A town invaded by coyotes
Amid attacks on pets, Massachusetts community enlists sharpshooters to get rid of unwanted pests
WNAHANT, Mass. hen coyotes approach children playing in the park, as they do with unnerving frequency in this tiny coastal town north of Boston, Kellie Frary springs into action, trying to drive the animals off while another adult quickly gathers Frary’s day care group.
“I don’t want to have to make that phone call, to tell a parent, ‘The coyote picked your kid,’ ” said Frary, a lifelong resident of Nahant, where 3,000 people inhabit 1 square mile.
No humans have been harmed by Nahant’s coyotes, estimated to number about a dozen. But after the disappearances of more than two dozen pets in roughly two years — and reports of three brazen, fatal attacks this year on leashed dogs accompanied by their owners — the town is ever more on edge. Its isolated geography — Nahant is essentially an island connected to the mainland by a narrow, 1.5-mile causeway — contributes to the sense of menace felt by some residents.
Compact, densely populated and surrounded by water, it is a hard place for coyotes to leave, and a hard place for them to remain mostly invisible to humans, as they often do in cities and more sprawling suburbs, wildlife experts said.
Early in December, Nahant’s three-member Board of Selectmen voted to enlist federal sharpshooters to track and kill some of the coyotes, making Nahant the first municipality in Massachusetts to seek the expert help through a new state partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The plan has relieved many anxious residents, some of whom now carry whistles and baseball bats on strolls around town, and dress their dogs in $100 “coyote jackets” covered with metal spikes to repel attacks.
“I love animals, and I don’t want to see them killed, but some child on a porch is going to get taken,” said Lisa Wrenn, who watched a coyote snatch her 12-pound Chihuahua, Penelope, off a leash last summer as she stood on her front stairs. Left holding the leash and empty collar, she never saw the dog again, she said.
Although coyotes regard small pets as prey, attacks on people are rare and almost never fatal, according to coyote experts.
Support for the sharpshooting plan is not unanimous. Opponents have argued for a more humane approach, hoisting handmade “Save the Nahant Coyotes” signs near the causeway into town.
Tony Barletta, Nahant’s town administrator, takes pains to remind residents that there is no going back: Coyotes will remain, long after a handful are eliminated. And like it or not, residents will have to find a way to live alongside them.
“We fully expect to have them here in town,” Barletta said at a recent meeting of the Board of Selectmen. “Just because you’re afraid of coyotes doesn’t mean it’s a problem, and that’s a tough thing to explain to residents.”
Massachusetts offers fewer checks on the coyote population than many other places, with its abbreviated hunting season, local rules against discharging firearms and ban on most effective traps, enacted by a ballot referendum in 1996.
In South Carolina, 25,000 to 30,000 coyotes are killed by hunting and trapping every year, while in Massachusetts, the annual total is around 500, said Dave Wattles, a biologist with the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife.
State and local authorities stress that attacks on off-leash pets are normal coyote behavior, unfortunate but not concerning. But in targeting dogs on leashes, coyotes in Nahant have deviated from normal patterns, indicating decreased fear of humans, Wattles said. Those attacks prompted the state to authorize the town to seek federal intervention to kill some animals.
“If humans act submissive toward them, and run away, it teaches them they’re the king of Nahant,” Wattles said during an educational meeting hosted by the town for residents in July. “You have to teach them you’re a threat, and they’re not welcome.”