Beware

Coyotes are snatching pets


John Miller of Port Aransas holds his 6-month-old dog, Mika, in the front doorway of his Sandpiper Circle home on Friday, Aug. 31. Four days earlier, a coyote snatched Mika’s mother, Lola, from Miller’s front yard. The dog is presumed dead.

John Miller of Port Aransas holds his 6-month-old dog, Mika, in the front doorway of his Sandpiper Circle home on Friday, Aug. 31. Four days earlier, a coyote snatched Mika’s mother, Lola, from Miller’s front yard. The dog is presumed dead.

John Miller sat on a dining room chair in his Sandpiper Circle house, holding his little dog, Mika, in his lap.

Mika, a black and white pooch of the papillon breed, silently snuggled close to Miller and looked up at him with big, brown eyes.

It was Friday, Aug. 31, four days after Mika’s mother, Lola, was snatched by a coyote and carried off into an undeveloped area bordering the neighborhood, not to be seen again.

“This is the first time she hasn’t had her mother with her,” Miller said, stroking 6-month-old Mika’s head. “So, I can’t leave. They never liked to be alone in the first place. But, it’s even worse now.”

Port Aransas cats and dogs have fallen prey to coyotes for as long as there has been a Port Aransas. It’s hard to say whether it’s happening more now, because folks don’t always report it when their pets are attacked. And no one may notice when a stray is taken.

Animal control officers who work for the Port Aransas Police Department have been trapping coyotes in cages since late 2009, and the program is about to expand slightly, according to Police Chief Scott Burroughs. The police department currently has four traps, and it’s ordering two more, he said.

The trapping program began about three years ago after police got reports of repeated encounters between coyotes and people. At least five people reported being bitten by coyotes in separate incidents in 2009. All of the victims were sleeping outdoors at night, some of them camping.

Injuries were minor, inflicted by quick nips by the coyotes on the sleeping folks. But at least some of the victims got rabies shots as precautions.

Some 36 coyotes were captured from the time animal control started trapping coyotes in late 2009 to late 2011.

About 12 coyotes have been trapped so far this year, Burroughs said. After the animals are trapped, they are relocated, away from populated areas, he said.

The police department received 36 coyote-related calls in 2011 and 28 so far this year, the chief said.

Asked whether he considers the city’s efforts to have been successful, Burroughs said, “Yes, we have had some success. We have not had any human bites in the past two years, knock on wood, but I can’t say with any certainty that we are significantly impacting the coyote population as a whole.”

In a South Jetty letter to the editor Aug. 23, Deanne Sims wrote that she believes Port Aransas has a serious coyote problem. Several weeks ago, her cat disappeared, and the next day, they found the remains of another cat, an apparent coyote kill, near her property at Brundrett and Church Streets, Sims wrote.

Sunny, a well-known Port Aransas toy poodle who greeted customers daily at the Inside-Out shop on State Hwy. 361, was snatched by a coyote just outside the dog’s home in the 1700 block of South 11th Street on May 21. Sunny was carried away and never seen again. The attack was witnessed by the poodle’s owner, Scott Tanzer, owner of Inside-Out.

The continuing drought could be reducing the supply of smaller wild animals that make up the natural diet of coyotes on Mustang Island. That could prompt famished coyotes to make more ex- cursions from the dunes and the flats into populated parts of Port Aransas, on hunts for food.

But, beyond that, are they becoming bolder?

“We have not noted any significant behavioral changes in the coyote population,” Burroughs said.

Miller said he’s been living in the same Port Aransas neighborhood, Leeward Sands, for about 14 years, and he never has seen so much coyote activity there as now.

The neighborhood is bordered by hundreds of acres of undeveloped land on the southwest side of Port Aransas .

Shortly before the attack on Lola, Miller put Lola and Mika on leashes and took them for a walk in the neighborhood. When they got back home about 6:15 a.m., they walked up the stairs to the second story of the house and went inside.

Miller gave both dogs something to eat, and they then settled into their morning ritual out on the second floor deck: Miller sat and sipped some coffee while the two dogs sat and looked out at the neighborhood through slats in the fencing around the deck.

Pretty soon, Mika and Lola started barking at something down below.

“They were barking loud, louder than they would bark normally, like at someone going by on a bicycle or jogging,” Miller said.

Lola and Mike then bolted down the stairs. Miller didn’t see what they were barking at, but he ran after them.

Lola was in the yard for only a few seconds when it happened.

“I heard a loud yelp,” Miller said .

Miller grabbed up Mika, but Lola was nowhere to be seen.

Miller brought Mika upstairs and put her in the house. Then, looking from the upper deck, he saw the dark shape of a coyote about 100 yards west, out in the flats. The coyote was running, then stopped.

Miller couldn’t see Lola. It still was fairly dark. But he feels certain that he was looking at the coyote that took Lola. There was no other plausible explanation for the dog’s disappearance, he said. Lola and Mika were lap dogs that were deeply attached to their owners, not the kinds to run off.

Miller was deeply upset when he realized what had happened.

“I was just shaking,” he said.

But he knew there was no point in running after the coyote.

“I was barefoot, for one thing,” he said. “And I’ve done enough hunting to know that when you hear that type of yelp, you know that’s the end of an animal.”

Still, Miller said he spent three or four hours walking around in the flats, trying to find some sign of Lola, like maybe her collar.

But he found nothing.

Miller said he’s heartbroken. So is Mika.

“When we come home from somewhere, she looks all over the house for Lola,” he said. “She hasn’t eaten since Monday, unless I hand-feed her. And she won’t let me out of her sight.”

To prevent another situation like the one that claimed Lola’s life, Miller installed a gate at the top of the stairs leading up to the deck.

On Wednesday, Aug. 29, two days after Lola vanished, Mika was on another second story deck at the house when she started barking at something down in the yard. Miller said he looked down and saw a coyote pacing back and forth on the grass.

Mika didn’t run down into the yard this time. This deck didn’t have stairs down to the ground.

Miller said he shouted down at the coyote, and it casually walked away.

“It took its own time to leave,” he said.

More coyote control measures need to be undertaken in Port Aransas, Miller said.

“Something really does have to happen,” said Miller, a mostly-retired tile setter and remodeler. “They’re getting too brave. They’re getting too close to homes.”

He said he would approve of it if the city captures and euthanizes coyotes.

“They need to do more than just cage them and haul them off,” he said. Coyotes, like domesticated dogs, can find their way back home, he said.

But Tanzer doesn’t want to see coyotes getting the death penalty, despite the fact that his poodle, Sunny, was taken by a coyote.

“We’re building in their space,” Tanzer said. “They’ve got to eat, too. Though I want my dog back, and I’m upset about it, we’ve all got to live within the same boundaries. It’s just an unfortunate part of living here in Port Aransas. I think they’re beautiful animals. I’m still fascinated when I see them while I’m out walking on the beach or near the dunes. I’m mad, but I’m still fascinated.”

Burroughs said most attacks on Port Aransas pets have occurred after the pets wandered away from their homes.

“But we have had a couple of incidents reported to us where small dogs have been attacked while on a leash,” Burroughs said. “Just like we should be aware that there are snakes in the dunes and stinging or biting creatures in the water, pet owners need to be aware that coyotes are part of our eco-system, and they need to take precautions to mitigate the possibility of attacks.”

One of Miller’s neighbors, Katherine Parker, said she’s worried that a coyote might attack one of her children. She has two boys, one 3 years old and the other 13 months.

“We play outside, take walks, go on bike rides and also walk the flats to find cool things like shells, crab claws and bones, which I now believe must belong to all of the missing cats who are featured on posters in our neighborhood,” Parker wrote in an e-mail to the South Jetty.

“I, as a transplant to Port Aransas, had no idea of the coyote problem, and it is a problem,” wrote Parker (no relation to the writer of this news story). “Now I am scared to take them outside to walk them in the stroller, etc. It seems as if the coyotes are getting braver and more brazen by the day.”

Burroughs said incidents of coyotes biting humans are rare, but people need to remember that coyotes are wild animals, so their behavior is unpredictable.

Still, “statistically, you have a greater chance of being bitten by a domesticated dog or cat than you do a coyote,” Burroughs said.

Coyotes mainly are nocturnal creatures, so people need to be especially aware at night and at dawn and dusk, the chief said.

“But we have had sightings at all hours of the day and night,” Burroughs said. “Be aware of your surroundings,” he said. “They tend to congregate in the (Brazilian) pepper trees and may be in the sunflower thickets and tall grass this time of year. If you encounter a coyote, don’t run. Their natural instinct is to give chase. Stand tall, be loud, and they will probably move away from you.”

Questions? Comments? Contact Dan Parker at (361) 749-5131 or dan@portasouthjetty.com.


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