Can a cat escape a coyote attack?

Oh God where do you find the words to comfort a human soul who has lost a free soul (pet)?
I felt the same as you. I look back and see so many things I should have done-guilt consumes me.
June 8th is coming upon us-and I still search the neighborhood and areas between for my baby boy Wednesday.
August 2011-We adopted another Maine Coon-female Ginger to relieve the pain and loneliness for our other cat Roxy-who still pines for her mate Wednesday. And of lately-I think she is giving up hope-she barely eats, sleeps all the time, hardly talks anymore (part Siamese). Its so quite around here, and to see the light going out of her eyes in these past couple of weeks is so heart breaking, because the pain does not seem to go away.
Her friend Ginger is frisky, but can't get her to play anymore.
Blesses to you!

Purry was an outside/inside Siamese cat. He lived this way for 15 years. He came in and out during the day and always stayed in at night and slept beside me unless I was out of town. When we were out of town, we always left the garage door opener with our neighbor who could come and feed the cat everyday in the garage.
On 4/5, I went out of town for one night and left the garage door up a small amount so that he come in and eat/sleep.
When I returned on 4/6, I did not see him. When night came and it was time to go to bed, he did not come to the door as usual. I then drove a around the neighborhood looking for him and could not find him. On 4/7, he was not around either. I walked around the yard and spotted his breakaway collar lying in the grass still fastened in a circle. Then I saw tufts of his beautiful fur lying all around. I began to feel sick.
I looked everywhere for him for days, thinking that he may be injured from a cat fight. The other alternatives are very hard to even picture or even imagine.
I put up flyers all over the neighborhood and the local petfinder on facebook and offered a reward for him and I vowed that I ever found him again that I would never allow him outside again.
It has now been 12 days since 4/5 and my heart is broken and a big hole is left in my life. I regret not making him stay in and I hope that others will read this and take their cats inside and not have to go through the pain that I am currently feeling. I did not ever think about this happening to him and I feel so bad and full of guilt. What I would give to have him with me tonight. He was a once in a lifetime cat, he was beautiful, smart and his personality like no other have I ever known and I miss him so much.

Like others-there was no sign that he had been attacked.
So I assumed he was chased off his turf (around our yard)-ran endlessly and ended up at the other neighborhood 1/8 mile behind ours.
And of course-lost his way back in the process. So he might be just wandering in the desert from one hiding place to another.
I got out one day with my megaphone and walked from our house to the other neighborhood, calling for him every couple of feet. No luck. That was August 2011.
I would give anything to have him back.

To all of you who showed concern for my baby boy.
He was sighted in another neigborhood 1/8 mile from ours-was fed by a resident, but could not catch him.
It is now October-and no one has seen him since August 2011.
I have had bad dreams about him-but folks tell me he may have given in and let someone adopt him out of the wild.
I still cry and keep up the hope-but I am concerned that he may have turned feral to survive.

We live in the Pacific NW on 2 acres of field, brush, & woods. Our property backs to a nursery and a natural wildlife corridor. We recently moved here in March 2011, from a suburban environment. We have a 10yr old female tabby & then two months ago we adopted a 10yr old 20 lb male MaineCoon cat. He was pure white in color (beautiful!) Our Tabby has been out in our fields since March and loves it! She has been outside at night and has been fine. We have seen coyotes in the area, but our nearest neighbor has 10 cats and our other neighbor has a med. size dog. Nothing has happened to our neighbor's pets and we felt relatively safe in allowing our new member of the family explore outside after being kept in for a month. On Sat (yesterday) morning, the sun was out for the first time in a week and was beautiful. My husband went out to get the paper & there was white fur (large amounts) covering the back field behind our house (right next to the shed the cats sleep under) all the way around the drive way, across the front field, across the narrow roadway, and then into the next field. I didn't want to trespass onto someone else's property so I didn't venture further, but the sun was bright and the field was very open and I couldn't see our cat nor any more fur beyond just past the roadway. I completely lost it and my husband had to investigate further. There was no body or carcass, no appendages, no blood, no nothing (not even on the fur), just gobs of white fur everywhere! My husband cleaned up the fur and a lot of it looks as if it had been sheared by scissors in many places (no blood/skin attached). I called for him all day Sat. to no avail! Our tabby came out from under the shed and is fine, she is now strictly indoors (much to her unhappiness). He was such a loving laid back cat, very large in size but was quick.
We figured that since our tabby had been okay that he would definitely be okay for a couple nights outside. I am horrified and sickened with grief and guilt! Our children are heartbroken! I go to our door and wriggle the cat food bag and call for him. Do you believe there is any way that our cat could have survived an attack from a coyote and be injured somewhere? Could he have survived losing a lot of fur? Why would coyotes leave all the fur, but no blood, no mess behind? I am so at a loss, never in my wildest thoughts did I believe this could happen! I made a terrible decision to allow two loved pets to run free at night in a place obviously crawling with predators & I just want to see him come home! I read that cats can sometimes chase coyotes for a couple miles (or be chased) and get lost in the process....then show up home. The amount of fur left behind though is discouraging. I thought a good sized MaineCoon would be a challenge to such an animal! Do coyotes teeth slice fur like razors/scissors? If this was a coyote attack, will they return because they possibly found a meal here? Do you think he will return home?

Sorry for not adding my name sooner.

Wednesday has a mate/Roxy who 'acts' like she is always waiting for him to come home. She wanders the yard, like she expects him to pop over the wall any minute. I ask you all, does a cat/mate know (when they are close to each other), if another cat is alive or dead?
By the way, I have not ruled out our nasty neighbor of the 'suspects' list. As it seems that maybe his inlaws a few doors down, could also have our cat captive in their house.
UGH! This is the worst scenerio I have ever been in.

God Bless You!
I wish it were that easy. We keep watching their house, but do not even see our cat in their window, one of his favorite sports. We can only figure (2) things. They got rid of him (gave to somone else), or he is in a cage in a back room of the house. Wednesday does not like cages-evident by when we take him to the Cat Hotel for our vacation time. If we call the Police, they are going to ask us what proof we have to search their house. I already had a search done of my cat hating neighbor by the police the very next day he was missing. If I call the Police again, and suspect someone else-they are going to think I'm crackers.

Anonymous, if you suspect the cat is being held with those people, immediately report them to the police! You may even want to intimate to those people that there are witnesses who saw them at their house and you are pressing charges. If they're guilty, that should scare the beejeezus out of them! Don't give up...persistence pays off.

Thank you for those encouraging words. I sought the help of a Pet Psychic. Don't snicker, I REALLY want my baby boy Wednesday back. I have had him since birth. That's 4 years now. He is like a person to me. He acts like people by mimicing everything I do.
Nonetheless, PP told me where he was and who he was with. I went the way she told me to go and knocked on the house door-my jaw dropped. There were the people she described to me.
When I asked about my boy, they acted scared and made a comment that just did not seem right.
The mother said, we had no idea. We are so sorry.
Da! What did you think I thought. He has a collar and posters everywhere. Of course he belongs to someone.
I don't know how to get him back now. I walk up and down their street now, calling his name. But I don't see him in any window.
So for now, NIX the COYOTE THEORY.

A cat can escape a coyote. And Maine Coons are large and good movers and jumpers. And their size may assist in defense (coyote less likely to attack perhaps).

He may well come back. I have read lots of stories of cats going wandering and returning.

Best of luck.

On the above date, we could not get our indoor cat inside. We had his female mate go out and try to coax him in, still he would not come in. I called again 2x's before I went to bed around 10pm. In the morning we called for him. No Wednesday.
It is now June 24, 2001. We put up posters all over our community. A few people said they saw him roaming and chasing praire dogs. Still no one actually caught him.
Than I suspected the coyotes in Arizona got him. But I was told there would be fur and blood if that had happened.
We watched our security camera and saw our cat just walk off into the night at 11pm.
Than 2 nights later, a coyote came prowling, which led us to think, our Wednesday got away and he was coming back to find him.
Can a house cat (Maine Coon), actually get away from a coyote? So if our Wednesday got spooked by a coyote, would he ever come back to us?

You are absolutely correct, Michael. Safety does come 1st but cats are natural wanderers wanting to be outside. What to do? Cat enclosures are the perfect solution if one has room.

Unfortunately, our 2nd floor back porch isn't large enough for one but there are lots of perches at windows for Abby to look out while I'm away. She will be on leash (if it ever stops raining) as soon as I am able to find a body harness large enough for her rubinesque body, LOL! She'll be able to join me outside on the porch on leash like Sadie did. As it stands, Abby waits patiently inside, even with the door open, while food is put out for the strays. Bless her.

Thanks ladies for the useful comments. Yes, there are merits in keeping cats indoors because of the dangers of large wildlife.

I still think though that the best compromise is a cat enclosure of some kind as it protects the cat and allows a more natural lifestyle.

My old lady cat loves to go out. She is outside all day these warm days. It gives her pleasure in her old age. But she is safe and I agree that safety must come first.

We have coyotes very near our house. A neighbor told me there are lots of them near the railroad tracks and sometimes the size of the large feral cat colony (about two blocks over) decreases due to coyotes catching and killing cats. Oddly enough, hearing about coyotes killing these poor creatures upsets me less than animal control doing it. A feral cat as a wild animal faces dangers any other wild animal faces. Sometimes the cat kills the bird or the rabbit, other times the coyote kills the cat. The bad thing is we bred the cats to be smaller and to have more colorful coats, decreasing their chances of survival in the wild. I've never seen coyotes near our house, but I still monitor Monty pretty closely outside-- partly to decrease his impact on local wildlife, partly to keep him safe from local wildlife (or nasty humans).

My husband and I saw a fox on Howard Ave in Bayview on Sunday. (Bayview is a bustling urban neighborhood-- part of Milwaukee, WI.) The poor little red fox was quite bedraggled (it was raining) and he seemed to be trying to cross a busy street, sitting far too close to the passing cars. I wanted so much to be able to help him. Perhaps he was sick.

If you suspect an animal might be rabid there really is no one to call about that. There was a possum out in broad daylight a few years ago, coming up toward people walking on the sidewalk. I called animal control thinking he might be rabid, and they said they only deal with domestic animals and I would have to pay an exterminator. The animal in question was across the street from my house and I hardly wanted to spend money to deal with what at that moment wasn't really my problem.

Revealing though, isn't it: Animal control is so busy rounding up and killing feral cats that when there is a chance a wild animal might be sick with a very dangerous disease that affects humans they don't have time to deal with it. Our tax dollars at work. Michael has to be right-- there is money for them in killing these cats. No one's going to pay for the carcass of a rabid possum or fox, but the dead bodies of healthy, feral cats must command a price from somewhere. Why else this insanity?

Interesting article, Michael. We see coyotes here in the northeast of the USA as well. We also have very large black bears and moose who also roam free. Although this is a city, we've got a lot of rural areas within a 30-minute drive where wildlife thrives. (We also have government protections on some who were in decline awhile back. Large wildlife is usually caught, tagged and released where they belong.)

What I also found interesting is the comment at the end of your article about why some Americans permanently keep their cats indoors and you hit the nail on the head. Besides traffic and abuse, our domesticated animals could very well fall prey to the call of the wild. Keeping our cats inside, providing for their every need, is the responsible thing to do.

The point about large wildlife in the U.K. being wiped out of existence centuries ago is sad. Hopefully, it gives 2nd thoughts about being too judgmental regarding indoor/outdoor cats. The U.K. has beautiful villages with space and little traffic but no large wildlife. The USA has huge cities and a crush of humanity with large wildlife. Both societies have their merits. It's nice to understand both sides.