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Silver Lake police Chief Dan Kingsley will be looking into strategies for controlling coyotes in the village after a citizen complaint aired at Wednesday’s Village Board meeting.
Citizen Ralph Jankovic said he has been seeing increased coyote activity in his yard and is frustrated at the lack of options for controlling the animals. When the animals are sighted in his area, “you can hear everyone yelling and getting their kids and dogs out of there,” Jankovich said.
Jankovic said he talked to a state Department of Natural Resources Warden who told him the animals could not be shot within the village limits but could be shot, with property owner’s permission, on nearby farmland.
Several board members said they had also been hearing increasing stories of coyote activity.
“They are very bad,” said Trustee Barbara Ironside. Village President Roger Johnson said he has a relative in Pleasant Prairie that had a small dog grabbed by a coyote.
Kingsley said he will discuss what can be done with the DNR.
Just about two weeks ago, my husband spotted a pack of six to eight coyotes running together by the Benedict Monastery at 2 PM in the afternoon. We also have had the occasional coyote trot through our backyard. The DNR told me years ago, that around the end of January to early February, coyotes will scout-out about three or four old ground hog or fox dens, have their pups in one, move to another when the first den starts to be foul, and move the pups a thrid time if they feel threatened in any way. Then around March the adult coyotes start teaching their young how to hunt.
I would suspect the females that have weaned their pups are in season again and that might be why there’s an increase in sightings. This is a good reason to make sure all pet dogs are innoculated for infectious diseases other than just Rabies, and to make sure you start regularly checking for fleas too since they can fall off into your yard and multiply where you least want them.