Where are you most likely to encounter coyotes in the Twin Cities?
You can find coyotes nearly anywhere in the Twin Cities, but you are more likely to find them in some areas than others. Coyotes can be confrontational in the spring when they are defending young pups, and it may be useful for people walking dogs to know where they may be most likely to encounter coyotes to minimize risk of a negative interaction. Select a municipality in the map at the bottom of the page to view the likelihood of encountering coyotes on Metro Collaborative Trails and Bikeways within that area. If you have questions regarding a trail that is not a Metro Collaborative Trail or within a municipality within the 7-county Twin Cities Metropolitan Area that is not listed, feel free to contact us to see if we can provide you information on that area.
Map Options
Base map: Light
Once a municipality is selected, you have three base map options which may be more useful depending on what you want to view. These options can be selected using the icon in the upper righthand corner. If you want to view the trails that have the least risk of encountering coyotes, the default "Light" base map will make those trails most obvious.
Base map: Dark
If you would instead like to view the trails with the highest likelihood of encountering coyotes, select the "Dark" base map from the options listed to make those trails stand out.
Base map: Satellite
Selecting the satellite imagery will make both light and dark trails stand out moderately, and is good if you are looking for certain landmarks to avoid when walking pets throughout the Twin Cities during the spring.
Display encounter likelihood percentile
Once the desired base map is selected, click on a trail segment to display the percentile rank of that trail as compared to all trails throughout the Twin Cities. Note that these percentiles are simply predictions based on the habitat preferences of coyotes that we have tracked with GPS collars since 2019, and there is no guarantee that you will not encounter coyotes in areas with low encounter likelihood or that you will see coyotes in high likelihood areas. In this example, you are less likely to encounter coyotes on 81% of trails throughout the Twin Cities than you are on this specific trail.