Editor,
After reading “Are Carmel’s coyotes cause for concern?” the resident’s ideas of trapping and relocating coyotes bothered me. Coyotes are a danger, but we cannot relocate them. There are three reasons why coyotes should not be relocated or killed. First, the coyotes were here before us, but then we started narrowing down their habitat which caused them to occasionally wander into suburban and urban areas. For example, my school, Towne Meadow Elementary School, used to be a clear meadow and woods where the animals would wander freely. Now my school is in the middle of this meadow and my neighborhood is surrounding their land. We cannot trap them or kill them. Second, we can take more simple precautions that would lower their sightings in human-inhabitated areas. One precaution my neighborhood takes is that they put fences around the woods that the coyotes inhabit. Third, some people are just plain dumb when it comes to pet safety and the other rules that they talked about in the article. Some pet owners probably let their dogs run free or do not monitor them while they are outside. In the article some tragic events happened no doubt, but other unwanted encounters with coyotes could be avoided completely because the people involved were not smart. If we would just think some more about ways to contain the coyotes we would realize that trapping, killing and relocating are not the answer to the coyote problem.
Chet W. 46032
