Legality of self defense: Shooting a coyote in city

T

TXAZ

New member
3 times in the last couple of weeks I've seen a coyote up close while walking in the evening in Scottsdale AZ. I've started taking my 9mm ccw'ed.
Not lookin to shoot the animal but in the event, what would you do after such an event:
Call the cops
Call fish and game
Leave the coyote and go home
Something else

Anyone know what is required?
 
Crap the chances of a single coyote attacking a full grown person is very slim. I have them in my yard everyday. You are much more likely to get run over by some idiot driver.
 
What Tombstonejim said. You're not food to them. But if you're really concerned, I would probably call fish and game.
 
There are attacks in California and they are rising in number and frequency. As to legality, I can't see a prosecutor taking action anywhere but Massachusetts or California.
If I see one here in the Arkansas Ozarks, I'll shoot it.
When they start getting bold they are also getting dangerous.
 
Out here in Rhode Island, we shoot everyone we get the opportunity to kill. Or we just run them over. :) I haven't gotten one myself by the farmer next to me has bagged three in the past year and the guy up the street has 2 to his credit. It's all the same and it keeps all our little kiddies from getting eaten. Maybe a coyote is a useful creature in Arizona but in the Northeast they are just a dangerous nuisance.
 
I can shoot within my city limits

Up here where I live it's not against the law to discharge a gun within the city limits. It's not uncommon for somebody to shoot a coyote, marmots or wild dog or prairie dogs here in town. I have a problem with prairie dogs digging up my property and building their dens. I just sit out on the deck and pick them off when I have a clear shot. It took me a couple of weeks this year to get rid of them all. They'll be back next year and I'll be ready with the .22 rifle.
 
I don't think there would be a great deal of fuss about it if you were clearly attacked by it. That would indicate to me that the 'yote was rabid, and would be a menace to society. :eek:

If you were to spot a coyote acting strangely but not attacking, though, you should call animal control.

A lot would depend on whether the authorities thought your shooting endangered others.
 
I've told this story here before, but here goes. First, remember that I do live in a gun friendly state.

A few years ago, there was a dog alongside our house where we parked the cars that would not leave and growled whenever we approached the cars. It appeared to be a Rottweiler mix so I took it very seriously. In fact, I thought it might be rabid.

We called local animal control twice, but since it was still morning, they never bothered to show up. We had to go to work and the kids had to go to school. I told my wife that if the animal control didn't show up in a few minutes, I was going out to the car with a pistol and would shoot the dog if necessary. For some reason, she decided to call the police and tell them the story and I was getting ready to shoot it. The police told her they would arrest me for discharging a firearm inside the city limits!

Fortunately, however, this prompted Animal Control to come within five minutes. The officer didn't like the looks of the animal either and backed off. A neighbor down the street also worked for animal control. She heard the radio traffic and came to the house. It was her dog that she had rescued from the pound!

Long story, short moral. If you shoot a dog or coyote inside city limits, don't tell the authorities in advance. If you have to explain after the fact, explain that it actually started to attack.
 
There are attacks in California and they are rising in number and frequency.
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They're "rising" to a grand total of 9.6 a year. That means your odds of being attacked by a coyote are about seven times lower than your odds of being struck by lightning.
 
Now you can buy a Perry special LCP with his name on it for extra money. Saw them in Academy.

Of course, you could take a silver sharpie and write Perry on one also. :D

We used to get coyotoes coming down our street. Hurt the neighbor's daschhund. They were out before the kids went to bus but they've eased off since we used to live more in the country but now it is solid suburbs as the urban sprawl sprawled over us.
 
If you or another person was being actively attacked by a coyote (or any other animal for that matter), I'd think that it would probably be viewed the same as self-defense against a human: you'd need to be able to demonstrate that you were in fear of death or serious bodily harm to yourself or another person. Shooting an animal that is attacking a pet or shooting one that is acting in a threatening manner but not actively attacking would be a bit more tricky and your legal outcomes would probably vary greatly depending upon your area.

Also, I think the circumstances surrounding the shooting would play into things a great deal. Shooting a coyote with your CCW handgun in a heavily populated subdivision would probably be looked at with less suscpicion than shooting one with your scoped hunting rifle from your deer blind (seems a bit more like potential poaching).

If I had to shoot a coyote (or any other animal for that matter) inside city limits, I'd probably call the police first, followed closely by the DNR (Department of Natural Resources). Were I really that worried about coyotes or similar sized animals, I think I might consider carrying an alternate means of self-defense tool in addition to a gun. Smacking a coyote or aggressive dog with an ASP baton or spraying one with pepper spray would probably draw a lot less sucspicion than shooting one.
 
Thanks for the feedback.
When i walk I do take one medium dog who needs the exercise and an old little dog who is deaf and blind but clearly likes the smells.
 
If you aren't comfortable shooting the thing, perhaps you could carry a hefty putter or sand wedge to sway it away from your pups. Here, they are an invasive pest species, and i doubt any self-respecting LEO would cite someone for dispatching one if reasonable safety precautions were observed.
 
A lot of it would depend on circumstances. If it was in the daytime that I saw it, I would immediately become suspicious of rabies, since coyotes are normally more nocturnal. Either that, or it has become habituated to humans. Either way, that is a coyote that is becoming a danger to people, especially to small children, who are much more at risk than adults. In a neighborhood with small children who play in the yard, if coyotes come around, they should be eliminated.

At night, it might be curiosity or else the animal is becoming habituated. One thing is for certain, if people have been feeding it, or if it has been able to raid pets' food bowls in the yards, it is going to become habituated to people. At that point, it becomes a menace. If animal control won't take care of it, then it becomes more dicy. Try the Fish and Game people also. See what they say. But, if it comes for me, so that it is shot in the front where the evidence will say that it is coming after me, rest assured that it would be a dead coyote.
 
In Az, you must call fish and game. Do not bother the police. If a neighbor calls the police, you will get enough grief to last a lifetime. If the police do show up, remember to say that you feared for your life and nothing else. Then get a lawyer.
 
A point to remember...

IF you are attacked (by any mammal) and you get bitten (or scratched) and you kill the animal in self defense, try and preserve the brain. The animal, not yours!:D

In other words, unless you have no choice, don't shoot it in the head!

Rabies is a nasty thing, and very fatal to mammals, including us. And it can be carried by about any mammal, coyote, dog, skunk, even bats, etc. Animals can be rabid (or carriers) without showing the classic foaming at the mouth, rabid dog symptoms. In fact, in many animals, especially smaller ones (like skunks and racoons) the symptoms might only show as a lack of fear of man, and generally stupid, disoriented behavior.

This can be very bad, particularly for children and foolish adults, who think the animal is just "being friendly", ...until they get bitten!

The test for rabies is done using brain tissue (again, the animal, not yours;)), and if there is no brain to test, or not enough tissue (like splattered all over by that nice JHP you used) then you WILL get the RABIES SHOTS, as a preventitive precaution. Not fun, so everybody says, but better than getting rabies and dying. As I hear it, once rabies takes hold, there is no sure cure.

So, if Wile E. Coyote (or the neighborhood stray dog) or a nice friendly skunk or racoon (or any other animal) breaks your skin, particularly with a bite, zap 'em through the chest, as many times as it takes to anchor them. Otherwise, say hello to MR Stomach Needle!

And don't bite the heads off any bats, either!
 
...then you WILL get the RABIES SHOTS, as a preventitive precaution. Not fun, so everybody says, but better than getting rabies and dying. As I hear it, once rabies takes hold, there is no sure cure.
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They don't do an abdominal needle anymore, but the rabies shot series is long and very expensive and very physically unpleasant anyway. They put the shot into your upper arm muscle and also into the site of the bite. If you have multiple bites, you get multiple shots -- one into each bite location, plus the upper arm injection. It costs from $2000 to $7000 per person for the series, depending on the exposure and some other factors. That cost is just for the medication itself, not including how much it might cost you to pay the doctor to jab you with it.

Two of my children were exposed to a bat inside our home a few years back, which bit one of them and bled all over the other. We started the rabies series on the boys immediately on the advice of -- well, just about every medical official in the county, as far as I could tell -- and it was awful for them. Thank God we did not need to complete the series, as the tests on the bat-brain came back clear. And thank God we did have the bat-brain to test.

It's not that there is "no sure cure" for rabies once symptoms start. It's that there is no cure at all. None. And it's a nasty, painfully horrible death by all accounts. The bug basically crawls up your nerves and finally eats your brain. You die delirious and in great pain, with your muscles in uncontrollable spasms.

Don't play around with that stuff.

pax
 
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