North Shore Coyote Crossroads As 'Kill' Plan Faces Pushback

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — Coyote concerns are coming to a critical crossroads on the North Shore as one town moves to "dispatch" what it calls the "problem" animal and wildlife advocates urge alternatives to killing off the wild canines.

While there is some disagreement about the true extent of the coyote boom across the North Shore, there is plenty of anecdotal evidence that coyotes are spending more time in residential neighborhoods and showing less fear of humans.

This caused the Nahant Board of Selectmen earlier this month to authorize the town to hire USDA Wildlife services to "dispatch" the town's coyote population.

"When I use the term 'dispatch' I mean take the animal, remove the animal, kill the animal," Nahant Town Administrator Antonio Barletta clarified before the vote.

He said that relocation is not an option and that there is no way to "identify which coyotes are the problem or habituated coyotes," adding that the town intended to conduct the controlled thinning of the population and "we'll see if the aggressive or nonchalant behavior persists, and then assess."

Plans for the coyote kill have drawn pushback across the North Shore with a Save the Coyotes Rally held at the Nahant Beach and Playground on Sunday and an online petition from Swampscott resident Deb Newman against the "mass execution" of the dogs garnering nearly 1,100 signatures as of Monday morning.

"The town of Nahant, which has waged a united and brave years-long fight to preserve wildlife habitat and open space from expansion by Northeastern University, should know better," Newman said in launching the petition. "Considering such context, Nahant's plan to annihilate coyotes is unfathomable.

"We ask that the town of Nahant halt its plan to indiscriminately kill an entire population, and instead, accept expert help to alleviate a difficult situation and learn how to live in peace with the coyotes."

Newman said she is pushing Swampscott to hire a coyote response team to work on that town's coyote issues in ways that target their frequented areas with "aversion conditioning techniques" that go beyond simply telling people not to feed them.

"There are all kinds of tools," Newman told Patch on Monday. "They may not bolt away from you as fast as you think they should be going. But that's become they are accustomed to us. ... You can't frighten them out of their minds. But if you consistently have a coyote response team going to where they are and using these aversion conditioning techniques for a week they will go away."

The next Nahant Board of Selectmen meeting is scheduled for Wednesday night.

While Nahant is the only town on the North Shore to turn to take out the coyotes, most others have wrestled with how to deal with the increased reports of coyotes surrounding people and their pets in a threatening way or biting humans — which happened twice in the Vinnin Square area of Swampscott last summer.

The Swampscott Board of Health this summer delivered notices to downtown businesses informing business owners, workers and visitors about the dangers of feeding coyotes to both people and, ultimately, the coyotes. The Board said in July that a town bylaw proposal that would carry fines for doing so would likely be considered at the fall special town meeting — though it was never placed on the warrant.

Former Swampscott Animal Control Officer Dan Proulx said at that Board of Health meeting that eradicating the coyotes was not a legitimate option.

"If we eliminate the coyotes we would become so overrun with rats and mice that people would lose it," Proulx said.

Barletta allowed at the Nahant Selectmen meeting that its plan to shoot and kill its coyotes will not necessarily take care of the densely populated town's issues with the animal.

"Even if the USDA is able to come to town and take a large number of the coyotes there is nothing that says (more) coyotes can't walk across the causeway (from Lynn and Swampscott) the next day," he said.

As coyote advocates urge a way to coexist with the canines, Barletta said Nahant is at an impasse after citing three cases where pets on leashes have been "taken" by coyotes and other families walking pets have been surrounded by packs that did not respond to "hazing" techniques.

"This is very much an action to deal with habituated or problem animals," he said. "This is not a reaction to a nuisance animal or a general dislike of coyotes."

(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.)