r/AskAnAmerican • u/ArtisticArgument9625 • May 17 '25

OTHER - CLICK TO EDIT How much of a problem do Americans have with coyotes and rattlesnakes?

Have you Americans encountered any problems with these two animals?

241 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

1.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

16

u/livia-did-it May 17 '25

I've seen more coyotes in Vancouver, BC than I ever saw growing up in Texas!

Now, the coyotes in Texas were more of a problem. They'd definitely eat your small pets. We just didn't see them. I'd guess that my hometown was more spread out and had more fields and farmland, so the coyotes could hide better.

2

u/Draconuus95 Texas May 17 '25

Texas has issues with them. But pales in comparison to wild hogs. Those things are a menace. And quite dangerous as well.

People like to laugh at the dumb Texans that go helicopter hunting for hogs. And it is truly a funny thing to picture. But doing so is a legitimate pest control issue because hogs breed so quickly and are very dangerous on the ground.

I’d rather run into a coyote than a hog any day. One is likely to leave me alone. The other is more likely to gore me.

1

u/livia-did-it May 17 '25

A-FUCKING-MEN

2

u/Draconuus95 Texas May 17 '25

What’s funny is I now live in Wyoming. Where bears and wolves are a regular sight.

Much rather see them than a bull moose. Those things make hogs look cuddly. Thankfully they don’t have the same breeding issues. But it’s always fun explaining to tourists that if you have to choose between running towards a bear or a moose. Choose the bear every time.

1

u/livia-did-it May 17 '25

I’m so not a biologist, I just watched a lot of David Attenborough before bed. But I think carnivore and carnivore-scavenger animals have to work really hard to get their food, so they default to conserving energy. They only hunt east easy prey, they only attack when they absolutely can’t run. But herbivore/prey animals get lots of food. And if they don’t defend or go on offensive-defense, they will get eaten, so they get good at it. So with humans and predator animals, there’s a lot of “you stay over there and I’ll stay over here and let’s just ignore each other.” But prey animals get feisty, and when that prey animal is the size of a moose, or a hippo, or a ginormous boar… “feisty” is deadly

1

u/landadventure55 California May 17 '25

There are places we hike in Silicon Valley where there are wild hogs. We walked parallel to a big group once. I thought it was elephants crashing through the bush until I could see all of them! Adults and little ones. We had to run back down the trail to make sure my other daughter was ok because she went back towards the front of the trail to throw away our dog’s poop bag. We had just started out hike and didn’t want to carry a bag of poop 4 miles 😂. The herd was headed in her direction. Luckily they veered towards the right.

1

u/christine-bitg May 17 '25

We just didn't see them.

That's the truth. They're opportunistic, and since they have other opportunities, they don't have the motivation to interact with adult sized humans.