'Coyotes got it'

COEUR d'ALENE - If she could do it her way, Connie Holmes knows how she would handle the coyotes living in a field behind her trailer home.

"I'd go out and shoot them if I could," said the resident of Northwoods Estates. "But you know, you can't go over there and just shoot them. We live in the city."

Holmes believes two small dogs belonging to neighbors have fallen to coyotes in the past two weeks. One of the dogs hasn't been seen since it wandered outside its home. The remains of the other were discovered in the yard next to its own after it was let out late at night.

"Coyotes got it," Holmes said

She admits she hasn't seen or heard them, but neighbors have seen the wily critters in the daytime, she said, and have taken pictures of them.

She said they're living in a field that sits between the senior trailer park just off Julia Street and the county transfer station on Ramsey Road.

"We know they're there," Holmes said. "We don't need them here."

Craig Walker, Idaho Fish and Game regional conservation officer, said there have a few reports over the past months about the coyotes. It's believed a pair and some pups have taken up residence in the field.

He said coyotes usually aren't marauding about looking for something to kill, and instead are more of scavengers.

Idaho Fish and Game doesn't have any plans to try and trap or shoot the coyotes, Walker said. Both removal methods present their own dangers to nearby people and pets.

Walker said it's not unusual for wild animals to live in city limits in this area, so he wasn't sure it was necessary to try and remove them every time it happened.

"This is North Idaho," he said.

Phil Cooper, also an Idaho Fish and Game conservation officer, said they have sent officers and biologists to the field when they have received reports, but haven't spotted the coyotes.

He wrote that with "a limitless food supply and no people around at the transfer station during the night time hours, coyotes will always be venturing into town."

Unfortunately, the coyotes also feed on both feral and domestic cats and dogs, he said.

Cooper wrote that any removal attempts pose problems.

"To attempt to trap them would create new human and pet safety issues and subject pets and children to the potential of being caught in a trap and incurring an injury," he wrote.

And shooting a rifle in the city, so close to homes, would not be safe, he said.

"Coyotes are so common in northern Idaho that there is no question they have been and continue to be present multiple places in town," he wrote in an e-mail to The Press.

Still, Bob and Jan Graves believe something must be done about the coyotes that took their beloved American Eskimo from their Northwoods Estates home.

Jan Graves said that on the night of April 28 little Missy went out the doggy door to their fenced backyard. A few minutes later, Jan opened the back door and called, but the small dog didn't return.

Bob went out to look, and after a short search, found her body in the neighbor's yard.

The 7-year-old dog that weighed only 15 pounds had been attacked and killed.

"She really didn't have a chance," Jan said. "She was beautiful and loving and I will miss her terribly."

Jan said she called city animal control and Fish and Game. Both said they had received reports of the coyotes, but there was little that could be done as wildlife is part of North Idaho.

"They told us to raise our fence higher and install a motion light because they usually only come out at night," Graves wrote.

She was upset she and others weren't warned about the coyotes.

"I don't understand why they don't think anything can be done abut them," she said.

Graves fears more pets and even children might be attacked.

"We're all vulnerable," she said.

Holmes said she had been feeding cats since she moved into the trailer park a year ago.

No more.

In the past few months, the cats have disappeared.

"I haven't seen a cat for a long time," she said. "The coyotes must be getting the cats."

Holmes worries most about small children who live on the other side of the road, just outside the trailer park.

"Those coyotes could get one of those kids and kill them," Holmes said.

She said she knows about coyotes, having grown up in Victor, Idaho. They used to get her father's sheep. They're elusive, smart and can be aggressive, she said.

"Something's got to be done before they get the kids," she said.

Holmes protects and pampers her two Pomeranians, Mischief and Uno. She has had them since they were pups, and doesn't let them outside unless she's watching.

"They both sleep with me," she said.