Tips from wildlife officials on coyote encounters Always supervise your pet when outside, especially at dawn and dusk. Never leave cats or dogs outside after dark. If you must leave your pet outside, secure it in a fully enclosed kennel. Pick up small pets if confronted by a coyote. Keep pets on a 6-foot leash when walking. Remove attractants from your yard, including pet food, water sources, bird feeders and fallen fruit. Secure trash in a container with a locking lid and put the trash out on the morning of the scheduled pickup. Never feed coyotes. If you meet a coyote, make it feel unwelcome by yelling, throwing rocks and sticks at it, spraying it with a hose or a vinegar-filled water gun or banging pots and pans. Make yourself appear to be big, and use a loud, authoritative voice to keep coyotes away.

A ranger from Boulder’s open space department shot an aggressive coyote Tuesday after it had gained a reputation for chasing bike commuters along an eastern section of the Boulder Creek Path.

In the latest incident, around 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, the coyote charged a cyclist and bit his tire on the section of the bike path that runs east of Foothills Parkway behind the businesses on Pearl Circle, according to an onlooker.

“The bike commuter was fine,” said Kris Thompson, who also was riding his bike along the same stretch of trail. “The coyote only got a hold of the cyclist’s tire. We stopped and watched it just kind of hang out on trail.”

The coyote — which Thompson had seen a couple of times around the same place and time — seemed nonplussed as Thompson and other bikers continued past the animal after the attack.

Several reports of a coyote in the area have been made to city officials over the last month, said Val Matheson, Boulder’s urban wildlife coordinator.

In one report, which documents incidents on Nov. 11 and Nov. 14, a cyclist described the coyote charging him around 7 p.m. Another report from a cyclist, filed about a Nov. 8 incident, claimed that the coyote chased the rider.

“That’s behavior that we would be concerned about — that’s something not right,” said Matheson before the animal was killed. “That’s not showing normal behavior. In any way that a coyote is coming towards a person as opposed to moving away from them, we’re concerned.”

After Tuesday morning’s incident was reported to animal control, an open space ranger responded to the area of the bike path near 55th Street and Pearl Parkway, according to city spokesman Patrick von Keyserling.

“The ranger located the coyote and observed inappropriate, potentially dangerous behavior,” von Keyserling said in a statement Tuesday afternoon. “The animal appeared to be following or paralleling hikers. The ranger put the animal down shortly after noon today.”

Coyotes are ubiquitous across the Front Range, and Boulder appears to have had fewer problems with coyote-human interactions than in neighboring locales, such as Broomfield and Erie, Matheson said.

“It seems, comparatively, we don’t have the same amount of issues,” Matheson said.

Jennifer Churchill, spokeswoman for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, said it’s important that people who come in contact with coyotes in Boulder or elsewhere don’t do anything that would encourage the animals to lose their fear of humans. She suggested carrying an air horn or a noisemaker to scare the animals off.

“I think it’s very important for people to understand that wildlife, in order to coexist with us, need to have a fear of humans,” she said. “They need to see us as a threat.”

Contact Camera Staff Writer Laura Snider at 303-473-1327 or sniderl@dailycamera.com.