Dearborn ponders ways to handle coyotes
City considers public safety, conservation
Coyotes. Are they a menace in urban and suburban neighborhoods, stalking cats and small dogs? Or do they provide a valuable service — controlling rats, clearing roadkill and protecting gardens with their appetite for rabbits?
That’s now an issue for the city of Dearborn: how to balance public health and safety with species conservation and habitat preservation.
The Dearborn City Council will get into the debate over coyotes at a 7 p.m. meeting Thursday. Residents can give their feedback on issues such as whether the coyote population needs to be controlled, and if so, how.
The meeting comes less than a month after the state Natural Resources Commission waded into the controversy over coyotes with a 4-2 vote to prohibit coyote hunting from April 16 through July 14, a time when coyote pups are still in the den, and animal rights advocates say, at risk of a slow starvation if their mother is killed.
The commission’s decision dismayed many of Michigan’s hunters and trappers, who have now filed suit against the commission in courts in Ingham and Mackinac counties. Until the commission’s March 14 vote, coyote hunting had been allowed in Michigan since 2016, the first year of year-round hunting.
The Michigan United Conservation Clubs filed its lawsuit in Ingham County, while the Michigan Trappers and Predator Callers filed its suit in Mackinac County.
Amy Trotter, CEO of the United Conservation Clubs, said the lawsuit is the first of its kind in her 17 years with the nonprofit, which
has a membership of 40,000 hunters, anglers, trappers and conservationists and 200 affiliated clubs.
Trotter said the Natural Resources Commission relied on unsubstantiated claims of negative perception and the perceived potential loss of management control in voting to shorten the coyote hunting season by three months.
“The record is unambiguous: The commission has not heard or cited any scientific literature or rationale justifying the closure,” Trotter said in a news release announcing the clubs’ lawsuit. “Meanwhile, there were hours of public testimony on the practical benefits of coyote hunting during the spring season” backed by research.
Rob Miller, president of the clubs, said the issue is bigger than coyote hunting — that game management should be grounded in science and insulated from political and scientific pressures.
But Bee Friedlander — president of the board of Attorneys for Animals, a tax-exempt advocacy and educational organization based in Canton — said the commission’s decision on coyotes took into account the attitudes of residents, making it neither political nor unscientific. The group supported a shortened coyote
hunting season.
Friedlander said her group supports a nonlethal approach in Dearborn if animals like coyotes are considered a nuisance. She said there are ways to coexist with the coyotes, and that is something the city will need to consider as it gets into the debate over coyotes in urban areas.
According to city spokeswoman Katie Doyal, Dearborn said the discussion was prompted by an increase in coyote sightings in residential neighborhoods in recent weeks and a coyote attack on a pet cat, which was recorded. Coyotes, she said, have also been spotted in city parks during the day, but there have been no reports of coyotes aggressively approaching adults and children.
In a post on his Facebook page, Mayor Abdullah H. Hammoud, said the discussion was prompted by an increasing number of calls of concern from residents about coyotes in their neighborhoods and sightings of coyotes eating feral cats (which could have been pets).
“Others have expressed anxiety with coyotes roaming their backyards/streets/local park given they have small children and pets,” the mayor wrote.
He said the city has been doing its due diligence to prepare for the meeting and that the police department has had conversations with vendors about available options.
Dixon: