes have shown that it is rare for them to take a domestic animal, and that the bulk of their diet is fruit and nuts and rodents. When we search for a lost cat, we focus our efforts on the highest probabilities, and being taken by a coyote is one of the lowest probabilities.
However, when Karma and I showed up to search for Otis yesterday, his owner reported what a neighbor had seen. The morning that Otis disappeared, this neighbor was looking out his living room window around dawn. He saw a coyote run through his yard into Otis's yard, and moments later the coyote came back into his yard with something in his mouth. Even though being taken by a coyote usually is a low probability, given this information, we started our search at the point where the neighbor last saw the coyote.
Karma was very interested in sniffing the ground in many spots near this point where the coyote was last seen. I paid attention to all the areas Karma pointed out, but I wasn't seeing any signs of predation. I realized that didn't mean there was no evidence, just that it might be too small or too transparent for me to see. Karma also wanted to take me out of this area in the manner of a trailing dog. Karma is not trained as a trailing dog, but she is a dog, and she wanted to follow several scent trails leading away from that initial site.
I let Karma follow her nose a while, even though that is not the standard procedure with a cat-detection dog. When she led me farther away from the point last seen than it would be reasonable for a cat to travel on his own, I stopped her and brought her back to our areas of highest probability. For three hours we searched the neighbors' yards, one by one. Karma hit several areas where a cat had been recently, judging by her response, but the cat had heard us coming and moved off.
After we cleared most of the yards in the neighborhood, I brought Karma back to the point where the coyote had been seen last, where Karma was very interested in invisible clues on the ground. Within five minutes of carefully scanning this area, I found Otis's collar, with his name tag. It was so plainly visible that I couldn't believe I had missed it before, especially when I was actively looking for just that type of evidence. My guess is that the light had changed, and the collar that had been in a shadow was now in full sun. Karma had indicated several points near there, but not exactly there. In the future, I will direct my attention not only to the specific locations Karma indicates, but to the immediate surroundings of those points.
Based on the way the collar was cut (evidently by teeth, and not torn or cut by a knife) and based on other trace evidence found at that site, I told the owner that we could stop our search for Otis, and that it was fairly clear what had happened. Although it is rare for a coyote to take a domestic animal, it does happen on occasion. She could have sent the evidence to a lab for a DNA test, but I felt that the collar, the eyewitness account, and the orange fur constituted enough evidence that further testing wasn't necessary.
I probably would not have found the evidence if not for Karma's work in the area. Because she was very interested in what happened on that lawn, I knew to go back and check more thoroughly. The way Karma analyzed the scene was very similar to the way Kelsy behaved in the two instances where she found evidence of a coyote taking a small domestic animal. In all three instances, I could see that Kelsy and Karma were reading the ground like looking at a picture, and they were forming images in their minds of what happened. I couldn't know what they imagined, but I knew it was significant, and it led me to discover clues that I would have missed if not for them.
Another important lesson from this case is that there weren't a lot of missing cat fliers around the neighborhood. When I interview owners of missing cats, I always ask if there has been a recent increase in the number of missing cat fliers in the area, because this could mean there is a predator active in the area. Owls and bobcats are just as likely to take a cat. If they tell me No, there haven't been more fliers, then I leave the possibility of predation as unlikely, and I focus the search on other possibilities. However, in the cases of Casey the Shih-Tzu, Cookie the Havanese, and Otis the orange Tabby, all three were taken by coyotes and in all three cases there had not been an increase in lost pet fliers in the neighborhood. I will still ask the question, and I will still view the probability of predation as low, but it can happen without warning even when it is unlikely.
All of our cats are indoor-only, and any cat I adopt in the future will be indoor-only.
So sad. I lost my Maine Coon two summers ago. He was an indoor cat who accidentally got out one night. I didn't know until the next morning and went out searching for him.
ReplyDeleteThe clues were there, tons of fur and blood, but no body. I asked people in the area about what it could have been. I was surprised to hear we had coyotes. One neighbor heard them howling and yelping a few evenings before the attack. Another big clue was the lost pets signs around the neighborhood.
I miss him so much. Sorry to hear about Casey, Cookie, and Otis.