By Sean Sullivan

“Howl at the tone,” ended John Maguranis’ voicemail message.

I’d called him to talk coyotes, and he picked up his phone halfway through my reply.

Now semi-retired after a long career caring for and learning about animals, Maguranis serves as the Massachusetts representative for Project Coyote. That group’s mission is to educate the public about the animals, foster a peaceful coexistence between them and their human neighbors.

Maguranis served for two decades as a veterinary technician in the U.S. Army, then as an animal control officer just outside of Boston.

Pay any attention to your local neighborhood networking app, and you’ll find coyotes making frequent special guest star appearances. One that waltzed nonchalantly through a certain backyard, or another that “stared down” a resident.

I neighbor a house that has a small dog, one that can sometimes be heard barking outside after dark. On one evening this summer, I also heard that howl Maguranis joked about in his voicemail message.

An island of several wooded acres sits behind the house where I live. On that night I donned a headlamp and went out back, scanning through the trees and darkness. Several sets of disembodied eyes shone in the dim. They glowed a ghoulish green, seeming to float in the distance.

They indeed stared back, likely puzzled and wary of the beam of white light that had pierced their protective darkness.

“They’re just curious,” said Maguranis. Coy-oats, he calls them. “The fear of coyotes is overblown.” That said, the veteran veterinarian added that there’s always cause for common-sense caution.

Small children and dogs, ones that can be comfortably carried by people, may be seen as prey by the animals.

Here in Natick, the town’s sprawling Hunnewell Forest provides a refuge for local wildlife. During a recent hike through those woods, I crossed paths with two people wrangling about a half-dozen dogs between them. A few were leashed; several other small ones led the pack, trailing their untended tethers behind them on the path.

Not long after that on another hike, I was stopped in my tracks. A lone coyote stood on the trail, seeming to loom large in the distance. Most adult coyotes, said Maguranis, range in weight from 30 to 35 pounds. A thick coat of fur, he added, can make them appear bigger.

For coyotes that overstay their welcome, Maguranis said that residents can use the animal’s curiosity to disinvite them.

He told of the time one harried homeowner devised a novel gambit to ward off an unwelcome guest. A coyote had grown accustomed to camping out nightly in her yard, so she fastened pinwheels to her fence. Those oddities spinning in the wind were a weird-enough addition to keep the coyote at bay.

But Maguranis said that a set-it-and-forget-it tactic like that isn’t likely to be effective in the long term. Coyotes, like every other creature, will adapt.

He recounted a situation in Arlington, when a bold specimen selected one community as its stomping ground. Trouble can arise when animals grow accustomed to people, believe they have nothing to fear from their two-legged neighbors. 

“Hazing” the animals is one option in such cases, said Maguranis. This entails pursuing (at a distance!) a coyote, slowly stalking the animal in a sustained and safe way. This reclaims territory from the coyote, teaches it to steer clear of the area.

The Arlingtonians seemed to have made something of a party out of it. Like our ancestors of old, the village assembled to cast out the other, though here their cause was a righteous and practical one. In lieu of torches, they lit the way likely with flashlights and cell phones.

“‘We hazed the coyote and haven’t seen him since,’” Maguranis recalled the residents telling him after their adventure.

“You have to follow through,” he added.

But Maguranis has decades of experience interacting with the animals, and following any wild creature into the night is not recommended. The Arlingtonians had strength in numbers. To deal with a complacent coyote in a community, residents should call a professional trained in animal control.          

And lest it needs to be said, Maguranis said that feeding the animals is a hard no.

“I’d be on guard,” he said of the coyote community. But he added that with education and common-sense precautions, our two species can safely share space.

“Knowledge conquers fears,” he said. “It’s really good to put good information out there. I do what I can.”