GOLDEN, Colo.—The best way to stop Colorado’s worrisome uptick in coyote attacks is to persuade people to stop doing things that unwittingly attract the sometimes-dangerous animals, and not try to kill them off, state experts say.
About 200 city officials from across the Denver metro area huddled with officers from the state Division of Wildlife at a daylong coyote summit on Wednesday.
The wildlife managers said coyotes have long thrived in developed areas, and centuries of trying to eradicate the animals has shown there’s no getting rid of them. The only solution is to stop people from unwittingly attracting coyotes, wildlife officers said.
They said the culprits are people who let cats and dogs run free in the back yard, bird watchers who don’t think coyotes eat bird seed and people who think of themselves as “coyote whisperers” and try to attract the animals as pets or photography subjects.
“People don’t necessarily like to hear they have to go outside with their dogs to go to the bathroom, or that they can’t leave their dogs outside all day to run around,” said Liza Hunholz, an area wildlife manager for the Division of Wildlife Denver office. “But we’re in a new reality. Make no mistake: this is key to reducing coyote conflicts.”
District wildlife manager Casey Westbrook said eradication efforts are useless. Killing coyotes just opens up more habitat for new ones, and it’s a species that can repopulate fairly quickly. Because they are so adaptable, thriving from deserts to swamps to big-city alleys, development doesn’t slow them down.
“We’re making things more suitable for coyotes, not less,” Westbrook said.
State officials don’t keep records of local coyote sightings, but two people have been bitten by coyotes in the Denver area since December. Suburban Greenwood Village has tallied more reported coyote sightings so far in 2009 than in all of 2004.
“This has been an extraordinary year,” Hunholz said.
In Colorado, local governments are largely free to craft their own coyote-management plans. They range from lethal control to “The coyotes were here first, you’ve got to learn to deal with ’em,” said Department of Wildlife regional manager Steve Yamashita.
Yamashita assured the local officials the Division of Wildlife “is not up here to tell local communities how to do their business.”
Last week, Greenwood Village approved a plan to shoot and kill coyotes in parks, greenbelts and watersheds. The decision came after a spike in sightings and a December coyote attack on a 14-year-old boy.
The best way to reduce coyote attacks, state wildlife biologists said, is to educate people about coyote behavior.
“We need to re-educate coyotes so they go back to being scared of humans and not living under the porch,” said Holly Gilbertson, supervisor of Lakewood’s animal control office.
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On the Net:
Colorado’s “Living With Coyotes” page:
eCountry.htm
