After Coyote Attacks, a Denver Suburb Turns to a Gun-Wielding Trapper

Jay Stewart lumbered down the driveway, past the Mercedes and away from the home overlooking Westlands Park near the southern edge of Denver. “We get any coyotes today?” a woman shouted from across the street. Mr. Stewart shook his head no, tugged at his camouflage cap and headed for the old trailer cluttered with the varmint traps he hauls with him everywhere he goes. Since a recent rash of coyote attacks on pets in Greenwood Village, an affluent suburb of Denver, Mr. Stewart, the owner and primary employee of Animal Damage Control Wildlife Management Services, has been on the hunt. When he comes across a coyote after being dispatched by the city, he closely observes its behavior until he has judged whether it is aggressive. Those he deems a threat to humans or pets he shoots with one of his .22-caliber guns. Many coyotes now feel safer in cities than on the open range, said Stanley D. Gehrt, an assistant professor of wildlife ecology at Ohio State University. The sightings have become so frequent in and around Denver over the last few months that the city and several suburbs have held meetings to address the issue. No community in the area has been affected more than Greenwood Village, population 14,000, which recorded 110 coyote sightings in the first two months of this year, compared with 186 in all of 2008. Coyotes have killed and maimed pets, and late last year one attacked a 14-year-old boy out for a walk. “We’ve heard from a lot of our residents,” said the city manager, Jim Sanderson. “They’re just living in fear. They’re afraid to let their children walk to school or play in the yard.”...NY Times

Many rural residents have the same concerns with wolves. Difference is, should they defend their children or families, they are off to the federal pen.