MINNEAPOLIS _ The con begins long after nightfall, with an unearthly cry that echoes across the empty expanse of frozen marshland.
Josh Anthony, 38, sits in the shadow of reedy cattails on the far reaches of the west metro outside Montrose, dressed in winter camouflage and waiting for his prey to make a fatal mistake. An electronic device propped on the snow some 30 yards away wails like a rabbit in peril, a siren song for any hungry coyotes lurking nearby.
Hunters like Anthony, of Watertown, say there's no doubt that more coyotes are moving through the open fields and farms on the fringe of the Twin Cities, driving more people to brave winter nights and try to outwit them when their fur is prime.
That's no easy task given the iconic cunning of the hunters' prey _ an animal that has learned to live and thrive, often unseen, by largely avoiding humans throughout the exurbs, the suburbs and more recently the concrete world of the urban core. But with their proliferation in the Twin Cities and metropolitan centers across the country comes rising fears about human conflict, pet attacks and a debate over how to coexist with the remarkably adaptable carnivore next door. Revere or revile them, coyotes are king in the urban turf war.
They have become regular stars of neighborhood social media groups, where pleas for tolerance clash with calls for their death or removal.
"The fact they're moving into cities is an example of how they've won," said Stan Gehrt, an Ohio State University wildlife ecologist who has studied coyotes in Chicago since 2000. "They've taken their number one predator, which is us, and actually chosen to live right in our backyards."
After more than a decade hunting coyotes, Anthony has trained his eyes to sleuth out the signs these urban ghosts leave behind, often spotting tracks as he drives through Carver County.
On this cloudy January night, paw prints halted his footsteps in an open field, where he pointed to soft grooves bruising the snow.
"They're everywhere," he said. "People just don't realize that."
