Coyotes attacking pets in Pasadena Park area

Some residents in the greater Pasadena Park area have been dealing with a stealthy and tough opponent: Coyotes.

One of the animals attacked and injured a dog Friday. Another dog was killed about a month ago. But since the area is a no-shooting zone, residents can’t kill the animals and the Department of Fish and Wildlife can’t get rid of them either.

“They’re a real nuisance … but we don’t have the staff to keep tabs on all the coyotes in the county. There’s hundreds of them,” said Department of Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Madonna Luers. And there’s no real efficient way of trapping them, especially in urban settings, she said.

Linda Carver’s terrier-poodle is clinging to life after a coyote mauled it Friday outside Carver’s mother’s home on North Ella Road.

Carver said her mother kept calling the dog, which had managed to get out of the fenced yard, and found it in a ravine, after a neighbor said he had spotted a coyote carrying away an animal.

“He was just like a limp noodle,” said Carver, who drops off her three dogs at her mother’s house each morning.

Martha Niemi, Carver’s mother, said there have been numerous sightings of coyotes.

“My brother saw one going up the hill this morning,” she said on Tuesday. “The dogs were barking like mad.”

Carver said she is really disappointed that the wildlife department can’t do anything, adding that she doesn’t see why it is so difficult to tranquilize a few coyotes and move them.

“I’m an animal lover from the get-go, and I don’t want anything to happen to (the coyotes) except to go somewhere else,” she said.

Carver said she put up large signs along Ella Road to warn other residents, and some people were surprised to know that coyotes had attacked animals in the area. She said the wildlife department should have at least alerted neighbors so that people could be more vigilant.

While residents in some rural areas can shoot the animals if they destroy property, those in a no-shooting zone don’t have that option and they cannot get a variance on the policy, Spokane County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Cpl. Dave Reagan said.

He said the police might respond in an emergency or if the attack were still in progress but in general, wild animals are not within the department’s jurisdiction.

“That’s one of the hazards of living in Spokane County where’s there’s a mix of urban and rural development,” Reagan said. “If you’re in a no-shooting area, you’re between a rock and a hard place.”

He added that the no-shooting policy is in place to protect people.

While Luers sympathized with pet owners, she said it’s their responsibility to prevent harm. The Department of Fish and Wildlife will respond only to calls of cougars, black bears and moose, she said, but residents can hire a trapper at their own expense.

Luers said the best way to combat the coyotes is by removing whatever attracts them, be it small dogs and cats or pet food. “You want to keep that secured, confined and out of reach,” she said.

She said the animals are “very, very intelligent.”

“Coyotes are very adaptive. They’re in downtown Spokane, they’re in the country … they’ll eat anything,” she said.

When property owners see a coyote trotting across their yard, they shouldn’t just sit back and say “how cool,” Luers said; instead they should do everything to scare the animal away.

“You need to be bold and assertive about your territory versus the coyote’s,” she said. “They remember and they will take advantage of people who do not assert their territory.”