Coyote Spotted In Staten Island Near Fresh Kills

that it has every amenity as the rest of the city, a coyote was spotted at the site of the old Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island. Nick Mirto was dropping off a load of soil at 7:45 a.m. on Thursday when something caught his eye. "I just looked to the left, and there he was, about 30 feet from the road we just drove down," Mirto told the Staten Island Advance. "He looks very healthy. There's plenty of food in there for him to eat."

Dr. Paul Curtis, the extension wildlife specialist at Cornell and the co-principal investigator for the New York Suburban Coyote Study told the paper that the city's coyotes likely come from the populations in Westchester County. "It is just a matter of time before dispersing coyotes figure out how to cross the bridges at night and get onto [the Island]." But will they be able to manage Staten Island's complicated dating scene?

Juvenile coyotes can disperse up to 50 miles from their place of birth, and the DEC believes there are between 20 and 30 thousand in the state. Dr. Curtis notes that while coyote attacks are relatively rare, they should be treated with "respect," as evidenced by the string of encounters that occurred in Rye a few years ago.