Claire Bessinger understands that predators kill to survive as part of the food chain. She’s horrified nonetheless at the results — including the remains of the eviscerated cat she found in her front yard.
(Warning: A grisly photo of the remains appears after the jump.)
Bessigner (pictured) took photos of the grisly scene in order to try to identify the dead pet and also to alert neighbors in Morris Cove to what seems like an escalating threat from coyotes.
When Bessinger found the cat (pictured) in her yard, its head was twisted backwards, indicating the predator had probably just snapped the cat’s neck. She turned its head back to enable easier identification.
(This photo originally appeared at the top of this article and therefore on the home page. It was moved after readers objected.)
On Sunday afternoon, two other women joined Bessinger at her Kneeland Road home to discuss the problem.
Barbara Carroll co-chairs the East Shore Community Management Team and keeps an email distribution list of 200 neighbors. She said when she sent out a notice from Bessinger about finding the dead cat, half a dozen neighbors on the list-serve wrote back that their cats were also missing. At least three neighbors said coyotes had killed their cats.
Bessinger has two cats, both rescues. (Pictured is Spencer, a blue point Siamese.)
“My cats never go out,” she said. “And now they certainly never will.”
Michelle Esposito (pictured) said one of her two cats disappeared in June. She’s pictured below, holding a photo of her missing cat, Big.
Esposito posted more than two dozen flyers, with no results. It gives her the chills to think Big may have ended up like the cat on Bessinger’s lawn. (That cat was later identified as belonging to a neighbor on Townsend Avenue.)
“I can’t let it rest, I can’t,” Esposito said. “I’m sick to think that’s what happened to my [Big]. And I’m scared for my little guy [her other cat, Little], because he insists on going out. If this happened to my cat, I would die. I think I’d go out with a .22 and look for the coyote.” She doesn’t own a gun, she said.“And I have a 7‑year-old daughter who plays in my yard all day,” Esposito added ominously. “I don’t think something’s going to be done until a person gets hurt.”
Carroll said she’s spotted two coyotes this summer, and many other neighbors have sighted them, most often at night or near dawn. Neither Esposito nor Bessinger has seen even one.
The women said they heard that workers on the nearby Tweed New Haven airport construction site used a water hose to scare coyotes away from their work site — and into their adjacent neighborhood.
Carroll has been outspoken in her opposition to that work — relocating Dodge Avenue and extending the grass runway safety areas from the end of the runway to the new Dodge Avenue. “I’m not happy about what they’re doing,” she said, “and I’m not happy about the fact that I think that’s why we have this problem.”
“We don’t hose any animals away,” Tim Larson, executive director of Tweed/New Haven Airport Authority, said later Monday afternoon. He said the authority has a wildlife mitigation program to deal with wild animals found on site
“We have turkey, deer, skunk, raccoon, coyotes, and lots of birds,” Larson said. “We scare them away with an air horn. We haven’t disturbed any coyote den, [but] we don’t want to have a coyote [or any other animal] running across our runway getting in the way of a plane. If it’s noticed by our operations people they’ll go out and flush them with the air horn.”
“I’ve been here for two years,” Larson said. “I’ve seen a coyote once, [but] I’m not telling you they’re not out there.”
Even the three women said they know coyotes have been in the area prior to this summer, but not in such numbers, they argued, and not doing so much damage to pets.
Expert Advice
So what should neighbors do to protect their pets? And are coyotes really a threat to children?
“The advice we give is to try to make sure one is not attractive to the coyotes by leaving food available,” said Paul Rego, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Environmental Protection. “Feeding birds can lead to more chipmunks and squirrels and make it more attractive for coyotes.” They eat mostly mammals, specifically including pets like cats.
Another bit of advice: If you see a coyote, try to scare it off with loud noises, including shouting.
As for pets: “We suggest they are safer out during daylight hours than at night, with human supervision, in a fenced area providing a level of safety,” Rego said. But as some neighbors have discovered, coyotes can jump over fences.
Responding to Esposito’s concern for her daughter, Rego said he knows of only one case ever in which a coyote killed a child — in California, decades ago.
Responding to her threat to do in any coyote responsible for killing pets, Rego said, “It’s not legal to poison them. Hunting is allowed, so within the restrictions of hunting season they can be hunted — but usually it’s not allowed in cities.”
Click here for more information from the DEP.
Whoa guys, if that is someone's pet they may rather never know what happened to it than see that picture. The same goes for me.