Last night, the Decatur City Commission heard from another round of residents upset about the recent deaths of cats in Drexel/East Parkwood neighborhood.  In a detailed Powerpoint presentation, Christy Bosarge detailed the death of her cat to a coyote 5 weeks ago.  She emphasized that she knew that the city could not eradicate coyotes, but that they needed to “put the fear” back into the coyote population so that they weren’t so casually interacting with the human population and their pets.

Ms. Bosarge even invited a coyote trapper, Chip Elliot, to the meeting, who was very complementary of coyotes’ intelligence and upfront about the fact that you can’t eliminate them from an area.  (A coyote’s territory is 5 square miles in an urban area, according to Elliot.)  The executive director for A.W.A.R.E, Tarah Hadley, also spoke out at the meeting, in opposition to trapping and killing coyotes in Decatur.

The contrast in viewpoints between Mr. Elliot and Ms. Hadley demonstrated the complexity of the issue of coyotes in urban environments.  While they both agreed that coyotes could not be removed from an area by trapping them, they disagreed that a coyote could be made more cautious of the human population through trapping.

However, Mr. Elliot admitted that the best case scenario is to trap yearly and hope that it instills caution in the coyote population.  But even this method won’t even guarantee that the population will decline.

The City Commission came away from the discussion with talk about getting the word out to residents about Decatur’s coyote population, but as the City Manager reemphasized in response to a resident’s question: the process of choice of most metro Atlanta communities is “cohabitation”.

So that’s that for the time being.  But let me quickly discuss the most interesting thing I heard at last night’s meeting.  In reflection on the comments from Mr. Elliot, at the end of the commission meeting Ms. Merriss noted that the calls to city hall with coyote sightings come in regularly like clockwork as the coyotes move around their territory, following the fresh water sources.  A sighting near Drexel will be followed a couple days later on Glenlake and then a couple days later in Winnona Park.

Also, at one point Mr. Elliot was discussing how coyotes choose their and noted that they go after whatever will burn the fewest calories.  Amongst the trash and other small animals, “cats who don’t run away”, were another option.

Which basically boils down to: if you live near a floodplain and have outdoor cats who aren’t especially skittish around dogs and other people, you should be the most wary about the coyotes.

Though no coyotes or coyotes experts are quoted in this article, many Decaturites are well aware that if you bring in experts, they will advise against capture and killing coyotes.  Not for any moral reason, but because the animals will just quickly repopulate your coyote-friendly areas.  Guess Sandy Springs has some money to burn.  From the AJC…

Confrontations between residents and coyotes in a Sandy Springs neighborhood have gotten so serious, a homeowners association board recently voted to hire trappers to capture and kill the animals – the latest to do so in the area, but creating a split in the community.

“It was a tough decision, but we’ve made it. I’m having about 12-to-1 calls and emails in favor of this process,” Dane Seibert, president of the Huntcliff Homeowners Association, told the AJC in a phone interview.

Ah well, ’tis better to have killed and lost, than never to have killed at all, I suppose.

Shannon writes in that at around 11pm on Friday night two “fearless” coyotes stared down her car at 129 Upland Drive in Decatur.

They DO exist!  (Did I just quote an M&Ms commercial in a coyote post?)

From the Glennwood Estates message board via Dave’s Decatur Heights Neighborhood blog…

One of our neighbors on the south end of Mt. Vernon stopped me to say that he has a coyote in his back yard. At about 6:30 this morning, the coyote killed another neighbor’s dog that, I gather, might have been running loose. The coyote is most apt to be active at dawn and dusk and is protected by law.

So that’s what?  A second-hand account being provided to you in a fourth-hand account?  Would be great if we could get some confirmation on this reported dog-killing.

Of course, coyotes aren’t unheard of ’round these parts.  Who can forget my overly snarky coverage of the coyote caught in Oakhurst back in November 2007?  Not me, that’s for sure!

Photo Courtesy of 11Alive

inDecatur points to a discussion over at the Decatur Forum about an 11alive article I reported on yesterday regarding the fate of the coyote caught in Oakhurst. The article states that the coyote was to be euthanized yesterday, so the discussion may only be hypothetical at this point.

Why the coyote was euthanized and not released in a more suitable environment is probably a money issue. Much cheaper to just kill the animal than spend the time and money to truck it way outside the perimeter and release it. Other than that, the only other motivation to kill is the fear that the animal could come back and frighten residents and eat weaker animals.

I can certainly comprehend the efficiency argument, even though I may not agree with it. As far as the coyote returning to Oakhurst, I don’t know how far away the animal would have to be taken not to return, so I can’t really judge the validity of that fear.