PETA wants an NC town to ‘evict’ coyotes rather than trap and kill them

An animal rights advocacy group says an Outer Banks town should treat coyotes as delinquent tenants rather than trap and kill them.

In response, however, Nags Head leaders say there’s nothing illegal about their coyote control method.

The Dare County town hired a professional to trap coyotes after receiving dozens of complaints that the animals were killing pets and roaming local beaches and neighborhoods, The Associated Press reported.

Seventeen of the canine creatures were captured and killed during the trapping season from December to February.

That didn’t sit well with PETA, which wrote a letter Thursday urging Nags Head leaders to “choose humane measures moving forward” regarding coyote management.

Rather than trap and kill coyotes, PETA suggested that the town “evict” them by tactics such as placing ammonia-soaked rags in coyote dens, and using sonic devices that repel the burrowing animals that coyotes prey upon.

The letter quoted environmental historian Dan Flores: “Whenever their populations are pressured, [coyote] litter sizes go up. The normal size is five to six pups. When their populations are suppressed, their litters get up as high as 12 to 16 pups. You can reduce the numbers of coyotes in a given area by 70 percent but the next summer their population will be back to the original number."

In a response to PETA, Nags Head Town Manager Cliff Ogburn insisted the town has considered and educated its residents on different options for managing and living with coyotes.

The town has encouraged many of the deterrent methods PETA suggested, Ogburn said in the email response, obtained by the Outer Banks Voice.

“My point is we don’t intend to treat any animal in an inhumane manner,” Ogburn responded. “We do however want to address the concerns of our citizens and are comfortable with the manner in which we have trapped coyotes as it strictly adheres to NC General Statutes and is done so with the full knowledge of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.”

Coyotes have lived in every North Carolina county since 2005, and Dare County was the last place they occupied, according to the AP report.

This story was originally published March 30, 2018 at 9:33 AM with the headline "PETA wants an NC town to ‘evict’ coyotes rather than trap and kill them."