For the safety of all residents and due to an increase in “disturbing coyote encounters,” the animals would have to be trapped and removed, an email from my apartment complex announced last June. Some of my neighbors had been sending emails detailing alarming encounters with the canids. When I heard howling or yipping at night, on the other hand, I opened my windows and listened.

Access to flora and fauna was one of the reasons I chose this apartment, which sits on a large parcel of land next to a golf course and the Willamette River. Migrating geese rest on the neighboring rooftop, bald eagles perch in the Douglas fir trees, and, yes, coyotes roam the grounds. As dense human neighborhoods sprawl closer to wildlife, this type of human-nonhuman crossover in urban areas is becoming more prevalent. But this can be dangerous when we humans do nothing to understand the wildlife and expect animals to play by our rules.

Earth Island’s Project Coyote estimates that half a million coyotes are killed every year in the United States, but this could be an undercount. In states like Oregon, private landowners who deem a coyote on their property to be a “nuisance animal” can trap and remove them at any time, without a permit or the need to report it to local agencies. “Remove” is a euphemism: These “removed” animals aren’t let out somewhere else to frolic and live out their lives. They are killed.

Yet coyotes have managed to thrive. Since the 1950s, coyote ranges have increased by 40 percent. They live in every US state except Hawaiʻi and have become particularly prevalent in or around urban areas. Often, coyotes can live in our midst unnoticed. But in spring, when they are raising pups, it’s a different story. Every year in April and May, stories about “aggressive” coyotes appear. My apartment’s story is a common one. People describe them as stalking or hunting humans, especially those out walking dogs at night.

This behavior is referred to by biologists as “escorting.” One of the greatest threats to pups is other coyotes, Dave Keiter, a biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), tells me. This makes coyote parents protective around any canids — including dogs — and they often follow a person or their dog when they’re too close to pups. Such behavior scares people who mistake it as a threat or think they’re being hunted. But the coyotes are merely walking unwanted visitors out of their territory.

These are likely the kinds of encounters my apartment manager was hearing about.

Despite recommendations by ODFW to haze coyotes with nonlethal methods or wait out the breeding season, my building management went ahead with the plan to trap and remove them. While no coyotes were caught on our property, the neighboring golf course — likely part of the coyotes’ range — trapped one adult and two pups, none of whom had never actually harmed anyone. They were then killed. The pups were probably old enough to be weaned and would have soon voluntarily moved away. Instead, they are now dead.

Many people want to move into the so-called Wildland Urban Interface, where they can live close to nature, yet they don’t want to learn how to live with their wild neighbors. It can seem safer to remove first, ask questions later, but that approach is all wrong. When a coyote family is removed, new ones move in. Reproduction can even increase, Zuriel van Belle, director of the Portland Urban Coyote Project, told me.

Every pupping season, the same problems recur, and the same people demand coyote “removal.” Since a coyote’s territory can range up to 60 square miles, it seems to me that educating ourselves about basic coyote behavior would be a better option.

Besides, having these animals around is actually beneficial. A single coyote can eat over 1,000 rodents a year — a better pest control solution than the slow, painful poisons that can kill non-target wildlife as well. Coyotes keep other animals, like rabbits, deer, and Canada geese, in check too. They also clean up carrion. All that good work goes unnoticed, at least by most of us, and so we lose good neighbors to fear.

A few nights ago, I went for an evening walk in my neighborhood, hoping to find coyotes. I saw nothing. I heard nothing. No yips, or howls. Just the stark quiet of a neighborhood that had some of its vibrancy removed. I hope we do better for the next family of coyotes that’s bound to move in.