But What if They Don't Want to "Coexist"?

We have a big problem here on our little island. It's one that many of you may also be dealing with right now.

Coyotes

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission has a lovely website, www.ncwildlife.org, which describes how to coexist with coyotes. According to the NCWRC website, coyotes are here in all 100 NC counties as a result of "Natural range expansion from neighboring states", and we should just learn to "coexist" with them because they really aren't that big of a deal. Yeah. Right.

Now, I knew that there were coyotes in our county. A friend of mine who lives "off island", about 15 minutes away, has lost her entire flock, including her turkeys and her guinea fowl to them. A local farmer over that way has had a time with them eating watermelons out of his field. But it never occurred to me that they could make their way over here - we are on an island for God's sake!

How did they get here? Some people say that they swam across from the mainland. Some locals even swear that they walk across the bridge at 2 in the morning (I haven't decided yet if they are kidding about the bridge or not). I guess it really doesn't matter at this point how they got here, what matters is that they are here now, and it sucks.

People on our island are starting to have chickens go missing. Cats are disappearing too. A neighbor of mine has been finding scat in her yard with fur in it - lovely.  I guess it doesn't matter much to a hungry coyote what he is eating. It sure matters to us though. People here on the island are getting worried.

So, what are our options? The NC Wildlife Resources Commission does have some good information on the website about things to do to prevent conflicts with coyotes and what to do if you have a problem with them. It's worth checking out. As for us, we haven't gotten our chickens yet (planning to in the spring), so we don't have that worry, yet. Our cats are kept indoors and we have become extra careful while walking the pups, especially at night when we take them out for their last walk before bed. They are kept on a leash and we constantly scan the yard with a flashlight. We are also keeping a loaded rifle by the door. Hopefully we won't have to use it, but if we have to, we will.  I repeat: this whole coyote thing sucks.

I think that I would be really happy if the varmints just ran right back over the bridge to where they came from. That would solve the problem for us here anyway.

NOT holding my breath on that though.