02 October 2005, 18:46
model20Horray for the coyotes!
Coyotes turn Cobb suburb into killing field for pets
By TAMMY LLOYD CLABBY
For the Journal-Constitution
Published on: 09/29/05
Mark Eskew was jolted awake by the ruckus in his backyard.
"I heard a cat screaming and hollering," he remembers. A couple of days later, while chatting with a neighbor about her missing cat, Angel, he found its collar at his feet.
ANDY SHARP / Staff
(ENLARGE)
Cinda Hamilton is surrounded by the family dogs, (from left) Molly, Stretch, Katie (top right) and Sophie. The Hamiltons used to have three cats that they suspect were eaten by coyotes in their Hardage Farm subdivision in Cobb County.
ANDY SHARP / Staff
(ENLARGE)
Nancy Steinichen cradles Skye, an indoor-outdoor cat who has evaded coyotes for six years. 'If we lost our cat, it would be a heartbreak,' Steinichen says. 'But she likes to hunt and be outdoors, and we would not change that.'
Such is life in the Hardage Farm subdivision in Cobb County: Here, cats vanish on a regular basis, and residents believe their pets are falling prey to coyotes wandering the streets.
While coyote sightings in metro Atlanta aren't rare, they're becoming more common — particularly with all of the region's new construction, as more homes encroach further on wooded areas.
That rapid development is changing the behavior of coyotes, says David Gregory, wildlife biologist for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, who keeps tabs on a 19-county area of northwest Georgia.
"Once secretive and coming out only at night, they are adapting to the urban situation, eating leftovers or going for trash," Gregory says. "So you might see them at 10 in the morning.
"They are generalists and can exist anywhere," Gregory says. "They eat anything from mice, rabbits and birds to Big Macs, pizzas — and certainly cats."
Last month a woman in Gwinnett County found a coyote on her front porch with her cat in its mouth. She screamed and the coyote ran off with her cat, named Gray Kitty.
In May, a 20-pound cat named Gus disappeared, and his owners in Gwinnett are sure only a coyote could handle a cat that size.
Then there was the man in Coweta County who was talking on his cellphone when a coyote sprang from a wooded area and snatched his wife's Chihuahua, Sweetie.
And in January, a coyote was trapped and killed by a wildlife removal company in, of all places, Buckhead.
A comfortable habitat
The stories are no surprise to Gregory, or to residents of the Hardage Farm subdivision, next to Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.
With its nearly 3,000 acres of fields and woods and plentiful small wildlife, the battlefield provides a comfortable habitat for wild animals.
"We are the only place left with green space in Cobb County," says the park's chief ranger, Lloyd Morris.
"And Kennesaw and the Chattahoochee River National [Recreation Area] probably make up 60 percent of metro Atlanta's remaining green space."
They're perfect spots for wily coyotes to roam.
That means that in some places, such as the Hardage Farm subdivision, residents are seeing more coyotes than in the past.
"We've seen them running through the streets," says Eskew. "They know when garbage days are and they try to find food."
Cinda Hamilton, Eskew's neighbor, has lost three cats in seven years and will no longer have them as pets.
"There are constantly signs up about lost cats with a composite picture," Hamilton says. "One time we found a tail and paw."
Her family now has four dogs, and the two small ones are not allowed out at night.
"You hear them [the coyotes] howling at night and you can see them walking in the street on Parkside Trail [the road closest to the park]," Hamilton says. "Anybody who lives here knows about it."
But the design of today's neighborhoods provides ideal coyote habitats, Gregory says.
"We build subdivisions with small wooded areas nearby, providing natural cover for the coyotes and birds, and other small animals," Gregory says. "Rats and mice are attracted to the bird feeders in backyards, as well as garbage left for pickup near the houses."
'They are very smart'
While the vermin might be plentiful, the coyotes prefer cats, primarily because they're easy to catch.
The coyotes, on the other hand, aren't.
"They are very smart," says Cpl. Brody Staud, a police spokesman in Cobb County, where residents are allowed to borrow traps from animal control officers.
Most metro Atlanta counties refer coyote calls to the state Department of Natural Resources, Staud says.
"You won't believe what some trappers try to get them," Staud says. "But they won't go into the traps."
Are they a threat to humans?
"With wildlife you never say never," says Gregory, "[but] I've never heard of anyone here in Georgia being harmed by a coyote, though I have heard of some in California."
Back at the Hardage Farm subdivision, some residents concede that living with coyotes is the price one pays for living next door to the woods and popular park trails.
It's not uncommon, says Nancy Steinichen, one of the original homeowners in the subdivision, to see coyotes in packs of five or six. Nevertheless, the family keeps an indoor-outdoor cat that has survived for six years.
"If we lost our cat, it would be a heartbreak," Steinichen says. "But she likes to hunt and be outdoors, and we would not change that."
