Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Colo. - Greenwood Village makes first coyote kill

A company hired by Greenwood Village to eliminate aggressive coyotes has shot and killed what officials say is the first problem predator. The adult female was brought down Thursday night in Westlands Park, which is near South Quebec Street north of Orchard Road. Greenwood Village officials confirmed the kill by Jay Stewart, whose company, Animal Damage Control Wildlife Management Services, was hired Feb. 5. The City Council approved limited shooting of coyotes in parks, greenbelts and trails to address concerns about a growing coyote population and the danger to people and pets. In December, a 14-year-old boy fended off an attack by a coyote in a Greenwood Village open space area and was not injured...Denver Post

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Officials with the California Department of Fish and Game estimate that roughly one person gets bitten by a coyote per year in California. The last human to be killed by a coyote was a child in the Los Angeles area around 1980."

"For comparison, over 300 people have been killed by domestic dogs in the U.S. between 1979 and the late 1990s. "
*****

The City of Greenwood Village is being DISHONEST about the issue of "problem coyotes." They want to wipe out the population; not just kill "aggressive" coyotes.

Coyotes are just that -- coyotes. The only case where coyotes act differently or more aggressively is if they have been FED by irresponsible people and those who let their tiny dogs run loose (a nice Coyote snack).

The Denver suburbs have literally wiped out native prairie dog populations to appease their spoiled and ignorant (about willdlife) constituents. This constituents include residents, developers, and metro districts (Metro District of Highlands Ranch, Richmond American Homes, other huge homebuilders………).

Prairie dogs are native to the front range and serve their appropriate ecological function, which includes being food for coyotes.

So — you get rid of the prairie dogs -- you now have coyotes looking further in for food. Everyone and everything is trying to survive. Is it wrong that coyotes want to survive too?

If the city really only wanted to get rid of the “aggressive” coyotes (which humans caused that problem) they could hire a volunteer force to simply haze the coyotes and TEACH them to stay away from humans (WITHOUT hurting them) at dawn and dusk. Problem solved for the LONG TERM -- and no tax dollars used and no danger to residents or domestic animals from rick-a-shaying bullets! Killing them will not solve the problem as other coyotes will take their place.

Most people probably do not realize that coyotes are only responsible for a tiny percentage of injuries and fatalities — domestic dogs are responsible for far more.

Killing is and has been white man’s primary answer to everything that gets in his way since the 1800's and we HAVEN'T come a long way, baby — to the point of extermination or near extermination the bison, the beaver, the wolves, the mountain lions, the coyotes, the prairie dogs….the native Americans….. http://www.predatorybureaucracy.com/book

Humans must learn to CO-EXIST with wildife — lest we kill it all because it’s “in our way” or “inconvenient.” Is that what people want? How selfish are we that we can’t learn to live with animals that we find “annoying?”

The city of Greenwood Village needs to at least be honest about their intentions.