COYOTECZAR

FOLLOWING AN UNNERVING ATTACK ON A CHILD LAST SPRING, THE CITY CALLED IN WILDLIFE EXPERT JACKIE

SUTHERLAND

Story by CHRISTINA HUGHES BABB | Photography by JULIA CARTWRIGHT

IT HAS BEEN ALMOST A YEAR since a coyote attack on a small child had Dallas residents on edge.

Following an incident in which a coyote grabbed a boy by the throat and held on until his siblings screamed and mom charged the animal, Dallas partnered with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to create a comprehensive program to educate people and observe the animals. The goal: Broker peace between human and beast. The city web page bedallas90.org/coyotes includes a reporting system and a map that tracks sightings.

The attack also prompted our city government to appoint a coyote czar, of sorts, whose primary role is investigating, advising and helping to coordinate wildlife policy specifically related to the increasingly problematic canines.

That’s Animal Services officer Jacqueline Sutherland. She says she was called to the scene of the attack immediately and led the investigation.

As the little boy underwent surgery and recovered from his injuries, Sutherland’s team, with help from USDA hunters, captured and euthanized four neighborhood coyotes.

Lethal removal is only for extreme cases. Extracting or exterminating coyotes typically does little good, Sutherland explains, because the species will breed precisely to replace each family member lost to death or relocation.

Sutherland has been Dallas’ coyote point person since that investigation.

Urban coyotes have been a hot topic. But until the toddler’s attack, residents had been led to believe that while cats, squirrels and small dogs are at risk, coyotes are not likely to harm humans.

It remains true that assaults on people are atypical. But when a neighborhood child is the victim, it doesn’t matter how rare they are, parents pointed out during public meetings. The city did not do enough to prevent an attack that was imminent, they said.

Anecdotal evidence suggests an increase in Dallas’ coyote population, Sutherland says.

“In some neighborhoods, I’ve spoken with people who lived there 30 years without seeing a coyote but now (are) seeing an entire family of them,” she says.

For an even more scientific assessment, the coyote management team is analyzing data they began collecting.

“Now that we’re monitoring families, territories, activities, behaviors, that kind of stuff is going to give us some insight in regard to their growth and how they function and how they distribute themselves.”

What she knows for sure is that coyotes are quite content to live among people, especially when they connect a human with a food source.

This habituation can result from unintentional or deliberate feeding, which does happen, Sutherland says, though people don’t want to admit to it.

“I was working with an apartment where we found kids throwing food over the fence to get a coyote to come out of the woods so they could get it in a TikTok video,” she says.

Coyotes serve a vital role in the ecosystem by helping to control the population of rodents. That means they go where the rodents go — unsecured trash bins, for example.

Even feeding ducks and other birds can inadvertently attract coyotes, she says. An ordinance banning wildlife feeding will go to a City Council vote sometime this year, and Sutherland says it’s necessary.

Sutherland says that if everyone did their part to tackle the coyote-feeding problem, the risk of further injuries to humans would be almost nil.

“We’re really struggling to educate people about the dangers of feeding, and we’re still trying to get that (ordinance) passed,” Sutherland says. “I’ve got areas where I’m basically having to beg people to stop leaving food out in an inappropriate fashion.”

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