DeKalb residents to meet on coyote problem

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By Joel Provano

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

DeKalb County residents will meet Tuesday night to discuss what they say is a growing coyote problem in neighborhoods near Druid Hills and Decatur.

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Handout, Handout Undated photo of a coyote captured in Fulton County.

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The meeting, to be held at 7 p.m. at the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany, will feature a discussion by professional trapper Chip Elliot, said resident Christy Bosarge, who is organizing the meeting.

Bosarge, whose cat was killed by a coyote in a daylight attack at her home on East Parkwood Road last year, told the AJC that the meeting will focus on what efforts should be taken to control the problem and what other communities are doing.

"The state needs to be looking into managing the coyotes," she said. The animals are becoming more aggressive as they lose their fear of humans, she said. "They are starting to take small pets off the leash."

Bosarge has appealed to Decatur city officials to adopt a policy for controlling the coyotes, but the city has said that trapping or killing the animals is ineffective; other coyotes will just move in to replace those that were removed, they say.

Decatur City Manager Peggy Merris told Channel 2 Action News that the city encourages residents to learn to live with the coyotes.

"For the folks who are very concerned about the coyotes and would like them trapped, there is an equal number who believe the natural environment should be protected," she said.

But Bosarge said such a policy ignores "what happens when a wild animal becomes overpopulated in a region where it has no predators."

And she said trapping the coyotes can restore their fear of humans.

"Humans are their only predator," Bosarge said. "The only thing that is not cost-prohibitive is to involve trapping."

Elliot agreed that trapping coyotes can make them less aggressive.

"They're a very family-structured animal," he told the AJC. "When you start taking members of the pack, they know it" and become fearful of humans. "They learn real quick," he said.

Elliot said he was recently hired by the Atlanta Country Club in east Cobb, where golfers were seeing coyotes routinely on the golf course.

"I took seven out of there in a two-week period," he said. "After I took three, they didn't see any more" on the course, he said.

But even though control efforts can be effective, he said, humans must learn to coexist with coyotes.

"You're never going to eliminate a population of coyotes in an area," he said. "You're looking to drop the population and put the fear of humans in them."

The Church of the Epiphany is located at 2089 Ponce de Leon Avenue, at the intersection of East Lake Road.