Peabody Coyote Concerns Topic Of Community Talk

PEABODY, MA — An upcoming community discussion on how to coexist with what many believe is a growing and increasingly more emboldened coyote population on the North Shore will be the subject of a community discussion in Peabody later this month.

Animal control expert Dan Proulx will lead the talk with Peabody Animal Control and the Peabody Police Department on coyote behavior and how to discourage their presence in residential neighborhoods while enhancing their natural fear of people.

The forum is set for July 25 at 6 p.m. at the Peabody Senior Center on Central Street.

Proulx has held similar public discussions in Marblehead, Salem and Swampscott in recent years with more coyotes appearing to be present and concerns about how feeding and interacting with them leads to them becoming more habituated and losing their natural fear of humans.

He has previously spoken to Patch about the best ways to deter coyotes through "hazing" techniques like making loud noises and the critical importance of not encouraging them by intentionally or unintentionally teaching them to view humans and homes as food suppliers.

(Also on Patch: How To Deal With Growing Coyote Population On North Shore)

Swampscott this spring became the latest city or town on the North Shore to pass an ordinance making it illegal to feed wildlife — other than birds through feeders — in an effort to deter the type of coyote feeding that puts their lives in jeopardy.

Nahant this winter because the first town in the region to implement an eradication program that includes the identification of "aggressive coyotes" with the authorization to kill them.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)