In a world plagued by war, terrorism, bird flu, and bad pop music, it’s comforting to think that there are at least a few age-old menaces that Texans no longer have to face: the Black Death. Witch-burnings. Scurvy. Wild animal attacks.
Unless, that is, you live in Highland Hills, a swanky little corner of Northwest Austin that is currently suffering what residents describe as an all-out coyote invasion. Residents describe the 20-pound canines lurking in their yards, roaming the streets, even stalking the playground of Hill Elementary School.
But not for long: Under a plan approved by the Travis Co. Commissioners Court on Tuesday, the city and county will each put up funds to hire a Texas Department of Parks and Wildlife biologist to manage (read: kill off) the population. And for northwest resident Connie Green, the decision didn’t come a day too soon. “They’ve become incredibly aggressive, coming up on people’s porches and peering in their windows,” she said. “I actually was charged by two adults when I was with my 85-pound dog.”
But while killing is the main component of the plan – the biologist will place leg traps on public land, and euthanize trapped coyotes – officials insist it isn’t the goal. “We have no hope or goal to eradicate the coyote population,” said Travis Co. extension director Jeff Ripley. “It’s not possible and not wanted. The main goal is to modify the behavior of the coyotes.”
The idea, he says, is that killing off some of the coyotes will teach the survivors that humans are the wrong species to mess with. (Or at least, that traps are not to be messed with.) However, some residents argue that we should focus on modifying the behavior of humans, not coyotes. After all, while most human-coyote rivalries emerge when urban sprawl plops spankin’ new homes in coyotes’ existing territory, coyotes have only recently shown up in Highland Hills. Therefore, people have clearly given the coyotes a reason to move into their neighborhoods. “The sprawl issue is a cause of coyote attacks on the urban fringe, but here they’ve actually moved into an area fairly central to the city, and almost certainly because of the available food supply,” said Council Member Brewster McCracken, who lives in Northwest Austin and who helped put together the plan. “They’re just doing what coyotes do.”
In other words, city life offers coyotes a rich buffet of birdseed, pet food, garbage, and kitty cats. Get rid of the smorgasbord, some say, and you get rid of the coyotes. “I feel it takes a multifaceted approach,” said neighborhood resident Donna Morstad, who opposes indiscriminate trapping. “The residents need to be educated about what they can do to prevent coyotes coming into the yards.”
Prevention would include keeping garbage in coyote-proof containers, not leaving pet food outside, and locking Fluffy inside at night. However, Morstad says that in addition to coyote-deterrent education, the city should focus on nonlethal techniques, such as bullhorns and high-powered water hoses, to convince coyotes that humans are scary, scary creatures. (One would think that convening the 79th Legislature in Dry Creek or broadcasting next year’s State of the Union address in the Bull Creek Greenbelt would do the trick.) It’s a stance, she said, that is motivated not by some inflexible devotion to animal rights, but by her belief that trap-and-kill is a Band-Aid solution that can’t work long term. “When you randomly kill coyotes, you encourage coyotes to mate at a younger age, and increase the number of litters,” she said. “So lethal control might look productive at first, but then in the long run you have more coyote litters.”
The plan was originally put before the court last week, but the commissioners delayed a vote in order to clarify jurisdictional issues (such as when the biologist can go on private land) and incorporate an education program of the sort Morstad called for. While she testified on Tuesday that the agreement was still too vague, County Judge Sam Biscoe said it addressed his concerns about property and animal rights for now. “At some point we have to turn our experts loose and say, ‘Fix our problem,'” he said. “And it comforts me to know that it will be a biologist, not just a person with a pistol.” The court will conduct a six-month review to see how well the program is working.
This article appears in November 12 • 2004.