It is possible, but nobody can give you odds, and a missing cat alone is not evidence. Keep searching unless you find remains that clearly point to a coyote.
What can be said honestly
Yes, it is possible. Coyotes do eat cats. But a missing cat, even with coyotes in the area, tells you nothing about what happened to yours, and nobody knows what share of missing cats are taken. State wildlife agencies confirm the risk. Connecticut’s says outdoor cats and small dogs under 25 pounds are vulnerable when unsupervised, and North Carolina’s says smaller dogs and cats may be seen as food. Neither gives a rate. Most of the cats in a survey of 1,210 missing cats that were found alive were found close to home, and in a national ASPCA survey, 59 percent of recovered cats came back on their own. So keep searching. A neighbor’s guess that a coyote got your cat is not a finding.
What the research does show
The best recent numbers come from Larson and colleagues, PLoS ONE, 2020, who studied coyotes in southern California. Cat remains turned up in 19.8 percent of 1,541 urban scats and 3.9 percent of 1,606 suburban scats, and chemical analysis of whiskers from urban coyotes estimated cats at 39.5 percent of diet. The authors call that high compared with other urban coyote studies. So this is a real finding, and it is also a very local one. It tells you what those coyotes ate. It does not tell you how many cats in an area are killed, whether those cats were alive when eaten, or anything about coyotes in your state. Do not use it to work out the odds for your cat. No study we read can do that.
How to check for signs
Walk the area in daylight, near where your cat was last seen, along fence lines, trails and the edge of any brush. The Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management says coyote scat is tubular and segmented, with one end tapering to a point, and may hold fur or bone fragments, and that coyotes often leave it along trails and at intersections. Tracks are more oval than a dog’s rounder prints, about 2.5 to 3 inches long, with claw marks in soft ground. These tell you a coyote has been there, which you may already know. They do not tell you it found your cat. Take photos with something for scale, and ask your county animal control or state wildlife office to look at them.
What the signs cannot prove
We could not find an official guide to telling a coyote kill from other causes of death in a cat, so do not trust confident advice online. Fur in a scat may come from any number of animals. Tufts of fur on the ground may mean a fight, grooming or a scavenger. Remains on a roadside may have been moved after a car hit the animal. If you find remains, take a photo and do not touch them with bare hands. Check for a collar. Call animal control and ask if it can scan for a chip, and call your vet to ask whether an exam could tell you anything. Our post on how to find out if your lost pet was found dead on the road explains who else to ask.
Do not change the search because of a rumor
People often say a coyote probably got it. That sentence can end a search that should have gone on. Practitioner Kat Albrecht lists predators as one of eight possible outcomes for a missing cat, along with being trapped nearby, displaced, carried off in a vehicle, injured, rescued by someone or stolen. Each of those other outcomes has a job you can do: check sheds, set a camera, knock on doors, call shelters. So keep doing them. Look under decks and porches with a flashlight, ask the neighbors to check garages, and file a shelter report. Our post on how to cope when your pet is missing has a line ready for neighbors who keep bringing it up.
Reporting a coyote
Most sightings do not need a report. Oregon’s Department of Fish and Wildlife says to contact the agency if a coyote is aggressive toward people, pets or livestock, including snarling, barking or not retreating when hazed, and to call 911 if a coyote attacks a person. California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife has an online Wildlife Incident Report system for coyote incidents. If you saw a coyote with a cat, or found something that troubles you, look up your own state’s wildlife agency and ask what it wants to know. Do not expect a coyote to be moved: Oregon’s agency, for example, says it does not relocate them.
Protecting your other pets
Whatever happened, you can act on this today. Oregon recommends keeping cats indoors or in a secure outdoor enclosure such as a catio. California says to bring pets in at night and not to leave small pets outside unsupervised. North Carolina says coyotes are most active around sunrise and sunset, urges extra care from February through May, and says to feed pets indoors or remove leftover food. Oregon adds fallen fruit, birdseed and garbage to the list of things to clear away. If you are keeping a feeding station out for your missing cat, take the food in at night or use a trap you can watch, so that you do not bring wildlife to your door.
Sources
Larson et al., PLoS ONE, 2020: journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0228881. Connecticut DEEP: portal.ct.gov/deep/wildlife/fact-sheets/coyote. North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission: ncwildlife.gov/species/coyote. Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife: myodfw.com/articles/living-coyotes. California Department of Fish and Wildlife: wildlife.ca.gov/HWC/Coyotes. Internet Center for Wildlife Damage Management: icwdm.org/species/mammals/coyotes. Huang et al., Animals, 2018: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5789300. Weiss, Slater and Lord, Animals, 2012: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4494319. Missing Animal Response: missinganimalresponse.com/lost-cat-behavior.